S3: E3: Navigating the News

Transcript

Lucy Mowatt: Hi there. Welcome to season three, episode three of the Content Conversations podcast.

Now, I have an admission to make. This is not a full episode. In fact, I was in two minds about whether to release it at all. I had a great conversation with David Powles on the subject of the news, but a technical failure meant the audio failed to record across 3 separate devices, which was super frustrating because David made some fascinating points that just weren’t captured.

Although it does mean that I have the pleasure of having another recording with David soon. In the audio that was recorded, we discussed what the news is, the importance of knowing your audience, and why you should incorporate human stories into all of your news articles. It really is a great episode and I hope you’re not too disappointed when it cuts out.

But anyway, that’s enough of me for now. Enjoy.

I’m here with David Powles, the former editor of the Eastern Daily Press. He will be talking to us about writing news articles. Before we get started, could you tell the audience a bit more about who you are and what you do?

David Powles: Of course. Hello, Lucy. Thanks for inviting me along. So yeah, as you, as you said, I was editor of the Eastern Daily Press until September last year. So I was a journalist in Norfolk for 16 years, worked in numerous different roles, reporter, news editor, investigations editor the only thing I didn’t do was sweep the floors.

Prior to that I was a journalist in the Midlands and in the North, so I was a journalist for around about 23, 24 years. And decided after leaving the EDP to have a career change and I’m now running a charity, which I have to give a plug to because, you know, I have to admit I’m here technically on work time.

So you’ve got to allow me to do a plug for Norfolk Community Law Service, which is the charity that I now run and a fantastic charity. And what do they do? What’s their mission? So we help people who can’t afford legal representation on sort of civil law matters. So, immigration, debt, domestic abuse victims, family and disputes around sort of child, childcare and stuff like that.

And welfare benefit appeals and just general legal advice for people who can’t get it. So we’ve got loads of solicitors who give up their time. So it’s a really important charity. We have about 4, 000 people a year. Do lots and lots of good stuff in that space.

Lucy Mowatt: So you’ve gone from reporting the news to helping to shape the news from the other side.

David Powles: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. It’s been, you know, really interesting. Changing career paths. Lots of new stuff to learn around, you know, law. I don’t have a law background. My media law background was pretty good. But other than that, you know, law was, is very new to me. So that’s been fascinating. Don’t have a charity background.

You know, I’ve done lots of stuff with charities in my previous job, but that’s been real eye-opening, learning all about the charity world, the fight for funds, all that sort of stuff. But equally, lots of similarities and sort of, I guess it brings us onto what we’re talking about today in terms of telling the story because, you know, one of my big roles as CEO of NCLS is to tell our story.

Because the more I can tell a story, the more people will become aware of us. There’ll be loads of people out there who could get the support of our service and the struggle is finding the resources to deal with that. But we want people to know that we’re there to start with. That’s why it’s important for us to tell our story. But then secondly, obviously, if I can tell our story in the right areas in the right channels then we might get more people volunteering and it is simply the case that the more people volunteer the more people we can help and we might get more people giving us their money. Obviously funding massive issue for any charity but I think the the other big element that’s very similar is, you know, my role is about making people aware of some of the issues that are out there.

I’ve just come from a meeting with Clive Lewis, obviously current Labour MP, and Alice McDonald prospective Labour MP to discuss the forthcoming election. So I think, you know, CEOs of any charity, arguably any organisation have a role to around spreading awareness.

So, you know, we’ve seen lots of poverty out there at the minute. The gap between the haves and have-nots in Norwich and Norfolk is widening. And through kind of telling stories and telling it the way that I’m used to telling it, you know, you want more people to be aware of that so that we can see change and get people’s lives in a better shape.

Lucy Mowatt: Sounds great. It sounds like a brilliant mission.

David Powles: Yes, it’s a really interesting job and really enjoying it.

Lucy Mowatt: So before we crack on to giving people some tips, I think it’s probably worth defining news as opposed to, say, SEO content or thought leadership. So in your opinion, what constitutes news?

David Powles: In its most basic form, it’s telling something people that something happened but I guess also telling people something that they weren’t otherwise aware of. Helping them to be informed.

Lucy Mowatt: Is there an element that, because I always think of current affairs in my head, is it something that’s happened and how that impacts the wider public? From whether it’s politics or a business or a charity or anything like that.

David Powles: Yeah. What does it mean for your life, for the wider world, for society? You know, that’s two, I think that there’s two forms of news. I mean, there’s news in its most basic format, which is literally something that’s happened.

And we’re going to tell you that you were trained as a journalist to the five W’s who, what, where, when, and why is obviously moving it onto that, that kind of analysis piece, but I’m using his most basic format. It’s just something that happened. There’s been a car crash and there’s a fire.

There’s, whatever. And I think it’s important you do it in a balanced way, but news has to be, you know, about informing and educating people. About giving people both sides of the story so that they can make their own mind up. Going back to what we’re talking about then, you know, a forthcoming election.

You don’t want the news just to kind of tell you, you know, there’s going to be an election and these are the parties. You want them to analyse that to give the pros and the cons to give the fors and the against so that you can make an informed choice and put that X in the most appropriate box that you think you should do.

Lucy Mowatt: And in terms of businesses and organisations, how can they use news to their best advantage? What are the benefits of using news from a business perspective?

David Powles: I think that’s a massive question. I think really the starting point…for that, if you don’t, it’s probably in terms of the landscape at the minute, because I think it, you know, it’s really important to, you know, let people know that the news has changed.

And I talked about this a lot as editor. It’s still very much the case that media is at a crossroads. And has been for a long time and doesn’t yet really know the answers. And that crossroads has been brought about primarily by the internet. You know, that’s changed everything.

And, you know, it might be like, well, the internet’s been here for years, but actually in the, you know, in the sands of time, the internet has not been here for years. And the impact that it has had on society as a whole is just unbelievable. And I think we’re still seeing lots and lots of changes and we will see.

David Powles: Lots in terms of news, you know, that’s that’s created a real challenge because people have got used to having their news for free And it’s made it harder to convince people that they should pay for it And there are now instead of 20 years ago If you lived in Norfolk, you probably had a number of news outlets that you could count on two hands. Now you can probably get your news and I’ve put inverted commas there And I’ll come to why in a minute in all manner of channels and the inverted commas comes with social media comes with Facebook You know the right the rise of fake news and anyone can be a publisher of news these days And you don’t have to be trained You don’t have to have the you know, the legal training that you have to have to be a journalist Anyone can go on and that means that there’s a tremendous amount of mischief that can be made.

David Powles: So I think it to bring it back to kind of businesses and the sort of people that, you know, might be listening to that. I think that presents new challenges because it’s been watered down. There’s no doubt about it. So, you know, again, go back 30, 40 years ago, the Eastern Daily Press was selling 70, 000 newspapers.

David Powles: Two people would read a paper. That’s a massive audience. So you knew, right, if I can get this in the EDP, that’s a massive thing. And I can guarantee that lots and lots of people can read that. The figures that someone like the EDP still get are still pretty phenomenal. But, the challenge is that it’s not the only game in town, you know.

David Powles: You’ve got to think as a business, well, about our own social media, because that’s a news outlet. You’ve got to think about other social media channels, other news channels, you know, try and work out what, what the most, most important ones, because the audiences have been, have been massively spread out. So that, you know, that does, that does bring in itself a real challenge.

David Powles: The opportunity there goes back to what I said, you know, that you can be the publisher, you know, if you are a big enough company, if you want, believe it’s important enough. You can invest the time and effort to build up your own audience. And lots of businesses are doing this. They have effectively said, you know what?

David Powles: We don’t need to rely on mainstream media. We know our audience. We know how to find our audience. We know how to get to our audience. Let’s do that. This again brings another challenge for the media because that’s not what the media wants. The media wants eyeballs ears if it’s the radio and your pounds if it’s commercial.

David Powles: So there’s real challenges, challenges to kind of like get, get your kind of voice heard, but also opportunities as well. And I think the other important thing to mention, you know, on that kind of issue of getting your voice heard is because of the way that media is at that crossroads, there’s no denying that resources are stretched.

David Powles: And that means there are fewer pages, for instance, in newspapers. That’s a fact. That means it’s harder to get in touch with journalists than ever before. Let’s look at the BBC. I don’t want to make it just about sort of the traditional media I’ve been in. The BBC have just, you know, lost a lot of good people who will have had contacts, who people would know I can get in touch with them and my story will be heard.

David Powles: So that’s created, that’s created a real, a real barrier. So, you know, that, that has made it. It made it harder as well, but again, and I know we’re going to come on to this, that brings opportunities as well, which we’ll talk about in a bit. Yeah.

Lucy Mowatt: I mean, that leads very neatly into, so do you have any recommendations for businesses who are thinking about trying to get into the publishing world or sorry, get placed in news articles and things like that?

Lucy Mowatt: What should they consider? Like what sort of stories tend to resonate with journalists?

David Powles: At the end of the day, a good story is still a good story. None of that has changed. And if you’ve got a duffer, if you’ve got a bad story, then you’re going to struggle. And if I can speak openly and honestly in 20 odd years of being a journalist.

David Powles: You get some duffers, you get some stuff that lands on you and you’ll get a phone call from a PR firm or marketing firm, you know, we’ve sent you this, will you use it? And you have to be honest and say no, you know, that just is not of interest to enough readers to warrant being used. Or it’s too clearly written on the side of your firm, it’s an advert.

David Powles: So, you know, that, that’s something that. But you still just need to be aware of a good story is still a good story, quirky and in an interesting angle innovation, something that’s never been done before something that maybe resonates nationally as well, a national first or a world first. But I think the key is people, is people and know your audience and be people orientated.

David Powles: And I’ll give you, I’ll give you an example of that if that’s okay. Over the years we used to have lots of conversations with Norridge Research Park and I hope they won’t mind me name checking them, but they used to frustrate the life outta me because the Norridge Research Park is an amazing, amazing place.

David Powles: Mm. And some of the science that goes on there will blow your mind and you would get press releases. That gen generally you needed a science degree to understand. You’d get sent them as to the EDP and they would be full of all sorts of go gig and you had no idea you could not. Read between the lines.

David Powles: And I would always say to their press team, think of your audience. This press release actually, what it is, and I’ll give you a real example a scientist in Norwich effectively saved a bananas. There’s work that’s gone on, on our doorstep. People from Norwich, people from Cossie, people from Haverset, wherever have effectively helped to save the banana.

David Powles: But you read the press release and it’s like all this science terminology, et cetera, et cetera, written for a science magazine, if I’m honest, same site, same copy sent to local media. And I would say to him, all that needs to say as your intro, because that’s the key thing you’ve got to grab that attention is Cossey woman, man, Heaviset woman, man helps to save the banana.

David Powles: I’m gonna read that story, you know, it ticks all the boxes. It’s about a person. It’s about innovation It’s about World War UK first and it’s written in a clear way. So, you know, that’s that’s a real that’s real

Lucy Mowatt: key That’s something that we’ve certainly seen a lot of is having an awareness of reading age That actually, I was looking, doing some research into this yesterday, actually and actually the average reading age, I think, was something like nine years old.

Lucy Mowatt: And so you’ve got to think that things that are highly technical need to be distilled down into a, an understandable format.

David Powles: I think the Sun go even younger. You’d probably be unsurprised. I think they probably, well, they probably go for about five years old. I think it used to be, yeah. Yeah Richard Porritt, who took over my job as editor of DDP, he, he talks a lot about this and he was editor of Norwich Evening News and would kind of tailor some of the content to fit around that.

David Powles: I think there’s a danger, I think there can be a danger if you take that too literally, you can kind of patronise people or Or whatever because I, you know, that almost sort of suggests where you can’t use long words and stuff. But I, you know, you want to keep things simple and keep things straightforward, but you know, if a story is good enough, people can still understand it.

David Powles: So yeah, to go back to your original, original question, you know, the story, it’s got to be. A genuine, genuine news story. And sometimes that’s a hard conversation, I know it must be, to be, you know, and I’ve seen it. My wife works in PR and I’ve seen conversations where I know that she’s, she was a journalist for 20 years and she’s thinking, well, this person’s phoned me up and they think that their story is an amazing story.

David Powles: It’s their company, it’s their pride and joy, they love it. They want it to be, you know, they can’t understand why it wouldn’t be front page of whatever or on the radio, where you as the middle person know, well actually that’s not going to resonate. For all these reasons, that must be hard to just have that honest conversation.

David Powles: And I think that is something that’s really important though. Understand how the landscape has changed. Understand what kind of editors are looking for, but be prepared to be honest and kick back and say, well, actually if we do it this way then it’s, it’s more likely to kind of resonate and to cut through.

David Powles: So I think, yeah, to, to, to make the angle, make it people orientated. I still think your context is important. You know, but I think that that needs to be worked on. I think it’s, it’s ever harder but there are still people who will have conversations with marketeers, with PR companies you just got to work hard to find who those people are.

David Powles: Who are the people who are not going to ignore your emails? Who are the people who are going to be prepared to pick up the phone to you? And again, I think that then you build up a relationship, but that again, comes down to not trying to sell too many, too many duffers to them.

Lucy Mowatt: Yeah. And I think we were just chatting before we started recording.

Lucy Mowatt: Actually a lot of the time as well is making sure it’s something that the journalists can actually pick up and use without too much effort because they’re so time poor at the

David Powles: moment. I think, yeah, this comes back to opportunity and, and I’m a real believer that, and I personally don’t think this is a good thing because I, I worry about where journalism and media is going.

David Powles: And this isn’t like a kind of all cause I’ve left the industry, I’ve felt this when I was as editor, I saw it happen, you know Newsrooms diminished, et cetera, et cetera. It’s harder, journalists have less time. The demands are greater. Internet has brought all sorts of demands on you, like a kind of one, one woman, one man band, you know, trying to do this, trying to do that, trying to do a video, trying to do a podcast.

David Powles: You know, it’s, it’s a real, it’s a real challenge. I worry that that, what that means in terms of stories that aren’t being covered and questions that aren’t being asked. And I think that we’re moving into potentially quite dangerous era. where there’ll be a democratic deficit. So in 10 years time you know, I worry that who’s asking the questions.

David Powles: We sat a stone’s throw from Anglia Square, you know, massive story for for Norwich who in 10 years time is going to be asking the questions to the same level. That they are now, they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and that stuff’s really important. And people are still interested in that. People are still interested, no matter what, you know challenges media face.

David Powles: Peoples are still interested in news. The figures show that. So that’s kind of, you know, that’s the bit of me that’s worried, but then that creates a massive opportunity. So for you, for the audience in this example there is a massive opportunity if you can write your content in the way that. It’s as close to as possible that a journalist wants it or that a radio station wants it or a TV station or or, you know, print or online media wants it.

David Powles: You are more likely to, to get, to get a success. You’re more likely to have happier customers because they just want their stories out there. So that means per case study, that means add photos of people to it. At this conversation last night, a charity who I won’t name who ended a really long running campaign put a press release out, which was fine, but they didn’t issue a photo of any people with it.

David Powles: They issued a photo of a building. Well, that’s not good enough, you know, and actually that would have been a barrier to them getting the result, the response they wanted, because I guarantee you attach a photo of that, even attach a bit of video if you can make it quality enough, then you’re more likely to, to get, to get success.

David Powles: So if you can make that intro really sparkle, if you can not make it kind of start with the name of the company or the business, you know, that’s. That’s the, the tradition. Think about kind of who the audience is. Think about what it would look like when it goes through the system. I do think that in overstretched newsrooms, you’re more likely to have success.

David Powles: As many quotes as you can get in there, important. If it’s a really good story, don’t, don’t cut it short. If it don’t make it on the flip side, don’t make it too long. Because again, that will be a barrier to success because a journalist who’s got 20 things to do on that day. And I know it’s depressing to say it, but you know, they’re going to think, well, you know, that needs too much work doing to it.

David Powles: It’s not as important as the other story, which. Warrants my time, and that isn’t to kind of diminish people’s efforts and the stories that are being put out there. But they’re going to take either the most important option or some of the easier options. What

Lucy Mowatt: I have often advised clients to do is to do a shorter version, but in the email, the covering email that you send with it is to say, there is more information, we have more quotes, we have more background.

Lucy Mowatt: Contact us if you need more information or more images or whatever. Because actually, then the journalist himself thinking about the audience. Being the journalist who’s receiving it, if they’re time poor, how can you make it easier for them to skim read your press release, your article, your news story, and make it

David Powles: really easy?

David Powles: Yeah, I think that’s a really good advice. And it can be frustrating, but it’s just kind of recognising that the industry’s changed and that, you know, let’s take a business team of, Well, there aren’t business teams anymore, but 10 years ago there was business teams in regional, large regional newspapers of around 7 or 8, 9, 10 people.

David Powles: So now there’s probably one, if any. So you know, you need to just understand that and it’s frustrating and it’s. But it is what, but it is what it is. I think the other thing as well, and we talked about this a bit off air, I think and this is, I think, I can imagine would be a real tough one to, for, for people to swallow, is sometimes putting in that balance will help in that regards.

David Powles: Because I know that the natural instinct must be, well, we’re doing the marketing on PR, so we’re promotion, we’re promotion. It’s all got to be glossy and it’s all got to be shiny. And again, I think that’s a barrier, because I think that obviously on some things it is straightforward and there’s no controversy, but if there’s something and you know that there is a bit of backlash or a bit of a for and against or whatever I challenge, why, why, why be afraid to put that in?

David Powles: Recognize that that’s out there, but just confront it. Have your say about it. Because you kind of have that, you then have to control, you then control the message. So, you know, if you are a company behind a controversial development I would imagine 99 out of 100 times the instinct would be to completely ignore that controversy, send that.

David Powles: thing out. Let’s take the ongoing debate over offshore wind turbines. Send that out. We’re the best. We’re going to change the world. We, you know, we’re going to save future of energy, but there are some buts, you know, there is, there are some buts. Well, what about writing that in there, but then providing your balanced view, you know, as a company as to why you think that the benefits outweigh, be honest about it.

David Powles: Cause again, You can control that because you do get better bang for your buck.

Lucy Mowatt: I’m sure you’ve read up news articles on websites or wherever, and it isn’t a balanced article. And as a reader, I sit there going, yeah, but what about this? You haven’t mentioned that. And it erodes the brand trust that I feel towards that business is that you’re not presenting the full story and especially greenwashing, which again,

David Powles: that’s an interesting one because I’ve been just know your views then where, where.

David Powles: Who are you? So if a company who is controversial and writes a press release that ignores some of the controversies around it and that is then taken and put onto a website by a media company, surely the people you’re angry with are the, are the journalists aren’t you? Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, the editorial.

David Powles: As a journalist, it still has to be a journalist, and

Lucy Mowatt: again, I think this comes back to your earlier comment about journalists not having enough time and resource to actually properly edit. And certainly some news, news sites have literally no budget. So. I think there’s an element. Yes, I’d be angry at the journalist by also having also come from the same side as you gone, but I understand having been in that position.

Lucy Mowatt: I need to get something out. This is nearly there.

David Powles: I feel dirty for admitting that that’s the case because it just doesn’t feel right. But and it’s almost like giving away trade secrets, but But, you know, it’s incumbent on the media industry and, you know, I still do stuff around media and involved in a thing called Norwich Seeker, which I’m going to give an also give a plug to, which is an emerging Norwich newsletter twice weekly.

David Powles: You know, it’s. It’s the challenge to us who are still in the industry, whether it’s full time, part time or as a hobby to be better, to do better, to up our game, to find the answer, to find the ways that mainstream media still cuts through. You know, media has lost a lot of, a lot of respect and lost a lot of people’s authority.

David Powles: And a lot of that is through the industry’s own fault. We’ve made lots of mistakes. Don’t get me started on national media. I have really strong views on national media. So, you know, we have to better stuff to ask those questions no matter how busy you are, you know, a journalist still has to be a journalist

Lucy Mowatt: and have some editorial integrity.

Lucy Mowatt: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s I think being on the other side of it, you start to, to, to see. You can bring your your experiences to bear as a journalist and say, Well, actually, we can advise you, as you say, to bring some balance, because we’ve seen press releases that aren’t and articles aren’t. And so I think that does give former journalists a lot of clout when it comes to advising businesses.

Lucy Mowatt: Yeah, definitely. In terms of the elements of a strong news article, what would you have been looking for?

David Powles: I’ve never ever felt that enough time and effort is put towards. Case studies and people and humans behind stories. Whatever that is, whether it’s a new invention, whether it’s a scientific breakthrough, whether it’s you know, and especially on a local level, which I’m, you know, it’s more that we’re talking about here, really, it’s the people behind it.

David Powles: Who are they? You know, what did it mean to them? A photo of them? You know, you, you are more likely, it’s all about connection. Everything in life is about, is about connection and, and news and journalism is, is no different. You, I can make examples where, you know, I always say this to, to reporters about the kind of some of the basics in, in putting in stories.

David Powles: You know, new, new trainees wouldn’t put the address where someone lived in. Or maybe the school they worked at or whatever. And I always had an example of, of a story where they’d been written without very much detail. And I remember going back to the journalist in question as a news editor at that time.

David Powles: And it turned out that they were the same age as me. This was a tragedy, tragedy case actually, but that’s kind of irrelevant in this example. They were the same age as me. So straight away I’ve got a connection. Oh my God, they were the same age as me. I’m more interested in that story. Then it turned out that they lived on my street.

David Powles: They actually lived on the same street as me. Now obviously that’s not always going to happen, but again it’s a connection. So those case studies and then the details alongside those case studies. It’s just all about connections in and The other thing you say about writing stories. It’s that it’s a constant battle to keep the reader engaged There’s some stat that something like only 5 percent of people who read an article get to the end of it Well

Lucy Mowatt: that actually brings me on to Something you alluded to earlier is having that strong opening and that who, what, why, where, when literally in that first paragraph, and it’s the lead, which I remember learning about school.

Lucy Mowatt: But again, that gets missed a lot of the time. I think a lot of the content you read online is it doesn’t get to the point why you should carry on reading

David Powles: at the outset. I think if we’re talking in terms of the industry, that you’re in, I think sometimes I’d imagine that’s that battle between keeping a customer happy and then writing a story that’s going to be, because again, you know, a, someone who runs their own business or whatever, and is very emotionally involved, they’re going to think that the thing that they think is the most important thing is might sometimes be different to what actually the rest of the Norfolk or the audience or whoever is thinks is the most important thing.

David Powles: But yeah, so case study, people behind it I’ve already mentioned quotes the intro, obviously, if you don’t, if you don’t grab. A news editors and editors, journalists attention, then it’s never going to cut through. Quotes we talked about and I think, I think the other thing is facts, facts and figures.

David Powles: There’s many facts and figures that you can put as well because people just love that stuff. You know, it’s the bite size facts and figures that can help you understand an issue or something, the impact that something has had is really important as well.

Lucy Mowatt: I mean, coming back to that the Norwich Research Park press release is actually, it would probably be a good idea for them to have had like a.

Lucy Mowatt: Yeah. Like an overview, a little pricey of those key facts and figures at the top to try and get that most important information through first. Yeah. I think having a lot of background research and what else, how it can impact the wider world is quite important and related. Are there any common mistakes you used to see from people submitting press releases beyond like maybe thin content?

David Powles: Yeah. I think that the lack of detail is a common one. And I, I think that right, writing them quite dryly can be a real common one. And especially if we’re talking about sort of big corporate corporations or corporate press releases that always have to start with the company name or the firm name and are sort of sometimes you think they’re, they’re written not really with the audience in mind, they’re written with the company in mind.

David Powles: So I think that’s, that’s probably the most, most common mistake and case studies is, is a massive challenge. And I’ve, I find that being sort of now I’m on the other side of the fence is something we’ve talked about in our charity. You know, we help people who are the most vulnerable people in society.

David Powles: So, you know, finding someone who’s prepared to put their head above the parapet, be named, have their photo to say I’ve struggled and I’m still struggling potentially and this charity helped me. That’s, that’s hard. That’s, you know, that’s a hard thing to do. That said once you start asking, once you start digging in and Sort of having conversations with people.

David Powles: I think if they’ve had a good experience So for instance, if they’ve had a good experience with charity, there are people out there who are prepared to it I mean it always used to stack at me that as a journalist I’d be having conversations with people about stories and I think if I was in this situation Would I talk about this?

David Powles: Often I’d be like, no, I wouldn’t but I’m glad they are because it’s a really interesting story so I think that the lack of case studies if stories are very human orientated it’s a really it’s really a bit a big kind of failing Maybe that’s too strong, but a big kind of problem that that marketing and PR faces.

David Powles: Yeah,

Lucy Mowatt: again, it’s that human angle. But I, I have found that once you have one of those case studies or you have that testimonial and quote, it’s easier to get others because those people will trust the writer to present it fairly and in a balanced way. So if you can get that first one, it then makes the subsequent case studies far, far easier.

Lucy Mowatt: And again,

David Powles: go back to connection, emotional connection. So, I’m involved in the Living Wage campaign in Norwich. Because our charity is pays the real living wage. And we recently held a one year, it’s been a campaign that’s been going on in Norwich for a year. And there was a one year event and there was, you know, people from various organisations, City Council stood up and said how amazing it was, what a great scheme it was.

David Powles: Yeah, you’re going to say that, aren’t you? And yeah, it was interesting to a point. And then three people stood up who had actually benefitted and talked about the fact that they could now live in a bigger house. They could now eat this instead of that and they could do this instead of being able to do that.

David Powles: And Yeah, that was what everyone walked away and felt about. It wasn’t sort of stiffs like me prattling on for hours about how great it was. It was actual real people saying this, this really made a difference. So that emotional connection, that’s how you’re going to get that across.

Lucy Mowatt: And actually that brings me to something that I, again, often say to clients is people buy from people.

Lucy Mowatt: They don’t buy from a faceless corporate business. A business isn’t a person they buy from your teams and they buy from people in shops. They don’t just buy from the brand. And so you need to bring that to

David Powles: life. I used to say in the newsroom, we need some real people because I didn’t, but a bit harsh, but I didn’t count counsellors as real people.

David Powles: Of course they are. I didn’t count business, you know. Leaders promoting their business as real people and, you know, spokespeople and that, you know, we always, it was always, we need some real people in this story, so, yeah, real people.

Lucy Mowatt: We sometimes advocate for doing sort of research-led pieces. So looking at, you know, who are your audience and what’s affecting them?

Lucy Mowatt: Can you go out and do some surveys with them or look at trends in their buying behaviours and what’s happening to them? And then can you get that case study to bring it to life? So it’s not just you as a business saying, We’re Brill you need this in your life. It’s X number of people in the UK need this.

Lucy Mowatt: Here’s an example. And really, yeah, build that story

David Powles: out. Yeah. I have to, and you’ve touched on something there, Lucy, we haven’t talked about research and data because I think that’s the other thing that maybe isn’t done enough of. So again, I’ll use the example of, of NCLS from right now, the amount of stats and data we’ve got at our fingertips, you know, showing increases in debt, increases in debt levels, increasing amount of people denied, wrongly denied welfare benefits.

David Powles: They go on and on and on. And each one is a story. Each one is an angle. And each one is an important something that’s important. And again, if you can commission Credibly your own sort of survey or research on something that’s going to give a new angle if you can make that local even even better But I just think that facts and figures probably aren’t used enough in that regards data again, you know behind every bit of data You need the human story as well So if I would I’ll give you example if I was taking one of those stats if I was to do a press release This is a great example.

David Powles: And it’s an absolute scandal the amount of people who had wrongly denied benefits. We win 80 percent of our cases, which is, you know, quite a strong story. It means that across the country, you’ve probably got thousands of people who are waiting months because court cases take about nine months to Go to tribunal appeal and they’re probably becoming mentally more sick and they’re suffering financially And they probably become physically more sick and then 80 percent of those cases once they finally get to a judge no greater, you know Judge in the in the land than a judge and they say well, this is ridiculous.

David Powles: You should never been denied this nine months ago that’s a scandal and I can tell that story quite well But if you’re sat here listening to someone who’s been in that situation and talking about the fact they couldn’t feed the kids and they got sick and they ended up in hospital and they had to move out of their house because of it, and it, and now all the money that they’ve got is doing is kind of like helping them to repair a life that was ruined by that denial, that’s going to hit home so much more than me talking about it.