President of the IBP and Editor of Construction News, Rebecca Evans outlines what she thinks all journalists starting out in the industry should be aware of.
When I entered journalism, it was clear that things were changing. Being open to the changes taking place would be my first piece of advice for journalists starting out in the current climate.
A shifting journalistic world
Back in 2000 when I started out, publications operated in a fundamentally different way. This was a world before iPhones and tablets, when traditional print was still the main way people digested content.
But over the past 10 years, the number of people using the internet increased five fold. By mid 2014 almost 90% of the UK were online and now in 2015 61% of people use their mobile phones to access the internet.
The world has moved online.
These developments have had serious implications for the way journalists work. We’ve all had to challenge ourselves as to how we transform the traditional magazine model into something that is a genuine digital proposition.
That doesn’t mean traditional print has become redundant but it does mean content must be tailored to cater for different needs, including via different platforms. You have to make sure you are making your customers happy, whether they are reading your hard copy magazine or reading you on their phone or their laptop. The truth is we are able to offer far more online – there’s more content, it’s faster and it’s more personalised.
Data doesn’t lie
The digital age means it’s possible for us to use data to inform our editorial decisions.
In the past you wanted to get the ‘best’ story, but weren’t challenged in the same way as to what exactly the ‘best’ story meant. Now there are huge amounts of analytics that can be collected and shared, so everybody on the team can see exactly how many people are looking at and engaging with their stories.
Has this increased competition? There’s always been and always will be competition, and that’s part of what drives good media. In the same way that journalists traditionally competed for the front page, now they are also competing for the most-read story of the week online or having the best Twitter reach.
Your gut instinct of what makes a good story is still important but you also need to know that people are looking at it. Whatever the business model of your title – subscription, metered, free – you need to be getting the right people looking at your content in the right numbers.
The importance of context
My career has been spent in B2B journalism and I have found that specialised knowledge is less of a prerequisite and more of an end goal. Construction News is the fifth B2B title I’ve worked on, and not all of those titles have been in the built environment. I moved around from sector to sector, covering social housing, local government and NHS policy before joining Construction News. .
I don’t expect journalists to join my team with knowledge of construction already. I expect them to join with an interest in current affairs, with an interest in the economy, politics and business. They don’t need to be a specialist in construction, they need to be a brilliant journalist – they’ll learn the sector knowledge on the job.
It’s not a problem to change subject areas, as long as you’re prepared to put yourself out there, to ask questions and to admit when there’s something you don’t know.
The advantage to working in different industries and sectors is that it helps you to understand the bigger picture and that makes you a better journalist. The more you can get to grips with the context surrounding your stories, the more you can make them relevant to your audience. Crucially, an understanding of context allows you to consider better the way your writing might make your readers feel. Tapping into people’s intrinsic motivations is a powerful way of gaining, and more importantly, retaining attention.
Understand social media (and its limitations)
Social media is a brilliant journalistic tool. Every journalist should have a Twitter feed. This doesn’t mean having a huge amount of followers necessarily, but using it to interact and engage with others.
Twitter is not just about broadcasting your own voice but listening to others, it’s all about two-way engagement. Being able to demonstrate that you are very good at engaging with people on Twitter, that you understand how to build a following and what makes people tick is certainly an advantage when it comes to getting a job.
Having said that, when it comes to doing the job, nothing beats the importance of building ‘real-life’ relationships. It’s great to have instant conversations with people you’ve never met via Twitter, but journalists still need to know when to pick up the phone and when to get out and see someone in person.
Never stop networking
The importance of networking for journalists has in no way diminished. We may be used to communicating in a very digital way, but nothing beats having an actual face-to-face conversation and that is no less true now than it was 15 years ago.
Networking is key to building, maintaining and expanding the relationships you have with people. For journalists, this means regularly attending events where you are confident that at a good proportion of the guests are going to be useful to talk to.
Think about the events that the IBP runs: the annual journalism awards are really important because you meet other journalists – competitors and peers – as well as PRs and other important people in the built environment.
If you’re able to hear directly from leading journalists about how they have progressed their career and talk to them in person, it builds connections. You can’t beat meeting people: no matter how many online followers you have, you’ve still got to be at the right events, talking to the right people.
What does a successful networker look like? I’d expect them to have several meetings a week and attend an evening or breakfast event at least a couple of times a week.
Rebecca Evans at The Construction News Awards
Adapting is surviving
Being open to change and being able to demonstrate that I have led a process of change, has helped me further my career. Journalism is evolving, and particularly with all the digital opportunities and challenges, change is an inevitable part of the business.
How can you demonstrate your adaptability? It is all about identifying chances to stand out. It’s about innovating, particularly with digital opportunities, and using your initiative to do something different or new, such as presenting a set of data in a way that no one’s done before.
Ask yourself – What do people really want from us here? What’s really valuable? Then demonstrate that you’ve used your initiative to address the answers.
Sometimes we all have to do things that might fail. There must be a willingness to think about things, try things, test them, and if they don’t work, tweak them or move on.
Change is not a threat
Journalists should expect and embrace change. We probably don’t even know what some of our job titles will be in five years’ time; be open to opportunities as they arise.
I think it’s important not to see change as a threat. Journalism will survive. When I started working, I didn’t think “I want to get into digital” but it’s been incredibly interesting and rewarding. It’s a very exciting time to be a journalist.
I hope all IBP members will join me in feeling proud that over the past 12 months we have retained and enhanced the most valued elements of the IBP’s offer to its members while innovating and evolving as all good organisations must.
The atmosphere at the annual journalism awards at the Four Seasons Hotel in October was competitive and yet warm – a testament to how highly valued these awards are and at the same time how membership of the IBP bestows a real sense of being part of the built environment journalism community. National Housing Federation chief executive David Orr’s keynote speech illustrated just how much housing and the built environment would be hotly debated topics in the run up to the general election and beyond.
Housing was a central topic too at the annual Strategic Land Debate in November. The theme, ‘Whose Land Is It Anyway’ brought forth spirited discussion from the distinguished panellists on the green belt, garden cities, the private rented sector and High Speed 2.
Claer Barrett of the Financial Times chaired her final Futures Group event in May – a thought-provoking panel discussion of the ways digital media have changed and will continue to change the way we all work and the content we produce. On behalf of the board, I’d like to thank Claer for so successfully chairing the IBP Futures Group since its inception. She is succeeded by Nick Duxbury, executive editor, Inside Housing, who brings fresh ideas for a programme of events beginning in September.
I am delighted that we launched the new IBP website this year – it has more video, is more interactive and makes it even easier to get involved.
The PR and Communication Awards in July moved up in the world – this year taking place at the Sky Bar overlooking the rooftops of St Paul’s, a stunning backdrop to the winners’ celebrations.
This year the IBP Journalism Awards will join the PR Awards in offering an online entry process which we hope will attract even more submissions. The entries will be carefully sorted by a number of new judges from across journalism and the built environment who join the prestigious judging panel.
The IBP’s social media presence continues to grow, with a LinkedIn group and an ever growing band of Twitter followers. Twitter is one great way to get in touch to suggest other things we should be doing for our members and to attract new recruits. And, on that note, if you have a colleague who isn’t yet a member, do encourage them to join us. There’s plenty more to come this year!
Rebecca Evans
Editor, Construction News
President, IBP
@CNRebeccaEvans
@mediaIBP
Bernard Aryeeley, Head of Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Shelter Giles Barrie, Managing Director, FTI Consulting [former editor, Property Week] Lewis Blackwell, Executive Director, The Building Centre [former journalist: Estates Times] Pip Clothier, Journalist and broadcaster Mark Collins, Executive Director, CBRE Michael Day, Managing Director, Integra Property Services Peter Day, Correspondent, BBC 'In Business' programme Jenny Davey, Partner, Finsbury, [former City editor, the Sunday Times] George Demetri, Freelance Journalist [former editor World Tunnelling] Alison Gow, Editor, Digital Innovation, Trinity Mirror (Regionals) Soraya Khan, Founder Partner, Theis and Khan Architects David Lawson, Freelance Journalist Lee Mallett, Consultant, Urbik Limited [former editor, Building Design/Estates Times] Dominic Morgan, Director, Ing Media [former deputy editor, Property Week] Richard Northedge, City & Business Journalist [former deputy City editor, The Sunday Telegraph] Kate Pain, Head of Digital Media, IHS Stuart Piercy, Founder, Stuart Piercy Company architects Alasdair Reisner, Chief Executive, Civil Engineering Contractors Association [former journalist: Construction News] Peter Roper, Freelance Journalist Dickon Ross, Editor-in-Chief, Engineering & Technology David Saffin, Consulting Engineer Andrew Sawers, Freelance Journalist [former editor, Accountancy Age] John Slaughter, Director, External Affairs, Home Builders Federation Ruth Slavid, Architectural editor and journalist, [former editor AJ Online] Martin Spring, Freelance Journalist [former architecture editor, Building] David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly John Waples, UK Head of Strategic Communications, FTI Consulting [former City editor, the Sunday Times] James Whitmore, Tavistock [former Executive Editor, Property Week] Pip Wood, Corporate Communications Director, British Land John Yadoo, Partner, Pryme Consulting [Vice President CIOB]
This list of judges is correct at the time of going to print.
Photo: 2014 triple award winner, Nick Duxbury, Inside Housing, with David Orr, Chief Executive, National Housing Federation and the coveted Journalist of the Year award.
Savills has taken on the headline sponsorship for this year’s IBP Journalism Awards, after five years as sponsor of the Commercial Property Writer category.
Victoria Buchanan, Savills Director and Head of Commercial Press said: “Our commitment to the awards and decision to expand the categories that we sponsor reflects the breath and depth of our business. It is also important to us to support the journalists who work hard to provide our industry with the best news and analysis in the business sector”.
Gerald Bowey, Chief Executive of ibp Services commented: “I am delighted that Savills have reviewed their support of the awards and committed to the headline sponsorship, which includes hosting the Business/Financial Journalist category as well as the coveted IBP Journalist of the Year Award. This sits well with our other sponsors, listed below”
Savills will also host the pre Awards Dinner reception, at the Four Seasons hotel, due to take place on Thursday 19th November.
Launching the “Call for Entries” for the 2015 IBP Communication and PR Awards Gerald Bowey, IBP chief executive, also announced the launch of the new IBP website, which has been rebuilt to accommodate a faster more user-friendly Awards entry process that will save time both in preparing material for entry and downloading information to the site, in a simpler pdf format.
Commenting Bowey said: “our sector is now largely driven by electronic delivery of information and it is important that IBP provides a compatible, easy to use entry process to make the experience as painless as possible!”
He went on “I am delighted that CAPSIG are partnering us again this year to ensure that the high standards of entries are maintained and promoted to as wide an audience as possible.”
Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the CIPR’s Construction and Property Special Interest Group (CAPSIG), said: “Judged by their peers and by industry journalists, previous winners of the IBP Communication and PR Awards all demonstrated sector-specific skills, knowledge, creativity and professionalism. This is a unique opportunity for built environment specialists to be rewarded for their expertise and flair.”
Here’s what some of last year’s winners say about the Awards:
“The IBP Communication Awards offered me a unique chance to showcase some of my best work across my peer group. I learnt a great deal throughout my experience with IBP, and winning the Young Communicator of the Year has really bolstered my own profile and contacts in the built environment.”
Ollie Pratt, FTI Consulting
“Having our work recognized by IBP is important to us as an agency. The award judges are leading figures across the built environment so their endorsement of what we do reinforces our reputation in the sector and demonstrates we’re making an impact and adding value to our clients’ business.”
In a year that has provided great campaigning journalism, in our business
magazines, including blacklisting of construction workers (winner of both
the News and Features categories) housing and welfare, personal rights and
fraud all grabbing the news headlines the judges commented, on more than
one occasion, that the quality of the investigative writing would have not
been out of place in a national newspaper.
However the housing sector provided some of the best stories and this year’s
winning weekly magazine, in a year which saw housing catapulted to the top
of the political agenda.
IBP has made great strides in 2011/2012 – cementing its status as a true knowledge hub for journalists and communications professionals working in the built environment sector.
Following former president Denise Chevin’s review of IBP we have introduced a number of new ideas. We have also injected new blood into the main IBP board and to the judging panels for our flagship Annual National Journalism Awards.
Our IBP Twitter feed is generating strong interest, and is a powerful information resource for anyone following architecture, construction, engineering, housing and commercial property news.
We were delighted that the Futures Group staged a workshop on designing for the iPad last autumn, showing that the built environment is at the cutting edge of this particular innovation in the publishing world. A webcam of the main presentations is available to view on the IBP website. Plans are well advanced to hold another Futures Group interview, with a leading web editor, Richard Fletcher, Editor, Telegraph.co.uk, which is scheduled for Tuesday September 18th – full details will be circulated nearer the date.
And in true IBP tradition we hosted our first speed-dating ‘Face to Face for 10’ event, where public relations executives met senior journalists, including Claer Barrett (Financial Times), Rebecca Evans (Construction News), Martin Hilditch (Inside Housing), Deirdre Hipwell (Times), Elaine Knutt (Construction Manager), Christine Murray (Architects’ Journal), Sarah Richardson (Building), and myself, for 10 minute bursts in a rapid-fire event which proved to be a learning curve for both editors and PR’s. Similar sessions are in development for 2012/13.
I am delighted to welcome Stuart Macdonald of Inside Housing, Rebecca Evans from Construction News, Christine Murray of Architects’ Journal, Donal McCabe of Land Securities and Jonny Popper of London Communications Agency on to the IBP board; it is this new breed of journalists and communications experts that will provide the ideas which will continue to take IBP forward.
IBP is also launching, in association with Gorkana, the media database and portal for PR’s and journalists, a ‘new’ PR and Communications Awards scheme for the built environment sector in September 2012. The call for entries and the judging, by leading editors and senior communications executives, will take place in the New Year with an Awards presentation event taking place in the late spring.
The Annual Welbeck Strategic Land Debate is due to take place on Monday September 24th, hosted again by Hogan Lovells and IBP, with the working title: “Why will future generations remain in the countryside – where will you live, where will you work?” The speaker panel is in development and full details will be circulated nearer the date.
And we also look forward this year to returning to the spiritual home of the IBP Journalism Awards – the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane – for the end of year ceremony which will be bigger and better then ever before.
New Award categories are in development and new judges, including: Lee Baker, Director, aop, Pip Clothier, journalist and broadcaster, Mark Collins, Executive Director, CBRE, Jerry Gosney, Digital Publishing Consultant, PPA, Steve Hale, MD, Crofton, Liz Peace, Chief Executive, BPF, Stephen Thornton, UK Head External Affairs, RICS and John Waples, former Sunday Times business editor, Senior MD, FTI Consulting, join our panels this year; but the same commitment to quality and impartiality for which the IBP Awards have stood for, for nearly 40 years, will again be our watchword in 2012.
Finally my thanks to the rest of the IBP board, to outgoing chairman, Alan Smith (Kier Group) and incoming chairman Harriett Hindmarsh (AECOM) and, of course, to our tireless chief executive Gerald Bowey.
If you would like to suggest an IBP event, or become involved with our organization in any way, please contact me at giles.barrie@ubm.com To keep in touch with IBP events and updates please go to www.ibp.org.ujk
Giles Barrie
Editor in Chief, Property Week
President IBP
IBP’s Face to Face event at The Building Centre proved a spectacular success, with a number of In house and consultant PR’s enjoying unique access to some of the most influential editors and journalists in the sector.
The brainchild of IBP CEO Gerald Bowey and Willmott Dixon director of communications Andy Geldard, Face to Face gave PR’s the chance to book 10 minute ‘one to one’ slots with editors on a first come basis.
The fact that all slots were booked up within 48 hours of Face to Face being launched showed just how popular the format was, providing a chance for PR’s to have quality time with journalists without interruptions or deadline pressures getting in the way! The PR’s taking part also made individual donations to the Journalists’ Charity, raising £250.
The stellar cast of journalists taking part included: Giles Barrie, Property Week editor in chief, Claer Barrett, news editor London desk at the FT, Rebecca Evans, Construction News editor, Martin Hilditch, Inside Housing deputy editor, Deirdre Hipwell, property writer at The Times, Elaine Knutt, Construction Manager editor, Christine Murray, AJ editor and Sarah Richardson, Building deputy editor.
In house communication managers from Mott MacDonald, Shepherd Construction, Nightingale Associates, Purcell Miller Tritton architects were joined by PR consultant executives from ING Media, Ash Communications, Aylwin Communications, Edelman, London Communications and TTA amongst others
Gerald said, “It was fantastic that the journalists were able to commit time to meet so many companies and give them a level of access that they have not had before; the PR professionals that thought out of the box and committed to this ‘new’ IBP initiative were able to see instant benefits in their exchange with the journalists. It was a good way to exchange ideas and provided in the space of a few hours the type of networking with our sector journalists that it can take years to build up. This sort of event is exactly what IBP is all about, bringing together the PR industry with journalists’. You will see more of this type of event from IBP in the future, but they will only be available to members that react quickly to these innovative exchanges and can see the real benefits.”
In the past we have presented a report of the last year’s activities. We have consigned looking back to the waste bin and intend to concentrate on the future and how IBP is shaping-up to the task of delivering ‘insights’ into our industry sector; how journalism and the constantly changing way in which we all deliver the news and break the next story.
During my Presidency I am going to build on the findings of the IBP Futures Group, chaired by the FT’s Claer Barrett and the recent Review of IBP carried out by the previous President, Denise Chevin. Fundamentally we will be focusing on issues that will assist both journalists and communications professionals to do their jobs more effectively and deliver a better ‘product’. So education, continued professional development, technology and other key subjects will be delivered with a mixture of fun events, interesting speakers and audience participation.
The Futures Group, which is not targeted at any section or age group within IBP, has already proved that this approach works. We have had an evening with John Waples, an interactive Q & A with a panel of legal experts on litigation, an insightful session with Mira Bar Hillel and in September we will have a session with a panel of experts on the iPad, apps and their potential to bring the news quicker and to a bigger audience.
We are embarking on a major international recruitment drive to develop the overseas journalist membership, aligned to an International Journalist of the Year Awards scheme, amongst other benefits.
We have in development the IBP Communications Awards, due to be launched next spring, which, like its sibling the long established National Journalism Awards, will recognize and reward good communications and communicators, with a panel of senior editors initially judging on line entries and then interviewing finalists in several categories. All this will be delivered at the newly formatted annual IBP Summer Party.
Our key annual event, the National Journalism Awards, has been refreshed and new category guidance notes and a hints and tips section have been added to this years “Call for Entries”. This year we are a fixture at Chelsea Football Club; for 2012 we return to our former regular home the Four Seasons Hotel, in Park Lane, which has had its 2012 make over for the Olympics – IBP is due to take over the venue on the 22nd November, when we hope to deliver our own Olympian Awards and hand out the prizes for the best in journalism.
I hope I can count on your support, whether an editor, journalist or communications professional, to drive these new initiatives forward and help deliver a programme of events that really makes a difference.
Please email me on: giles.barrie@ubm.com if you would like to get involved with any of these initiatives or if you have an interesting idea you would like to see develop as part of the IBP programme.
