One of the clichés of the lockdown is that things which were going to happen anyway are now occurring at warp speed.
That’s definitely true of the press and the shift to digital.
Since physical papers have been harder to distribute there’s been a push to get stuff online, and to do so innovatively.
The sports pages of The Times, for example, have been brilliant given that there is hardly any sport to report on.
At the Evening Standard the digital push has completely changed how we work, and therefore how we interact with flaks.
Prior to lockdown, the website wouldn’t change until 12pm at the earliest – we were getting the paper out until then.
Now you will see stuff going up very soon after 7am – first takes on stories that will later be improved.
Once the paper has gone to print, we will be trying to add breaking news in the afternoon – something previously of passing interest – as well as some softer biz feature type stuff.
Two things for the flak trade. 1) stuff we can do under embargo in the afternoon to stick up the next morning might work well. 2) we might be more interested in the jolly tale of the fun client who’s having a good crisis than we were before…
