Celebrating Great Journalism - 16 August
Welcome to our weekly round-up of impactful journalism from across our 120+ trusted brands, from national titles like the Mirror, Express, Daily Record and Daily Star, to local brands like MyLondon, BelfastLive and the Manchester Evening News, as well as our US-based brands.
As we enter the middle of the summer holidays, it gives us the chance to reflect on what has been a remarkable news agenda in recent weeks. It has underlined the importance of our brands getting the content and information people need to them quickly, accurately and on the platforms and channels that they use day to day.
Whether it was breaking the news of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, keeping communities informed about the riots or debunking malicious rumours about the death of Jay Slater - our teams made sure it was all available in different formats, across multiple channels.?
So, this week, we are going to shine a light on the things our newsrooms have been doing to make sure their content gets to the people who need it.
As up to 100 protests and counter protests were expected across the UK on Wednesday 7th August, our newly formed distribution team in the content hub faced their first big challenge to support our brands in an incredibly busy time for newsrooms.
On Wednesday, Laura Haynes, Ross Walsh and Celeste Adams worked with audience teams in our newsrooms to send breaking newsletters, web alerts, and social posts until well into the night, to help make sure our audiences kept seeing the up to date info they needed.?
We don’t just use these channels to distribute content to people, we also use them as places to talk directly to our readers and start to gauge how they feel about the stories we cover.
Maria Breslin captured this perfectly with her Editor’s newsletter acknowledging requests for privacy from the Liverpool community following the Southport stabbing, saying: “We totally respect your request as you grieve for your beautiful girls. We are here for you if you need us and will do everything we can to support you in the coming weeks.”
More people opened Maria’s heartfelt email than any other newsletter this year from The Echo and it received multiple responses from people grateful for the Echo’s words.
Sometimes the engagement we get on our digital distribution platforms can take a different turn. The Sunday Mail splash at the weekend made an impact across the UK and US as X and Tesla owner, Elon Musk, issued a threat on X to former Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, in follow-up to it.
Political editor, John Ferguson , revealed how Yousaf was considering options in response to Musk calling him "super super racist".
Several of our writers have had traction this week with younger audiences, and particularly gaining traction on Reddit, including:
It's also been a remarkable summer of sport with the Euros and Olympics - with Curiously providing a unique perspective on events in Paris .
But we are now at the time again where the football season is starting to get back into full flow and our sport teams up and down the country have been putting in the groundwork to get football fans up to speed ahead of the first matches.
Hull City may have kicked-off the season with a bumpy start, but that’s not for lack of excellent coverage by our football writer Barry Cooper who has worked with our marketing teams to remind fans of our wall to wall coverage , engaged directly with fans on social media , reported live on video from the training ground and continues to stay on top of one of the most engaged WhatsApp communities in the business.
This coverage, which was replicated across our biggest English Football League clubs when the season kicked-off last weekend, is right at the heart of the best of what we do. Expect plenty more of the same when the Premier League kicks-off on Friday night.
Thanks for reading, we’ll be back with more next week.