Life as the world’s favourite headline
Paul Marston ran one of the UK’s most under-pressure communications teams. How could he get colleagues and senior managers and to write – and react – faster?
Our guest columnist Paul Marston writes:
One thing is common to both good journalism and effective corporate communications: the need for pace.
When I joined British Airways, the airline seemed to be engulfed in crisis almost every week. We had strikes, threats of strikes, baggage system failures, financial meltdowns, security shutdowns, inconsiderate volcanoes and continual environmental protests at a time when we were energetically campaigning for a third Heathrow runway. In a phrase I coined for a CEO speech, we had become ‘the world’s favourite headline’.
In such an ultra-newsy climate, it was essential for our media team to develop a newsroom mentality. We needed to be able to react to events pretty much as soon as media became aware of them, present our reactions in journo-friendly form and monitor the media agenda for opportunities to maximise our positive PR initiatives.
It isn’t only under-pressure communications teams which can benefit from the newsroom model. Organisations of all kinds need to write, edit, share and approve material for either external or internal consumption. That’s rarely done smoothly and efficiently. It’s even rarer for tempers to stay unfrayed and egos unbruised by the time you get to final sign-off.
The team at Forthwrite tell me more and more comms, HR and marketing leaders are asking if the newsroom model is the answer. I believe it can be if you follow these seven rules.
1. Rapid internal sign-off is crucial.
At British Airways, there was no time for leisurely perusal of round-robin drafts between every senior manager who felt they should be consulted on an issue. I remember waking up one morning to a front-page story about how BA was introducing a new baggage policy that might inadvertently disadvantage disabled customers. A few calls established that a working-group on baggage rules had indeed unwittingly allowed for this possibility. However, it was as much unwelcome news to the CEO as it was to me. En route to the office, I drafted a statement saying we would maintain our existing policy. The CEO approved it and within a couple of hours the media storm had abated. The working-group were not particularly impressed but left to reflect that they should have involved the Comms team at an earlier stage of their deliberations.
2. The CEO relationship is critical
Irrespective of reporting lines, the Comms team must have ready access to the chief executive whenever they think it necessary. If you have the CEO’s support for something, it’s remarkable how objections from other corners of the organisation tend to fall away.
3. Get buy-in by building relationships
Of course, you do not want be dropping nasty surprises on senior colleagues on a regular basis – which is why this high pace, newsroom mentality also requires buy-in from the rest of the organisation. As well as investing in personal relationships with managers of other departments, we frequently gave presentations to their teams to explain how we worked, the kind of external pressures we faced, and the importance of the company’s reputation for everyone within it.
In organisations with lower media profiles, I appreciate that this task can be more difficult – especially if institutional culture does not value communications as highly as it should. Again, I would emphasise the importance of winning the backing of the person at the top, keeping them close and, if necessary, running a Communications 101 for every manager in the building.
4. Write like a reporter
Another feature of newsroom mentality is formulating your messages in language the average journalist can not only understand but happily insert in their copy with minimal alteration.
It follows that you can’t leave the language up to the technical specialists in your organisation. Not only do they tend to use arcane words, but they’re also so addicted to acronyms that when you inquire what the acronym actually stands for, they have to look it up. The solution, we found, was to suggest a lay version of the technical term – and then play tweak ping-pong until a mutually acceptable formula was found.
5. Produce a style guide
Writing good contemporary English in a consistent way with accurate spelling and comprehensible punctuation is fundamental to clear communication, whatever your audience. Some leeway can be given for social media, but the principles remain the same. That is why media organisations have style guides – and why adopting the style of a newspaper serving your market is a good place to start.
The BA style guide was not set in stone. While there was a list of banned words (with transgressors expected to put 50p in the charity box), it would change with time, as general usage evolved. I have never liked the word ‘stakeholder’, but accept that in some contexts it has become a useful shorthand term. On the other hand, please don’t use ‘impact’ as a verb on a screen anywhere near me.
6. Never, ever send anything out with a spelling or grammar mistake
Though sometimes it may not look like it, journalists are writers too and they will pick up on spelling or grammatical errors much quicker than most non-communicators in your organisation. I know many reporters who stop reading press releases at the first flaw (too often in the heading or first paragraph).
Conversely, correct use of apostrophes in a corporate statement has been known to earn whoops of astonishment. It will always increase respect for your message, your organisation and your department. Comms teams have external reputations too.
7. Briefer works better
Brevity in messaging is another basic newsroom technique. If you don’t put too many words out there, they’ll have to use more of what you say. Which seems a good point for me to close. So go well with your communicating, step up the pace and develop internal relationships where you need to, and think of the media as a resource and not just a risk.
Paul Marston was transport editor for The Daily Telegraph before joining British Airways. He was director of communications there between 2011 and 2018.
“A mid-career switch making from journalism to corporate communications necessitates some changes of mindset,” he says. "You no longer want to tell the world every titbit of new information that comes your way".
How to build a newsroom
Mark Jones writes: When we started Forthwrite, we thought we’d be focussing exclusively on writing and writers. But as we’ve run more and more courses, it’s become obvious that we need to look harder at the environment in which writing gets produced, shared and approved.
Put simply, organisations are wasting a lot of time and energy (and that means money) on multiple drafts of documents, decks – even emails.
And they’re very interested in what we’ve come to call the newsroom model. Those of us who have worked in newspapers know that a newsroom is the most energised, stressful but also productive places you’ll ever work. Think how many words are in a daily newspaper. Now think of the systems you need to have in place to make sure all those words are produced on time, that they are accurate, grammatical and legal. Oh, and interesting too.
That’s why people like Paul Marston (above) are importing newsroom practices into the corporate workplace. It’s such an interesting idea that we’re launching a new course on Building a Newsroom Culture. We’re in development now. If you’d like to know more, contact me, David Kean or Kerry Smith at hello@forthwrite.co.uk, on our usual email, or through our Linked In page.