My May/June takeaways

Inevitably, Covid-19 found its way into some, although by no means all, of the articles.

Here are some of my takeaways, along with links to the articles on our digital edition:

1. People in high places should pay more attention to specialist media. The government might have been quicker to respond to Covid-19 if it had been reading The Lancet in January (Ray Snoddy interviews editor Richard Horton).
2. The coronavirus has given fresh impetus to the subscription model (Carolyn Morgan anticipates the post-Covid landscape).
3. The hero of the last general election was… Yorkshire Evening Post editor James Mitchinson (Alan Rusbridger).
4. Women are far less likely than men to apply for jobs they don’t feel fully qualified for (Jack Wynn on female representation in digital journalism).
5. When very important people say very silly things, serious journalists have little choice but to report on it (Dickon Ross).
6. Being always open to reinvention is an important aspect of effective brand management, as the editor-in-chief of 98-year-old Good Housekeeping tells Meg Carter.
7. If you go to the trouble of setting up a social media account for your brand, then … err … do something with it (One of Alan Geere’s secrets of the spotlight).
8. Stop what you’re doing and ask yourself why you’re doing it. Taking time out to answer the big questions paid rich dividends for AgriBriefing, Rory Brown tells Ciar Byrne.
9. It’s still about the story, but what you do after publishing it is as important as what you do before (Nub News’ Nick Hudson on the realities of modern journalism).
10. “My personal guess is that Hearst and Meredith will emerge from this acid test stronger, having honed strategies and operations.” (Karlene Lukovitz’s view from the states).
11. “Only half the money advertisers invest in programmatic advertising currently reaches publishers” (Richard Reeves).
12. The BBC is in danger of repeating the same mistakes that the regional press made in the early 2000s (Neil Fowler).
13. “If you still have people in your company with ‘digital’ in their job title, you are not yet a digital company.” (Jim Bilton)