It must be a strange life being Monty Don and Naga Munchetty. Both are excellent broadcasters in my view – and I admit to being particularly partial to Monty and Gardener’s World. But if my Google newsfeed is to be believed, then I reckon they are being spied on. In fact I think it’s worse – I suspect they are being trailed by some form of insidious artificial intelligence, a
Keep ReadingA lot of people have been predicting the death of the press – but has that moment finally arrived? The Covid-19 outbreak has certainly hit the revenues of media companies across the board – and that may yet translate into an existential crisis for some – though others are keen to stress we are not yet facing an extinction event and publishers have worked miracles during the pandemic to keep
Keep ReadingWhat is content marketing and what’s the difference between content marketing and journalism? Be careful, who you ask that question to. Most news journalists worth their salt would recoil at the question even being asked. Journalism and content marketing – distant cousins or sworn enemies? It’s no surprise really – no journalist worth his or her salt would see their trade in such grubby terms as content marketing – after
Keep ReadingHave you ever wondered how to squeeze as much as you can from a single story? Well, journalists have this little trick for doing just that. It’s simple really, but most people – particularly those without a media or marketing background – will never realise it. And here’s why – because usually the time you start to think about telling a story is when it’s too late, ie after it’s
Keep ReadingFor anyone upset at Norwich City Football Club’s 4-1 defeat at Liverpool always remember that we won the second half! Staying positive is the only thing you can do when it seems that things are stacked against you. But my guess is the Premier League curtain raiser against the champions of Europe was a game that the Canaries may have already written off before a ball was kicked. Dusting yourself
Keep ReadingWorking out how to generate more stories from one piece of content is a great way of building a bank of articles or posts. In this post, I’m going to turn back to my days as a political writer and show you how you can take an issue and use it to come up with more ideas as part of your content strategy. Of course there are tools to help
Keep ReadingWhile some watch Poldark for a glimpse of Aidan Turner’s chest, it’s Ross Poldark the entrepreneur that’s always interested me (no really). The Sunday night series has just begun its final run. This time it’s departing from the original Winston Graham novels – not least because the scriptwriters ran out of material and the time gap between novels seven and eight was just too big to breach without the make-up
Keep ReadingAs a journalist, grouping the words ‘content and newspapers’ together made about as much sense to me as ‘bacon and knickers’ or ‘chalk and eggs’. I first heard it from the lips of my then group MD who was outlining details of the first corporate restructure and plans to abolish news editors and replace them with content editors. Content and newspapers? That sounded like corporate BS to me We were
Keep ReadingAs a young marine Jeff R Mac Mootry trained with the Royal Marines in Scotland. Ties between British and Dutch marine forces had always been close – British and Dutch officers are attached to units in each other’s countries. And the two nations have stood “shoulder to shoulder” since a joint operation to capture Gibralter in 1704. After joining the Marine Corps in August 1985, it was the Cold War
Keep ReadingA meeting with the King of the Netherlands, really? How do you prepare for a meeting with the King the Netherlands? *(see end) Dutch King Willem-Alexander stands well over 6ft tall, and heartily deploys a strong, firm handshake, to the UK journalists into the Pozzi Room at the Noordeinde Palace in the Hague. Here is a king who doesn’t appear to stand on ceremony. Sit down he says, please help
Keep Reading