The first point Ronan made was about just how much Sky News has grown up and become more serious over the years. They’re now focusing on analysis and specialist journalism, rather than simply following the pack with everyday stories. This was something Ronan really focused on throughout his talk and a good tip off for PRs wanting to give an exclusive.

At Shout! Communications’ most recent Big Talk event, held on Tuesday 27thJune 2017 at our great hosts Instinctif Partners, we were lucky enough to have TV royalty closing the show. Martin Frizell, now Editor of ITV’s daytime mainstay powerhouse This Morning, has seen it all, so we were delighted to welcome him to give his view into the working of one of the nations most revered and loved shows.

Next in our series is Mary Hockaday, who at the time of speaking was Controller for BBC World Service. She has reported, produced and edited a range of current affairs and international stories such as the invasion of Iraq.

Mary’s first topic was that of trust. Trust is a real issue for journalists at the moment, but interestingly enough, TV journalists are the ones that are generally the most trusted. But, you really have to work hard to win it and earn it!

So how do broadcast journalists rise to that challenge? Well, Mary assured us that we have been here before and that the way to tackle these issues is to continue efforts to produce the best quality journalism and “punch through the noise”.

Mary was unimpressed with the term ‘fake news’. In fact, she summed it up quite well when she said it’s ‘toxic’ and not news at all, so let’s stop calling it that! I’m not talking about Donald Trump style ‘fake news’, but actual articles that have been created deliberately to misinform the public and spread a false story. Despite each speaker making it out to be a bit of a dirty subject, it was unavoidable and they couldn’t help but have their say on it.

There is a real appetite for real news, more than ever with the rise of news we might consider ‘fake’.

Furthermore, more people are, perhaps unknowingly, trusting strangers online than ever before with what they post and share on social media. What used to be called lying is now ‘mis-speaking’, but we can’t be blinded by that and continue to let people get away with it. It’s the job of a TV journalist to cut through this and broadcast the truth.

As an editor at ITN, Sandy ran daily foreign news coverage and spent considerable time in the world’s trouble spots, including the Mideast and the killing fields of the former Yugoslavia. He’s also directed coverage of six Olympic Games and six World Cups.

Recently, as AP’s director of international video news, Sandy led the news portion of a sweeping, digital transformation that upgraded AP’s worldwide video production, newsgathering and distribution to high definition.

Sandy, like Mary Hockaday in our previous podcast, was keen to stress the importance of finding the facts. The role of a journalist, however it has changed since Sandy started, is always to identify the fact from the fiction, and present it in an engaging way.

Nowadays, there are specific fact-checking articles, and news organisations are finding more people prefer to read those bits, rather than sifting through the longer articles. Sandy also placed an emphasis on freedom within newsrooms and an underlying theme that bosses need to trust journalists to find their own reliable sources.

This is where PR comes into it again and shows how we can form strong relationships with journalists that more often than not end up being beneficial to both parties.

Jon is responsible for developing Channel 4’s digital strategy as well as day to day oversight of all content on Channel 4’s news website as well as their YouTube and social platforms. Jon has led major changes in Channel 4’s strategy – including a transition from text to video, all while staying true to Channel 4’s values and achieving major audience growth.

Noticing a lot more subtitled videos online? There’s a reason for that. Jon couldn’t stress the importance of video content enough in his talk. He discussed a number of ways in which some specific videos work particularly well, and the strict rules on what type of videos Channel 4 will post and how often.

Some of these included:

Richard is a programme editor and correspondent for Al Jazeera English. He flits between London and the Middle East where he’s a senior member of the team producing news shows.

Richard has previously graced the newsrooms of Sky, ITN and – going far back in time – the ITV regions. He’s also worked at The Sun and The Daily Express.

Matt Williams is Head of Home News at ITV News, a position he has held since February 2017.

After joining ITV News in 2002, he has been a Producer for ITV Northern, Washington, the London 2012 Olympics, and edited the Lunchtime, Evening, and News at Ten bulletins. In 2006 he was the RTS ‘Young Journalist of the Year’.

First up was Tim Cunningham, Executive Producer of The Wright Stuff on Channel 5. Tim has been with the show for more than eight years now and had a lot to say about social media in particular. This episode will focus on his main talking points and – more importantly – what it all means for PR.