Men Named Will

“What was celebrated was conformity. And what was frowned upon was selling yourself…which in a way is what you need to do in interviews.”

Year Of The Expert continues with Chapter 5: Roots.

What stops experts from saying yes to the media?

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Morning all – it’s Monday 5th February 2024.

Today: The new Northern Ireland executive is expected to hold its first meeting

OECD set to release an evaluation of its economic outlook

Tuesday: Liz Truss at Popular Conservatism launch event

Wednesday: Deadline for demolition of Captain Tom memorial spa

Thursday: Parliamentary elections in Pakistan

Friday: Rio Carnival

New York Fashion Week begins 

Sunday: Super Bowl. (All eyes on the mighty Taylor Swift)

Another week, another round of redundancies across a range of media publications. As reviewer and journalist Scotty Bryan said on X:

“Would love to get through just one week on here without even more news about layoffs in journalism and media.”

In the US, the Wall Street Journal took a hatchet to its Washington bureau, laying off 20 staffers in a restructuring that adds to a brutal start to 2024 for the journalism industry.

Private Eye focuses on weekly magazine the New Statesman which for some time has been criticised for its lack of female lead writers. Of six redundancies announced on the editorial side, five were of women – one of whom was reportedly let go during her maternity leave.

In a particularly eyebrow-raising line in the article, a survey reveals more cover stories over 36 editions were written by “men named Will” than women.

Excellent podcast from Politico on the inside story of GB News…

Annita McVeigh, Ben Brown, and Geeta Guru-Murthy have been appointed as chief presenters on the BBC News Channel.

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ITV has most nominations at the RTS Television Journalism Awards 2024 with 16, followed by the BBC on 13 and Sky News on 11.

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Radio listening figures are out for the quarter. BBC Local Radio is still very much in the spotlight with much criticism of shared programming with other nearby stations. This now seems to be showing in the data, with reach and listening hours both down both on the quarter and on the year.

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Footnotes:

Two British supermarket chains stocked genetically modified tomato puree on this day in 1996 – the first GM food to be sold in this country.

Highs today of 12 degrees in Stevenage and 11 in Carlisle.

Just time for the obligatory dog photo and our special guest star series continues. Monday Media Briefing reader Jonny gives us the adorable Theo:

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Have a splendid week.

All at Inside Edge

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