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What the Media Want

Ideally you should take some time to “get to know” the media before you approach them. Read the papers, listen to or watch the programmes on the radio and television. Look at what sort of stories get covered.

To help you get started we’ve asked the media in Suffolk to give you an insight into what they think makes “a good story”.

Newspapers

The Ipswich Evening Star

The Evening Star sells up to 23,000 copies a day in three editions.

The first goes as far as Stowmarket, Hadleigh, Woodbridge etc as well as Ipswich. The second goes to Felixstowe and the third is for Ipswich. The readership is very varied, covering all social economic and age ranges.

What makes a good story?
The easiest way to judge whether a story is of interest to a newspaper is to consider whether it is of interest to you - the 'oh, really?' test. If someone tells you something and your response is to say 'oh, really?' - then it's a story.

The key to presenting it is people - names and faces make a newspaper story. The enemy is dullness. Bad newspaper stories are long and don't contain 'real' people - only unnamed spokespeople.

Quotes are the most interesting things in news stories and so good stories have people describing what they think and how they feel. Anyone wanting to submit press releases to a newspaper should keep this in mind. Every issue affects someone - finding that someone is the key. Thinking of the BBC may help. Whenever they report a story - anything from the Iraq war to problems with the Child Support Agency - they go to a 'real' person - people on the streets of Iraq or a person with a story to tell about the CSA.

The ideal press release is well written, on something of interest, contains a person and has a picture (for digital pictures this should be between 3 and 5 mega-pixels in size). As regards the picture, just make sure it is in focus and has people in it.

Email is the best format to receive press releases. The Evening Star, like most papers, has a group editorial email address which is received by six people on the newsdesk, just in case one or two people are off on any one day. (Don't worry if the message bounces back - it just means one person's email box is full but the other five people will have received it).

If anyone has a question or wants to talk to someone they can always ring us. Lunchtime or early afternoon is always better for this as the mornings are our busiest time getting the paper out.

The features editor is Tracey Sparling. It is harder to get a feature than a news story. Features are either about an extraordinary person or issue which affects a lot of people. The basic test is the same (oh, really?), but the bar is higher as there are fewer features than news stories in the paper.

Martin Davey, News Editor, Evening Star

Eastern Daily Press

The EDP is a regional morning newspaper tailored for the needs of people who live in East Anglia. Overall, we are very definitely not a local paper.

We circulate to the whole of Norfolk, East Cambridgeshire and North Suffolk (basically draw a line from Southwold to Bury St Edmunds), but go deeper into Suffolk if the story is big enough, or has regional connotations.

The EDP is the country's biggest selling regional morning paper, with an ABC circulation of 72,500. Its readership is broad based and it's hard to generalise, but tends to be 40-plus. It seems to appeal equally to all demographic groups.

The EDP can accommodate a wide range of stories. We run five editions of the paper - including a dedicated one for the Waveney Valley and another which includes North Suffolk from Eye to Brandon - which means we can often find space for very local news.

But more significantly, we are a paper that thrives on issue-driven features and analysis on subjects that appeal to a rural/East Anglian market place and would therefore make all our editions. Affordable homes, public transport and declining village facilities are obvious examples. That said, hard news exclusives remain the lifeblood of any paper.

What gets thrown in the bin? Press releases that arrive the day after the particular story has already been in the national news. We are not interested in being a day late. In the main, everything sent to us gets read, but space is finite and it will be a daily judgment to decide the priorities of the day and the significance of one story against another competing for the same slot in the paper.

How to contact us: The EDP has nine district offices as well as its head office in Norwich (see Media Contacts for details). We also have a range of specialist correspondents in Norwich covering subjects should as health, education, crime, agriculture, local government, environment and business, who might be the most appropriate contact point.

E-mail is obviously the quickest way to contact us, but there's no substitute for personal contact, so make a phone call to back up the initial press release.

When is the best time to call? Any time from 7am to 1.30am if your story is urgent enough. But we try to set at least part of our news agenda for the day at our first editorial conference of the day at 10am. If we know about your story by then, it's got a better chance of getting on to our agenda and having a reporter and / or photographer assigned to it - but there are no guarantees.

Any other tips/advice? Don't hesitate to ring our newsdesk if you are unsure of anything or even better, get to know individual reporters where you can. Remember, even professional PR agencies consider a "hit rate" of four-out-of-ten as good going, so don't give up if you are knocked back first time.

Paul Durrant, Assistant Editor, EDP

East Anglian Daily Times

Stories have to be relevant to our readership area (Suffolk, north Essex). There tend to be two types of press release that we will use – the most obvious are those which contain an interesting story, and the second are the ones which contain useful information which we can pass on to the reader.

Press releases which contain neither (and there are many…!) are spiked in a flash.
Trying to explain what makes an interesting story is difficult. It needs to be something unusual that will stand out from the crowd.

We prefer to receive press releases by email (see Media Contacts for details). Don’t be too concerned about sending in photographs, unless they are particularly good. If a story is worth a picture, we’ll usually get our own taken anyway.

Press releases should be relatively brief – no more than a page usually. Make sure there are contact numbers, and make sure the local relevance to the story is mentioned at the top.

If you want publicity for an event, send it in several weeks in advance. If you want us to cover an event, email us and then call a few days beforehand. If you’ve sent in a press release which you’re convinced is worth something in the paper, but it hasn’t appeared, call us.

Brad Jones, News Editor, EADT

TV

Look East is the regional BBC news programme for Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. There are regional news bulletins on BBC1 during breakfast TV, and at lunchtime as part of the BBC's One o'clock news. The main bulletin lasts for half an hour from 6.30pm and attracts 500,000 viewers per night.

The 6.30pm programme has a section in the middle where the region is split in two. This is known as "the opt". In Suffolk we see the "East opt" which focuses on stories from Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex only.

Andrew Sinclair, from BBC Look East writes:

What makes a good story for Look East?
The question we always ask ourselves is "How many people watching will be interested in this story?" Ideally it has to have regional appeal because we are broadcasting to a million people most of whom won't live in the town/county where the story is. If a story in Northampton can also affect a person in Ipswich we are very likely to cover it.

We are also interested in anything interesting or unusual involving anyone or anything in the region.

For example if a person has become the first person in the country to do something or a charity makes a claim that Ipswich has the worst case of XXXX in the country or gets the largest share of a Government grant for something, we would also be interested.

We are also about reflecting life in the region, showing people what goes on in their locality, which they may not know about. The BBC is very keen at the moment to be as diverse as possible so if your organisation is working with a minority group and they can offer us an insight into their way of life we'd be very interested.

Charities can also be helpful when it comes to localising a national story. If there is some big national report coming out or a big national/international story, we will always be interested if a local organisation or person can give us a local angle.

When should you talk to us? As early as possible - please give us at least a few days notice of anything that's happening; if we can plan something and take a bit of time over filming, it we will do a better piece. There's also a chance of getting wider coverage if we pre-film, as the piece will run on the breakfast bulletins as well as Lunch and the main programme.

If someone wants to offer an idea/story to Look East it is best to contact the planning dept or district reporter with a brief call, offer to send them an email / letter with full details and then follow it up with another call a few days later. And please call in the morning when we have more time on our hands!

"Television is all about pictures". You would be amazed at the number of people who will offer us story ideas and then have nothing for us to film! I know this can be a difficult area, but case studies and interviews with real people are essential in helping us tell stories and we need to be able to see these people in an interesting location doing something if at all possible.

If a story comes with two or three interesting and filmable sequences and a couple of real people (not just the director of such and such an organisation in a suit), we are more likely to be interested.

Pictures: We always prefer to take our own but if someone offers us good pictures (particularly if they're from abroad which is expensive for us to get to) we will consider them. It is BBC policy not to use other people's interviews. A good example has been the aftermath of the Pakistan earthquake and the Tsunami. A number of local people from charities went out to the areas and came back with good footage that we used as the basis for a number of very moving reports.

Here's some examples of stories that have featured on Look East ….
The charity Age Concern says people should pay more attention to elderly neighbours ... after a 95 year old man was attacked in his home two days ago. Ralph Platten was watching television at his home in St Michael's Sutton, near Stalham in Norfolk ... when two men broke into his home. He suffered a fractured hip and bruising. The charity says the elderly are particularly vulnerable living on their own - and that we should all do more to look out for one another ...

At the moment if you’re a patient in Bedford you have to get a minibus for a round trip that can take more than an hour for just a few minutes of radiotherapy in Cambridge. But now a group of volunteers have stepped in with another way…..

The region's biggest children's hospice is cutting 25 front-line care jobs to save money. There are 3 centres in Cambridge, Norfolk and Ipswich run by the charity the East Anglia Children's Hospice. But a big lottery grant has now run out and people have been giving money to other appeals.

It's a first for` Suffolk. A "flower carpet" made entirely of begonia flowers. The organisers in Bury St Edmunds are raising money for charity. But despite months of planning and millions of petals it will only last for three days.

Inside Out is the BBC1 magazine programme for the East of England. It's not on air all year round, but when it is the show starts at 7.30pm on Mondays with an average audience of 370,000.

Diana Hare, from Inside Out writes:

We're always happy to get suggestions for stories to cover. We are much happier to discuss stories people are not sure about and have to say no, than to miss a story that could have been great. We look for subjects that will make a feature for around 8 minutes. Strong characters and originality help.

The stories can be regional or just relevant to Suffolk - if the story is strong enough it will travel.

What is no good is being told about an event that is happening in the next couple of weeks - we work weeks even months ahead. And we are more interested in stories than events anyway.

A good way to get in touch is to email us via www.bbc.co.uk/insideout or call 01603 284376. Remember to follow up your email with a phone call.

Magazines

Let's Talk

Lets Talk! is a monthly publication which is aimed at the over 50s and is circulated around Suffolk and North Essex with a readership of 50,000. It's a locally based magazine that features memories, competitions, advice, gardening, local celebrities, days out, cookery and hobbies.

Kirsty Cole from Let's Talk Magazine writes:

We have two pages of local news in every month's magazine for small snippets of local goings on and general news items.

We like to receive press releases about up and coming events - bearing in mind we work about 6 weeks in advance of publication dates. To send information via email please send through to letters@letstalksuffolk.co.uk or via post to Lets Talk! 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN. We don't really use faxes here as the information tends to get lost in the building!

The magazine is staffed Monday to Friday during normal office hours (9 - 5) and we are always available to take your call - if you have any queries you can call me on 01473 324712 or for any feature ideas please call Anne Gould, the editor on 01473 324708. Once features have been approved, the editor can advise on the text but pictures need to be supplied either as an original photograph, which we can scan into the system and return the picture, or they can be supplied via email in high resolution jpeg format.

Radio

If it’s about Suffolk, BBC Radio Suffolk wants to know about it. The station's remit is to cover things that are happening within the county boundary. You can hear the output in North Essex but you won't get publicity for a ‘what's on’ event like a fete if it's not in Suffolk. A large part of the station's output is speech so presenters are always looking for interesting guests with a story to tell.

We broadcast local news from 6am to 1am each week day, and 6am to 6pm at weekends. It's not just about radio though! The BBC’s website for Suffolk had 5 million hits in 2005 and it has lots of different sections ranging from "community", and wildlife in Suffolk, to faith.

Mark Murphy, breakfast presenter writes ….

A good story is one that the audience can relate too. It has to be something that will make the listener sit back and listen. It can be a funny story, a sad story or something that makes the listener angry. It may be something the listener can help with but whatever it is it needs to be focused on real people telling their story.

You are looking for that radio moment when the listener stops what they are doing because they don't want to miss what's coming out of their radio. It needs to have impact ....if it does it can be very powerful radio indeed.

Gerald Main, Managing Editor writes ...

Can you imagine Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground filled to the rafters on a Saturday afternoon? Then multiply that mental image by 5 and you're beginning to get an idea of the numbers of people who tune our way each week! News, sport, weather and music are all key ingredients in our mix but we make no excuse for majoring on entertaining and engaging speech. Our presenters (no DJs here!) live in Suffolk and care passionately about all aspects of life in our beautiful county.

We spend a lot of time listening to our audiences and discovering what concerns them. All our programmes are fully interactive and we encourage our listeners to get involved in all we do. (Our best stories come from you!)

One essential role of BBC Local Radio is to be there for you in a crisis. When bad weather, or any other emergency, disrupts life in Suffolk, we throw our schedule out of the window. We promise, in those circumstances, to provide a rolling service of news, information and appeals to keep Suffolk connected in a crisis.

Our website www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk attracts millions of hits each month from around the world. Again, it's all about life in Suffolk.

Finally, we take having fun seriously! Each day we promise to put a smile on your face ... tune in or click our way and put us to the test!

SGR and Classic Gold Amber

Our parent company GCAP is the country’s leading and largest commercial radio group. We own 70 different radio stations across the country from Capital in London to Century in Northern England, as well as the likes of XFM.

Our station in Suffolk broadcasts from two transmitters to the whole of Suffolk and parts of North Essex, our main areas being Ipswich and Bury. We have news bulletins between 6am and 6pm Mon-Fri. 7-1 on Sat and 8-1 on Sunday.

Our target audience is 25-44 year olds (mainly female).

We love local, emotive and “relevant to the listener” stories. The kind that will impact and affect peoples lives. So stories linked to hospitals, schools, health, education, security are ideal. We usually throw away anything being used to plug a product or has no appeal to the main bulk of our listeners. Best time to call is between 5am and 6pm.

Peter Cooke, News Editor, Suffolks SGR FM, Classic Gold Amber

The Beach

The beach is a lively, mainly music station, but has a hard working news team with a mission to 'break' as many local stories as possible.

We like local stories about work, politics, events, health and care, local sports teams, and fundraising. If the story is relatively strong it's likely we'll use it. The news here is very much local-based, and we'll always lead with a local story where we can.

The area we cover is along the East coast, which covers from approx Winterton-on-sea, out to Loddon and Halesworth and down to Aldeburgh. A high proportion of 25 - 54 year olds listen to the station.

Best method of contacting us is to send a press release or fax, and if those facilities aren't available then post c/o newsdesk or telephone anytime from 7am - 6pm.

Community Radio

ICR FM (Ipswich Community Radio)

We’re keen to work as closely as possible with local charities and voluntary organisations. We run 30 second community messages, which groups can use to appeal for volunteers or promote a service they offer; we’re happy to do interviews/features on individual organisations; and we’d also like to train up people from these groups so they can produce their own material (this could be anything from a 30 second spot to the occasional interview/feature to a regular weekly show). We’d also like to receive What’s On information

People can call the office Monday to Friday between 10 and 6 or e-mail info@icrfm.co.uk anytime.

Please feel free to give Nick Greenland a call, either on the office number above or the mobile, which is (07974) 231595.

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