How should we be telling our stories?

A Media & Digital Proposal
02 December 2014
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital
How should we
be telling our
stories?

Is the press release
dead?
Not quite, journalists still need
stories, but this doesn’t need
to be in the form of what we’ve
come to know as the traditional
press release.
Press and media relations are still
very much alive.
Stories can be pitched via...
...a telephone call
...an email
...a face-to-face meeting
.. social media
...and they are told with...
...infographics and data visualisations
...features and longform approaches
...expert comments
...video and audio content
Is the press release dead?
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital Is the press release dead?

An opportunity to reach audiences directly
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital An opportunity to reach audiences directly
WE STILL NEED A
STORY
There is still merit in
getting your news in a
respected newspaper or
publication
...but we also have the
opportunity to reach our
audience directly through
social media and our
website.
What does this mean?
BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE
A PRESS RELEASE
Our stories need to work for a journalist as well as
our many other audiences, including the
general public.

PR & Media
professionals
have more to do
than ever before.
They need to:
• Find the right kind of stories to maximise an organisation’s
reputation.
• Produce good quality written and digital content for
journalists
• Build relationships with journalists to increase top media
coverage
• Be a news provider in their own right – providing good
quality written and digital content direct to audiences
• Ensure they are bringing stories alive with PR creativity
• Use digital and social media to maximise exposure of
content
The role of PR & Media professionals in 2014
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital The role of PR officers

What does that
mean for us here
at The University
of Sheffield?
We need to..
• ...capitalise on the huge amount of great stories and
content we have and can create.
• ...understand that this is a huge opportunity but that it can
also be a burden.
Therefore we should...
• Be much more focused and strategic.
• Spend MORE time on FEWER stories
The role of PR & Media professionals in 2014
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital The role of PR officers

One Better
Clearing Campaign
Our Approach:
For the One Better campaign we...
• Pitched to national press and invited
broadcast media to film here on A-level
results day
• Pitched advice pieces for specialist sites such
as Mumsnet
• Created FAQ’s and media briefing document
on clearing related enquiries for senior staff
• Briefed and media trained student call centre
volunteers
• Organised filming of A-Level results day
Outcomes:
Coverage in a range of outlets, including
• three pieces in The Independent - one of
which featured us as a pull-out case study.
• five pieces in The Guardian, i Newspaper,
Yorkshire Post, Sheffield Star
• a pre piece of filming on ITV Calendar to
air several times on the morning of A Level
results day.
• BBC Look North
• a package filmed by ITV Calendar on the day.
Our Approach & The Outcomes...
Campaign Analysis: One Better
Campaign Analysis: One Better

Vouchers For
Breastfeeding
Pilot Study
Our Approach:
For the Vouchers For Breastfeeding pilot study
we...
• Wrote and distributed press release
• Coordinated approval of numerous
organisations
• Provided reassurance and advice to ‘nervous’
academics
• Organised and facilitated a press briefing
with the Science Media Centre
• Coordinated a large number of media
interviews following the release
Outcomes:
Mass national and international coverage,
including:
• Day Break
• Aljazeera,
• Yahoo News
• BBC One Breakfast News
• BBC Radio 4
• BBC Radio 5
• BBC World Service
• The Times
• Daily Telegraph
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• Daily Mail
• The Sun
• BBC News Online
The press briefing was the most successful held
by the Science Media Centre.
Campaign Analysis: Vouchers For Breastfeeding
Campaign Analysis: Vouchers For Breastfeeding

DNA GPS
Research
Our Approach:
For the DNA GPS research we...
• Attended several meetings between Dr
Elhaik and Media and Digital teams months
prior to story being released
• Pitched story to BBC Breakfast, coordinated
media visit for them to gather footage and
arranged DNA test for BBC weather
presenter
• Negotiated with the journal Nature
Communications in order to postpone the
publication date of the paper
• Arranged video to be made in conjunction
with Digital team
• Coordinated a large number of media
interviews following the release
Outcomes:
Mass coverage including...
• An extensive piece on BBC Breakfast
• BBC World News
• Daily Mail
• Daily Telegraph
• The Independent
• IFLS
The story led to hundreds of enquiries to the
University of Sheffield including many from
potential new international collaborators for the
academic to work with on future projects.
In just a month the video became the University’s
second most watched video in history on
YouTube - thanks to referrals from the media
coverage and particularly due to traffic driven
from IFLS and Reddit.
Campaign Analysis: DNA GPS
Campaign Analysis: DNA GPS

Athena Swan
Department Awards
Our Approach:
For the Athena Swan department awards we...
• Suggested a news in brief but ended up re-
quiring press release due to internal pressure
• Coordinated input and approval of the
release with all departments and individuals
involved
Outcomes:
The outcome of this activity was...
• A NIB in the Sheffield Star
Campaign Analysis: Athena Swan & AMRC Open Day
Campaign Analysis: Athena Swan & AMRC
AMRC
Apprentice
Open Day
Our Approach:
For the AMRC Apprentice Open Day we...
• Re-write of an already constructed press
release
• Approval process of re-write (involving nu-
merous stakeholders)
Outcomes:
The outcome of this activity was...
• A NIB in the Sheffield Star

Tier 1
e.g The Number One campaign
• Big stories related to one or more of our
key campaigns
• Drives University’s strategic goals and
key messages
• Coordinated approach across marketing
and comms team
The Three Tiers
Tier 2
e.g the breastfeeding and DNA stories
• Great story potential for international,
national and regional media
• Story still reflects University’s key goals
and messages
• Stand alone, mainly just media activity
Tier 3
e.g the Athena Swan awards
• Just local or specialist interest
• Related to specific department not
University-wide
• Internal demand for putting story out
there
• Part of ‘hygiene’ of doing the job
• More internally-focussed
• Often already been covered in the media
• Awards and achievements that aren’t
University wide
So there appears to be three tiers of stories...
The Three Tiers
AMRC is technically a Tier 1 story but due to how it was handled it meant it was more like a Tier 3 – more on that later.......

Our recommendation for
Tier 1
Our recommendation for Tier 1
• Coordinated approach across marketing and comms team
• Working towards an overall, longer-term plan
• Proactively look for stories related to campaign and opportunities to respond to news agenda
• Provide ongoing media training and advice for academics involved
• Continually ensure that strong stories related to campaigns are drip fed to key journalists contacts as part of regular dialogue
• Ensure we creatively widen out stories related to campaigns and think of every possible angle
• Plan and develop full packages for media (including digital assets, possible feature ideas etc) on specific stories
• Pitch stories to key journalist(s) with potential exclusivity
• Possible external agency support as part of overall campaign
• Ongoing management of media enquiries
• Package of regular news, features, in-depth comment and digital assets related to campaign featured on our website
BUT: Let’s look back at the AMRC apprentice story. AMRC is one of our campaigns and therefore this story should be given
the Tier 1 treatment, right? Wrong. We need to be telling the right stories, in the right way, at the right time. Quality is better than quantity.
Our recommendation for Tier 1

• Mainly just Media Team activity
• One-off story but still requires a degree of planning
• Provide media training and advice for academics involved
• Plan and develop the story for media, including development of a
possible wider package
• Pitch story to key journalist(s) with potential exclusivity
• Ongoing management of media enquiries
• Story featured on our News website with any digital assets
Our recommendations for Tiers 2&3
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital Our recommendations for Tiers 2 & 3
Tier 2
Tier 3
• Majority of communication and management of story should be at
faculty/dept level
• Make relevant media contacts aware of story with email
• Smaller story or NIB featured on our News website

What do we
need to make it
work?
What we need to make this work:
• Being able to say no to stories (tier 3) and
there being realistic, appropriate
alternatives to offer colleagues
• Understanding that sometimes we may
have to say no to a potentially good story
• Time for team to immerse ourselves into
campaigns and Tier 1 and Tier 2 stories
• Time for team to proactively source good
quality content
• Time for the team to build relationships
with journalists
• Stop writing press releases and start
creating stories
• External agency support that can be
pulled in as and when needed.
• Renewed focus in department on
campaign and integrated marketing and
comms
• Continue close working relationship with
digital team to produce great digital
content
• Become a publisher of news in our own
right with a revamped News site
• Buy-in and support from Director and
senior management of our approach
Making it work
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital Making it work

How do we
say no?
We can’t, unless we offer an alternative.
We know from past experience
that saying no isn’t always an
option, so when we really can’t
get away with ‘no’, we need
to provide another avenue
Alternatives to saying no
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital Alternatives to saying no
We need to educate colleagues that
other key comms channels are more
appropriate for some stories
What are the possible alternative
approaches?
Faculty/dept comms people to use their
own channels:
• Faculty/dept websites
• Faculty/dept social media
• Faculty/dept newsletters
• Faculty/dept own stakeholder/media
contacts
• Campus PR model
There’s also:
• Staff webpages
• New staff e-newsletter and magazine
• Alumni magazine
• New stakeholder newsletter
• ...and more
If all else fails...
We can do slimmed
down media activity.

How do we
create time for
the team to be
more proactive?
..by utilising our students and
graduates.
We could have an individual or team of
Interns from Journalism supporting the team
to produce great content.
This could be a fixed-term, full-time (1-2
years) Grade 4 Media Intern position
(graduate)
OR
We could enter into an agreement with the
School of Journalism to provide regular
shorter-term experience placements for a
number of students as part of their
curriculum.
Creating time to be proactive
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital Creating time to be proactive
...by continuing to work closely with
the digital team
We also need the continued support from
the digital team on producing quality digital
assets to bring our stories to life and ensure
that these are reflected on our website.
Having said this, it is still vital that the
current Media Team are upskilled in the area
of digital and this will be a key training need
for the team.
This collaboration and upskilling will be
vital if we wish for the University of
Sheffield to become a publisher in its
own right...

So...how do we become a publisher?

What do we
want to achieve
with the news
section of our
website?
Objectives of this project are:
• to become a news publisher in our own
right
• to reach more people within our target
audiences with our stories
• to tell our stories in more engaging and
interactive ways
• to improve the discoverability and
shareability of our content
• to introduce more interactive multimedia
content into our stories
• to create a news platform that focuses on
social and search
Barriers to achieving this:
• Limitations of our existing content
management system
• Lack of digital skills within the wider team
to create content for such a platform
• Lack of time and resource to be a
full-time news publisher
• Lack of editorial ruthlessness to weed out
‘filler’ stories
• Lack of time to execute sufficient
multimedia / longform content
news.sheffield.ac.uk
a new way of telling our stories.
news.sheffield.ac.uk objectives

Key Considerations
1. We need to think beyond the homepage in terms of discovery, promotion and engagement
Increasingly users are discovering content via social and search - with Facebook currently driving 20 per cent of all traffic to ‘news’ sites online.
2. We need to have the right team with the right skills
We need a team of contributors to the stories that are upskilled to understand more about video, social, analytics and SEO.
3. We need more than a website - we need a publishing strategy
We need to think about the different types of content that work well in terms of engagement, shareability and interest. All of the stories on this news site
should have a clear purpose to educate, entertain, inform or provoke.
4. We need to cut out the ‘filler’
If we want to do this properly we need to think like a digital publisher - this means understanding that there is no place for ‘filler’ content in a user-driven
landscape powered by social and search algorithms. Publishing uninteresting content has the potential to damage the impact and reach of our better quality
stuff.
5. We need to think about how and when people are consuming content
We need to think about UX on desktop, tablet and mobile and how we can create an engaging user journey on all of them that keeps people on the site and
delivers them more of our stories.
key considerations

boston.edu
research
Boston have taken an interesting approach when
it comes to their storytelling approach in that
their newspaper-inspired pages actually sit on
the /research part of their website - rather than
at /news which instead is more focussed on the
function of public relations.
The primary boston.edu homepage is used as a
showcase for a number of different sections of
the website including the /research section - with
a number of different panels linking through to
specific research stories or to the /research
section homepage.
A quick look on the website reveals that
boston.edu/research is the latest project of the
18-person Interactive Design team that Boston
has established within it’s Marketing and
Communications department.
On the Interactive Design team’s website they
state that their aim is to: “dramatically improve
the presentation of information on the web,
making it more useful and more accessible, and
to underscore everything we do with focused
brand messaging.”
They effectively operate as a highly-specialist
agency within the University’s marketing
department and actually publicise a charge-out
rate of $65 per hour for their services alongside
guidance that most projects will take upwards of
200 hours of their time.
It is clear that Boston have made a serious
investment in resource to develop their
Interactive Design team, and that their new
research newspaper style approach has clearly
been a time and resource intensive project to get
off the ground - let alone to keep
updated with regular, well-designed content.
How has the website been created?
By looking at the URLs of assets for boston.edu/
research using in-browser Developer Tools it is
clear that the site is being powered by
Wordpress. It looks to me as though the entire
network of websites at Boston uses Wordpress,
but that the Interactive Design team has created
a custom template for the /research pages that
introduces more contemporary digital journalism
approaches and features.
What do we know about boston.edu/research?
boston.edu/research | overview

boston.edu/research
Top Stories
This section gives the
team a chance to curate
key stories from different
departments and to give
them prominence above
the fold. They are all
clearly marked by
subject/dept and feature
images, headings and
summaries.
Featured
The central column is used
to promote a ‘featured’
article, which gives the
editorial team an
opportunity to really push
their main story with a
mechanism not disimilar to
a newspaper’s front page.
Fast Facts
This area is more
infographic in appearance
and is probably the least
likely section to change on
a regular basis.
Nevertheless it does give
prominent billing to key
message-style content
but presents it in a visually
engaging way.
Additional Sections
Further down the page
more sections are used to
break-up content in a
logical way that helps
guide readers to particular
types of research story.
The ‘More Stories’ box
also makes use of external
links to other media titles
as a possible time-saving
tool.
The news homepage at a glance

boston.edu
research
Featured Articles
The website seems to have been created with a
number of different templates for stories.
The current featured article uses a ‘longform’
template with lots of contemporary digital
journalism elements such as cover photo,
interactive graphics, custom styling for drop-
caps and pull quotes etc.
This template appears to be highly-customisable
for each ‘featured’ story the department works
on and in many ways is similar to some of the
long-form interactive work being done by the
guardian, the Wall Street Journal and the New
York Times, such as in their much lauded
Snowfall project.
Standard Articles
The standard article template is much more
simplistic in its layout and is made up of:
• A subject tag - black text on yellow
background
• A 60px font headline in black
• A 20px font standfirst / subheading
• A multimedia content div that can host video,
audio, images and galleries
• A byline
• Body copy in size 18px font with 30px
spacing
• Options for drop caps and pull quotes
• Date of publication
• Links to three related stories in the article
footer
What do article pages look like?
boston.edu/research | article analysis

boston.edu
research
Strengths & Opportunities
Boston are ahead of the curve in terms of the
sector, and have set in place a clear strategy
to look for inspiration in the journalism world to
guide this project.
Beyond that the main strength of this project is
the resource and skill at Boston’s disposal to a)
design the project from the ground up initially
and b) to keep it populated with the right types of
content to make it work well.
A design like this requires an abundance of
regular copy and strong photography/graphic
design/video in order to do it justice and so far
Boston seems to have a team that is capable of
coming up with the goods.
With that in mind there is a clear opportunity
for Boston to quickly develop a reputation for
talking about their research in clear, creative and
innovative ways - so much so that they are
in fact doing a better job of it than any of the
traditional media that they may be targetting with
more traditional press releases.
Weaknesses & Threats
The primary weakness and threat to a project like
is that it takes a lot of resources to achieve - with
very little guarantee that you will get the levels of
traffic and engagement to justify it.
The idea of ‘brands’ telling their own stories
online is still a relatively new concept and there are
conflicting reports as to how well this
approach has worked in practice so far - for
example, the ‘Coca Cola Journey’ site has
faced significant scrutiny 12 months on
from its inception, with some commentators
suggesting that it has not led to a big enough
surge in engagement and interaction to be viable.
From a practical perspective, this approach is
also potentially very problematic if the team are
faced with a shortage of content - particularly in
terms of images and videos as the entire design
is dependent on a regular stream of updates with
strong visuals.
SWOT Analysis
boston.edu/research | swot analysis

Harvard
Gazette
The Harvard Gazette started life as a traditional
print newspaper over 130 years ago and it was
only in 2012 that it became an online only source
of news.
The Harvard Gazette website refers to it as an
‘online engine, and an increasingly modern one’
that makes it easy for people to read the latest
Harvard stories across a range of digital devices.
The website goes onto to refer to a deepening
commitment to “innovation in storytelling,
layering the audience’s experience with
high-quality writing, multimedia, and photo
journalism, along with timely and relevant
reporting on everything from Syria to science
and a new focus on global storytelling, reaching
beyond campus to visit and report on Harvard in
the world.”
Harvard very much sees the Gazette as quality
journalism that can stand firmly on its own two
feet.
The Harvard Gazette does not provide detail
about its staff online but it regularly refers to a
team of staff writers and staff correspondents in
bylines, and with a large number of stories
being published each day it seems safe to
assume that the site is well-staffed and
resourced.
How has the website been created?
The Harvard Gazette website has been listed in
the wordpress.org showcase online - revealing
that as with Boston, the news platform is
powered by the flexible Wordpress CMS.
The template used by the team at Harvard is
designed to be stylistically similar to a
newspaper but functionally akin to an archive
due to the huge number of research stories that
come out of the university.
What do we know about Harvard Gazette?
news.sheffield.ac.uk harvard gazette | overview

Harvard Gazette
Sections
With the large number of
stories Harvard has it uses
this traditional navigation
alongside colour-
coded category headings
throughout the page to
improve user experience
and direct readers to the
subjects that appeal most
to them.
Carousel
The central column is used
to promote six featured
stories that cycle through
as part of a carousel. This
allows for multiple stories
to occupy the primary
editorial space and
provides space for strong
imagery and graphics.
Latest / Popular
This tabbed area is used
to serve new and
popular content to
readers - this is a useful
tool to create a perception
of a fast-paced newsroom
environment and also to
drive users to the most
engaging content during
their time on the site.
Additional Sections
The additional stories
sections as you scroll
further down the Harvard
Gazette site employ
‘infinite scroll’ to
provide as much
content as possible to
users. Above the fold the
page is like a newspaper,
below the fold it turns into
something more like an
organised news archive to
deal with the sheer volume
of stories.
The news homepage at a glance

Harvard Gazette
Header
The Gazette employs a
simple space for headline
and standfirst - with a
colour-coded breadcrumb
navigation above and a
date of publication below.
Body
The article uses a dropcap
and a generously spaced
serif font which plays on
the newspaper heritage of
the Gazette. Images, pull
quotes and other
multimedia assets are
used throughout to break
up blocks of text.
Images
Nearly all articles on the
Gazette website use a
landscape image near the
top - with the extended
caption seemingly
optional.
Additional images and
other multimedia content
is often introduced in the
main body of the article.
Sidebar
The article template used
by Harvard takes
advantage of the sidebar
layout often present in
Wordpress sites to
encourage readers to
share the article on social
media and to also direct
them to additional popular
content as part of their
journey through the article.
An article at a glance

Harvard
Gazette
Strengths & Opportunities
A major strength of the Harvard Gazette is that
it does a very efficient job or organising and
delivering a huge amount of archive
content while also enabling staff to quickly add
copious amounts of new stories pouring out of the
prestigious university.
The site really is equal parts newspaper and
archive engine and I think there is a real
opportunity for them to develop more of the
contemporary digital and multimedia content that
Boston are starting to produce on their new
boston.edu/research site.
The use of the automated ‘latest/popular’ tabbed
sidebar on the homepage is a strong way to
engage visitors with view to keeping them on the
website - and similarly the infinite scroll works
well to keep readers scrolling down to find more
interesting stories.
The site also arguably does well to use very few
additional bells and whistles outside of what is
possible with a fairly standard Wordpress set-up.
Weaknesses & Threats
In aiming to be a comprehensive archive of all
stories coming out of Harvard you could make
the argument that there is too much content on
the site and that without a more clearly defined
editorial strategy that it is hard for users to
separate the wheat from the chaff while
navigating.
I think there is also a potential weakness
that in choosing to do every story, Havard is
potentially missing out on the chance to do a
selection of key stories really well - a tactic that
Boston seems to be employing at present if its
recent long form piece on the health implications
of e-cigarettes is anything to go by.
As universities move towards more stylish and
engaging ways of telling stories that draw on
contemporary journalism practices, there is a
potential threat that the Harvard Gazette could
seem somewhat basic and not up-to-speed with
the latest triends in digital storytelling.
SWOT Analysis
harvard gazette | swot analysis

News - home page mock-up
home page mock-up
Features:
• Today’s Date
• Hierarchy Of Stories
• Story Sections
• Featured Story
• Editor’s Picks
• Most Popular
• Latest Headlines
• Expert Comment
• Featured Department / Research Centre
• Local News
• Video Carousel
• Prominent Play Icons on media
• Search
• Category Headings
• Navigation By Categories / Tags
• Social media integration
• Contact Us section
• RSS
Live mock-up online at:
http://shefuninews.businesscatalyst.com

News - article page mock-up
article page mock-up
Features:
• Headline
• Standfirst / Subheading / Key Points
• Intro
• Large Image (proportional)
• Small Image (proportional)
• Contact Box
• Related Stories / Subjects
• Video Capability
• Pull Quotes / Facts
• Comments Area
• Curated Related Links
• Social media share buttons
Live mock-up online at:
http://shefuninews.businesscatalyst.com

Where does a
newsletter fit
into this
approach?
Universities like Harvard, Boston and
Chicago have implemented email
newsletters as part of their news publishing
strategy.
Should we do the same in Sheffield?
Email newsletters / bulletins could be a very
effective way to reach people on a daily
basis with our stories.
However, simply having an email newsletter
is not enough in the 2014 media landscape,
and if we are to create one it should only be
viewed as one of many mechanisms we have
to pull people into our website and content.
For it to work well we need to be creating
engaging, interactive and interesting
versions of our stories that people want to
click through to whether they see it on social,
search or more direct email communications.
The reality is that email newsletters are easy
to ignore and for many subscribers they will
simply sit unopened and unread.
a new way of telling our stories
news.sheffield.ac.uk Newsletter
If we do pursue the newsletter approach
then it will be crucial to give people a
reason to want to open them, and that
means we need to have well-designed,
articulate, creative and impactful content at
the heart of our strategy.
We need to tell the definitive versions of our
stories to make us the ‘go to’ source for our
news irrespective of where the read comes
from across the full range of fragmented
discovery points that people now have for
information.
A newsletter is one delivery mechanism to
consider as part our possible publishing
strategy but it should not be seen as the
central pillar of the strategy itself.
Also as we cover so many subjects, a
newsletter at Sheffield would be very broad.
This may work for some of our audiences but
it wouldn’t be the best way of reaching
journalists who have specific subject areas,
i.e health, arts, science etc.

Developing our news pages, in summary...
• A huge opportunity to do this well and be one of the first universities in the UK to
be a genuine media publisher in our own right
• A way to engage directly with our audiences, including journalists but this isn’t
guaranteed (although this could be a bonus we can’t count on it)
• A way of bringing our stories to life in different ways
• Complements doesn’t replace media relations activity (which is still very much
needed)
• Universities that are currently doing this (Harvard and Boston) have put in lots of
resource which sits separately from their Media Teams
• We can learn from these and take the best bits forward
So at Sheffield….
• Let’s try a pilot where ownership and management could be shared between Media
and Digital

A week in the life of a press officer
Now Vs Ideal
So...what does
ideal look like for
our media team?

A week in the
life of a
press officer
Now
A week in the life of a press officer now:
• Listen to the news just before work to get
an idea of what the main stories of the
day and how the University of Sheffield
may be able to have a voice on them
• Respond to any relevant breaking news
stories in the press by pitching experts
from the university to comment on them
• Respond to media enquiries throughout
the day as they come in
• Draft statements to Forge Press enquiries
and answer enquiries from local press,
including BBC Radio Sheffield
The life of a press officer
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital The life of a press officer
• Write press releases and get approval
(often ones we know won’t lead to
national and international coverage)
• Mostly do very quick email press release
pitch to a journalist and then do blanket
distribution of press release, generally
without collaborative work to get video/
infographic asset
• Meet with journalists once a month
• Spend considerable time uploading
content to website

A week in the
life of a
press officer
Ideally
The life of a press officer
University of Sheffield | Media & Digital The life of a press officer
A week in the life of a press officer ideally:
• Listen to the news just before work to get
an idea of what the main stories of the
day are and how we may be able to have
a voice on them
• Respond to any relevant breaking news
stories in the press by pitching experts
from the university to comment on them
• Look at any research papers due for pub-
lication and plan our approach to getting
the research publicised
• Work with colleagues in department to
plan longer-term campaigns and stories
• Attend regular meetings with key
journalists
• Spend time properly planning and
pitching stories to journalists
• Set up interviews with academics and
journalists and offer media relations
advice
• Spend time thinking creatively about the
best way to get a story covered,
incorporating digital assets to strengthen
story
• Spend time pitching, planning and
organising strong packages for leading
broadcasters
• Base ourselves in key departments, e.g.
SPERI for an afternoon to find stories and
build strong relationships with academics
• Host ‘seeing is believing’ journalist
visits to the University to generate strong
coverage and take time to set up strong
package of stories for visiting journalists
• Produce media briefing packs with
comments and quotes ahead of key
upcoming dates in news agenda – e.g.
budget
• Respond to media enquiries throughout
the day as they come in

Creating a ‘digitally native’ ethos
The Daily Telegraph’s new ‘digitally native’ approach is to have:
• one integrated print / digital newsroom
• three speeds to work at, from fast for breaking news to
slower for a feature
• four key skills for each journalist: social, video,
analytics and SEO
• five deliverable ideas required from each desk each
day, including one video, one shareable and one
interactive.

In summary, our press officers need to be
news gatherers and storytellers.
They should not just be writers of
press releases and they need to focus on the
stories that will grow our reputation.
But they are going to need
time, support and help to do it including
continued close working relationship with
the Digital Team.

How should we be telling our stories?

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