The British newspaper industry has lost thousands of editorial jobs in the past decade. Titles that once had newsrooms full of sub-editors, section editors, and specialist correspondents now run on skeleton staff.
The journalists still standing are doing the work of what teams of people used to do. Now throw managing social media and moderating comments into the mix.
This is the reality of the world in which your press releases and pitches land.
And the consequence is brutal and simple: a press release or contributed article that needs significant work before it can run simply will not get that work. It will get binned. Not because the journalist doesn’t like the story — they might love it — but because they don’t have the time to wrestle it into shape.
Their editor needs the page filled, and there are hundreds of other pitches in the inbox. This is why page-ready copy has gone from nice-to-have to a non-negotiable.
But what does page-ready actually mean? It’s not just being well-written. It means understanding the precise format a publication works to, matching its in-house style, knowing how a headline needs to function for SEO versus print, anticipating the questions a sub-editor would ask …the list is extensive. It means delivering something a journalist can drop onto a page without a second thought.
The opportunity for agencies is huge. You get to control the story literally inside and out. But what comes with that opportunity is a high bar. And it’s one that most agencies can’t clear, because they’ve never worked inside a newsroom.
At Keith Bishop PR, we have. Our team includes those who have sat in editors’ chairs, commissioned national features, and shaped front pages. We understand not just how to tell a story, but how journalism actually works — and more importantly, how it works today, under the pressures it’s under.
For most PR agencies, fewer professional journalists means fewer coverage opportunities. For us, it means the value of making a journalist’s life genuinely easier has never been higher.