In the newsroom
A half-day that keeps the argument on the journalism
When a pack is signed off, some titles still want a third person to walk the charts so conference does not spend the first twenty minutes decoding a legend. That session is a briefing, not a course.
Who sits in
Up to sixteen people. The commissioning editor names them. A useful mix is section heads, the audience lead if you have one, and one commercial guest who already sees PAMCo or ABC figures and needs to see why those pages face the website counts rather than sitting on top of them.
We do not run ice-breakers. We do not film unless you have arranged consent separately. Hostile questions are expected; a briefing that produces only nodding has failed.
What we bring
Printed leave-behinds, a running order agreed two days prior, and the large charts if your wall can take Blu Tack. You supply the room, the projector, and tea. We arrive an hour early.
A typical running order
- Fifteen minutes: the quarter’s question, restated without metric jargon.
- Forty minutes: the ranked pieces and the leaky slots, with the crib sheet open.
- Break.
- Forty minutes: currencies kept apart — print, site, broadcast — and the arguments those pages do not settle.
- Closing twenty minutes: three experiments the room can run before the next pack, with owners in the room.
Fee: £950 plus standard-class rail from St Albans. Book from the newsroom briefing commission or write with two dates.