In this edition of our Reporters on the Record series, we spoke with journalist Joanna Wright.
In our conversation with Joanna, we learn about her career path in financial journalism, her experience building a news publication from scratch and what makes for a successful PR professional-journalist relationship.
How did you get your start in financial journalism?
I didn’t study journalism and didn’t consider it when I was at university. I studied philosophy and English literature. Humanities degrees get a bad rap these days, but it was great for developing critical thinking skills.
When I left university, I worked in production at a large daily newspaper, and I thought the reporters looked like they were having more fun. But journalism was clearly in a death spiral at that point. Turns out that’s somewhat less pronounced in financial and tech journalism, so I kind of fell into it since that’s where the jobs were.
Why do you find passion in journalism?
So many reasons! I love talking to people doing interesting work and thinking about big problems. I like that there’s a craft to journalism and enjoy observing other journalists refine theirs. I like the creative process of taking messy reality and trying to turn it into a cogent narrative that people want to read. I even love writing, or more accurately, as Dorothy Parker is supposed to have said, “I hate writing, but I love having written. ”It’s a job that rewards moxie, creativity and resourcefulness, and that’s such fun.
What is something in your journalism career that you are proud of?
This is tough for me to answer because I’m always focused on what could have been done better! But I can say I’m very proud of DL News. Building a publication from scratch is an incredible experience, and I’m glad I was part of that almost from the beginning.
Our ethos has been quality journalism, and we’ve definitely delivered on that front. Any business can be difficult to report on because if you’re not careful, you wind up unproblematically repeating industry narratives or outright shilling projects that you shouldn’t be. That risk is magnified with crypto, but I think we’ve managed to avoid that trap.
What is your advice to those looking to get started in journalism/financial journalism?
It doesn’t matter where you start your journalism career as long as you have good mentors and good examples to follow. If you have no background in finance, that’s fine, but you need to be curious about it and willing to look stupid in order to learn.
From your perspective, how can public relations (PR) practitioners best craft engaging pitches?
All journalists will say to make it targeted, make it relevant. And I agree for the most part, but I imagine it’s more complicated than that.
I think it depends on your strategy. Some stories might actually work with a simple spray-and-pray approach where you just target every journalist in your contacts book. In other cases, offering the right reporter an exclusive is more effective.
If you have household-name clients, that’s always going to get coverage. For smaller clients, can you make the pitch about something other than, for example, this product release? Do they have an interesting insight or statistic related to the reporter’s coverage area? But I’m aware that PRs walk a tricky line between (sometimes unrealistic!) client expectations and their own instincts about what makes a good story.
Just please don’t open with a compliment. I’ve seen so many pitches that have a “We loved your story about <insert topic> in <insert publication name>” feel to them. We know you say that to all the girls.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I broke my arm very badly last year, and as part of rehab I started learning to play the ukulele. It was meant to be a fine motor skill practice, but it’s become a big stress reliever – less so for my neighbors who have to listen to me belting out folk songs, perhaps. I’m also getting back into gravel cycling and CrossFit after my injury, and like many Londoners, I like to pretend that I go to the theatre and art shows.
