S2 E6 Journalists with Katie-Anne Gupwell

Louise Parker:
Hello and welcome to the Digital PR Podcast with me, Louise Parker, and my lovely co-host, Steve Baker. Due to intense popular demand, we are back for a second season and we will be again chatting to some of the digital PR greats, discussing the ins and outs of our industry. This season, we’ll be touching on topics like crisis comms, freelancing, the great office debate, digital PR in America, and we’ll also be getting the perspectives of in-house clients and journalists on what they really think about digital PRs. Excitingly, this season we also have a sponsor! All six episodes are sponsored by our friends at Coveragebook. We all use Coveragebook in the Propellernet team and so do agencies and brands all over the world. It’s an amazing tool that creates PR reports in minutes, drastically reducing the time that would typically be spent on reporting. Steve, would you like to know a fun fact?

Stephen Baker:
Yes, please.

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Stephen Baker:
We’re very excited to be joined by a journalist for our latest episode. Katie-Anne Gupwell has been a lifestyle reporter for The Daily Star since 2022, having joined them from her senior reporter role across Wales Online, Western Mail, South Wales Echo and Wales on Sunday. Her focus is on covering real life stories, health and fitness, beauty, fashion and sex content. And she’s going to be speaking to us about digital PR from a journalist’s perspective.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Thank you for having me.

Stephen Baker:
I’ve obviously given a brief intro into who you are, but could you give us a little bit more of a background into your career so far?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, yeah, of course. So I started off, like you said, with Wales Online. I was there for just under six years. My time there, I was a general news reporter, so I sort of covered anything from breaking news to court stories to more general feature writing. And then I moved over to the Daily Star back last year, and that’s where I started my work as a lifestyle reporter. So like you said, now I cover topics from fashion to food to all the sex content.

Louise Parker:
It’s quite a big question, but I think it would be helpful to kind of start out. It would be great to know about your typical working day, kind of when you log on, when your key meetings are, how you pitch stories to editors, things like that. Just from a PR perspective, it would be really interesting to just get an insight into your day, basically. Yeah.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
So they’re really quite varied. So I do work on a shift basis. So I’ll do an early shift, a sort of standard day shift and an afternoon shift. and those shifts will rotate each week. In terms of pitching stories, there’s no sort of one answer fix all for that because sometimes it can be a case of, you know, putting a list together and mentioning things to my editor with more sort of feature work and longer reads. Those tend to be sort of monthly meetings where we, you know, sort of plan for the next few weeks or the few months with ideas going forward. But other than that, you can sort of, you know, pitch things that come into your head there and then or if new things come in by email or you know you see things day to day. It pretty much varies on when ideas crop up and when things happen but day to day it is mainly just you know your morning chats and then every few weeks we’ll have sort of longer meetings where we discuss longer term ideas if that makes sense.

Louise Parker:
Yeah and do you have a certain number of stories that you have to do a day or a week?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
There’s no sort of big rule for that sort of stuff. It can all depend on if, you know, one day you may not be working on any feature writing or any longer term reads, so you can do a lot more. And other days you may think, you know, I need to dedicate a few hours to this to make sure I get sorted by the deadline. So that sort of varies day to day.

Stephen Baker:
And you’re covering, as a Lifestyle Report, you’re covering a lot of different topics. And it’s actually quite similar, like we’re really intrigued to speak about this. It’s quite similar to the world of PR, where we work with a lot of different clients and you almost become an expert in lots of different topics. Where do you find inspiration? So you’re moving from food to health and fitness to beauty to fashion. Are you looking at social media? Obviously, you’re getting pitches from PRs. Where do you find your best inspiration for stories, do you think?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I think it all depends on what’s topical at the time. You know, with food, it could be a latest TikTok craze, for example, or if there’s a particular sex story that’s been discussed on TV, for example, and there’s something spoken out about, then you can sort of pinpoint ideas off that and explain what things mean or, you know, go into that sort of thing deeper with someone who’s an expert in the field. So lots of different ways you can explore those ideas. I mean, you can also do first person pieces, I guess, like I tried this TikTok hack to see if it worked and this is what happened. You know, all those sorts of ideas bounce off. I think just things that are really topical at the moment.

Louise Parker:
That’s interesting. So all those examples kind of stem from something, like you said, that’s already topical or that’s already popular, that’s already been spoken about. Is that kind of the key to getting your attention as a PR person, bringing a story to you, that you’ve kind of made a proof point that it’s actually already a thing or it’s already popular or it’s already controversial?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I think so. Or something that’s really quirky as well. You know, we like things that are different and things that will catch people’s eye. So, yeah, anything like that can kind of work.

Stephen Baker:
And in terms of, like, this is something that PRs are obsessed with, because I think good PR people do really think about, like, a journalist day and, like, genuinely want to know. But in terms of pitching to you, is there, like, a better time of day? Is there, like, a better I know it’s going to vary from journalist to journalist and publication to publication, but for you personally, Katie, what is the best way to approach you? What’s like, yeah, that’s good. I like that. And that’s going to work.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, like I said to you, I work on a shift basis. So, you know, there could be one day where I don’t pick up anything in the morning and I’ll get to them in the afternoon. But generally speaking, even though I don’t reply, I mean, I may not reply to you instantly, I will get to you and I think you’re better off sort of, if you want coverage that day or within the first two or three days, get them, you know, as early in the day as possible because then you’ve got time to think. I can manage this today or I know that’s the and it’s important and I can go back to it. So I would say that’s sort of the best thing to do if you want coverage quickly.

Stephen Baker:
Yeah and what’s the, if you don’t mind me asking, like what’s the state of your, again something that we know from journalists and sort of anecdotes, what’s the state of your inbox like? Do you get inundated with stories? Is it quite difficult to manage and do you get like a lot of irrelevant stuff where you’re like, oh they haven’t even read what I do? Because yeah, that must be quite frustrating if so.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, it’s something that varies day to day. We obviously do get inundated and especially when, you know, people can resend and resend in case you’ve missed it, which in some ways is helpful. But, you know, realistically, as much as we’d love to, we just haven’t got time to respond to every single email we receive saying we can do this or we can’t do this, which I understand can be frustrating if you work in PR. But, you know, it’s simply a time management thing. And, you know, yeah, that can be slightly frustrating, I guess. But I think, you know, the PR that stands out to me is when someone really understands the publication that you’re writing for. And I know that must be tough for PRs because you just want to get as much coverage as you can. So you must contact as many people as you can and hope that these things get picked up. But I think what impresses me most as a journalist is when someone comes to me and comes to me again, knowing what they want us to write and knowing that it’ll work for us. That’s what stands out as someone who, you know, I like working with these because they understand what sort of content we want. Yeah.

Louise Parker:
That’s a conversation that’s going on quite a bit, like a bit of a discussion. PRs are discussing how to make a pitch relevant to a journalist. And then some people are saying, you know, talk about, they went on holiday recently and didn’t Turkey look nice and stuff like that. Whereas other people say, actually, just what you described, which is, if I’m sending a story that I know will be right for that journalist at that publication, then that’s the kind of the amount of relevance and the amount of work that needs to go into it rather than the kind of fluffy, how was your day been kind of chit chat. Would Would you agree with that or do you want the kind of fluffy chitchat?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I mean, you know, it’s always nice if someone acknowledges that you’ve been away or that, you know, they know you’ve been doing something lovely. There’s nothing wrong with being polite and having that conversation. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But I just think, you know, you’re much better off going in with the attitude of, you know, I know what this publication does. I know what sort of content they write. If I tweak my pitch in this way, I’m much more likely to get some coverage, if that makes sense. Because I think sometimes you look at press releases and think if they had just spinned it this way or put that information higher up, we would have pegged it on that line, if that makes sense.

Stephen Baker:
Yeah. Is that like, because we’re going to ask you about your biggest bugbears with PRs, is that kind of one of the most frustrating things where you kind of Because obviously you’re a gifted writer and you know how to structure stories where you see something like, oh, it would have worked, or I could see that working if they just span it in a different way. Or do you get let down on case studies? What kind of things have you experienced where you’re like, oh, that’s really frustrating from the PR, where they just don’t understand what I’m trying to do or how to do it?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I think like sometimes case studies can be really important and especially when it’s very much a human interest story because it can be hard to write those sorts of stories when there’s no sort of insight from an actual person. So, you know, case studies are always great and I think that’s a sort of good thing to have in the back of your mind as a PR. But I think one of the biggest bugbears are more the constant resending of emails and also capital letters in press releases. Like you wouldn’t put a capital letter on every single word in the real world. So there’s no need to do that in a press release. That’s what I would say. If it’s not done in the real world, do not put it in the press release. I think that’s a really good piece of advice. Just write as you would normally.

Louise Parker:
Is that people doing it in the title of the press release or just randomly in the bulk of it?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
It can be both. It does happen quite a few times where you have to go through just simply editing out capital letters. I don’t know what the reason is behind it, but I just think it’s a good thing for people to pick up on because there’s just no need to do it.

Louise Parker:
Alright, yeah. Very specific, but good advice.

Stephen Baker:
Talking more broadly about the journalism industry at the moment, obviously we take a keen interest as PR people and sort of, you know, see a lot of stats and follow a lot of journalists on social media, etc. What would you say your industry is like at the moment? Are you worried about things like AI, it feels like journalism is under more pressure than probably ever before and has changed an awful lot. But from your perspective, and you’ve been in it a while now, what’s changed and what’s it kind of feel like at the moment?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I think obviously, since I first started, social media has just exploded and exploded again and changed in so many ways. So, you know, the ways people are consuming news are always changing and always evolving. In terms of artificial intelligence, I mean, I think, you know, we still don’t know a lot about what could happen with that. On a personal level, I don’t worry. I mean, you never know what can happen. You know, things can always change. But I just think at the end of the day, journalism is about telling people stories and you kind of need people to talk to people. So I would like to think that that will continue to happen for a long time. But, you know, none of us know what’s going to happen. I mean, so much has happened with Twitter and Threads ver the last few months and things are still changing on those platforms and a lot of people consume news through social media. So I just think you have to be in the mindset that things continue to and will always change and you just have to try and keep up and go with the flow, really.

Louise Parker:
That is a nicely positive way of looking at it. You could have been like, oh, I’m terrified. But I think that’s right. We have a similar sort of chat in the PR industry about like, how is this going to affect things? Like, is there, you know, is it going to take our jobs? And I think it comes down to the same sort of thing around the human element and with our side of things, also like humans being able to do creativity. And at the moment, chat GPT is not great at PR ideas. I’ve tried. So that’s, we’re safe for now. I was going to ask a little bit more around how PR people should pitch to you because there was recently a tweet that put out and I actually can’t remember whether it was from a journalist or whether it was from a PR. It was either a PR recommending this or a journalist saying please don’t do this which was around WhatsApp messages and pitching to journalists via WhatsApp but also people have spoken about pitching to journalists through Instagram DMs or Twitter DMs I guess is another version of it. Obviously there’s the old-fashioned phone, like all sorts of ways which we could get in contact with you. What are the ones that you like? Are there any ones which you were like, oh my God, if you did that to me, I would never speak to you again. I would love to know your thoughts.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I mean, I would say a phone call or email for me would always be the best practice. You know, I’m generally more than happy to chat through ideas on the phone if people want advice on how to develop a pitch or, you know, just want ideas on the sorts of content I cover generally. I think the biggest problem with sort of WhatsApp and DM messaging on various platforms is you never know when that person is sort of off the clock. And I think that’s where the issue lies there is, you know, we will get back to you eventually. You know, if we want to cover something, we will get back to you. So I don’t think there’s a sort of great need to email and follow that up with a Twitter direct message or WhatsApp or, you know, whatever the next thought process may be.

Stephen Baker:
It’s really interesting to hear because it is going to vary from journalist to journalist. It’s interesting to hear you say about the call because there was actually another tweet that was sent out this week where a guy that worked in PR, and I got why he was saying and what he was saying because it wasn’t just to do with journalists, but he was like, you should make that call if you’re in doubt. A lot of journalists then like quote tweeted that and responded saying, just don’t ever call me. And I get why as well. But then interesting that you, because when I first started in PR, it was all about calling. It was literally like not quite as bad as this, but almost like here’s a press release, here’s a list of journalists, call them. So it’s like kind of a sales job, which effectively now doing via email, but you’re happy to take calls and things like that. Obviously, we’re not. that not all of our listeners just then start calling you but it’s a long-winded way of asking but I’m guessing it kind of helps you out if you take a little bit of time to speak to PRs who want to know more about what you cover because then you’re going to get better quality stuff, right? Is that the kind of idea?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, like obviously you can’t sit there all day. on the phone to every single PR. I’m not going to put unrealistic images in people’s heads on how that will work. But there’s been numerous occasions where someone has said to me, this doesn’t work for you, what does? And I’ve said, well, I can either send you some pinpointers or we can have a call for me to discuss what sort of content I cover and how we can help each other and some follow that up and some don’t but you know I do tend to offer if they really stuck on what sort of pitches could work for us.

Louise Parker:
If you think that maybe calling journalists is a little bit old school, another old school thing that just popped into my head, which is what I was encouraged when I was more junior, so a good few years ago, was taking journalists out for lunch and things like that. Is that something that you do? Would you ever have time for that kind of thing? Are you interested in going out for a coffee with a PR?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
It’s a thing I get asked quite often, because I’m not based in London, it’s more problematic for me. You know, if I was and I had a spare, you know, 30 minutes, an hour, I would be happy to, but I think that’s where you, this might explain your shock from earlier, because I know I’m not in London, that’s when I tend to stay, but I’m happy to give you a call or I can send you some pointers via email. I will sort of offer another alternative if they feel that would be helpful, you know.

Louise Parker:
I guess if there’s any Welsh PRs who live locally to you, then maybe you’d be interested. Exactly.

Stephen Baker:
What we’re hoping though, this podcast is obviously very much useful for people working in PR, but yeah, please don’t sort of spam Katie with calls or offers of lunch and things like that. I was going to ask, we want to get down to kind of talking about like links and some of the sort of other things that we’re thinking about in digital PR and how you see it and what you have control over. But before we go on to that, on some of our other episodes, we talk with other PR people or people working in relevant sort of related industries about our favourite bits of PR. And like on a recent episode, we’re talking about I still get the buzz after years and years working it, like getting a piece of coverage that’s resulted in a creative idea that you’ve come up with or spotting something that results in coverage. For you, journalism, what’s your favourite aspect of journalism? Why did you get into it and what still gives you that thrill? Is it the finished story or is it really investigating and digging out the nuts and bolts of a story? What do you like best?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I’ve got to be honest, for me, it’s always been about people. I’m I’m a real people person and just being able to sort of spend your days talking to people and listening to their stories has always been just like a massively lovely thing to do. You know, as much as not all stories are always lovely, but just hearing about different walks of life and hearing about different people’s stories, I just think it’s a really interesting thing to do. I mean, you learn something completely new and different every day. And I think that’s a really interesting position to be in.

Stephen Baker:
Yeah, for sure. That’s a really lovely way of putting it. And that’s, I guess that’s for me, that’s why I still read a lot of newspapers and like online articles when I kind of have to for my job. But I still love it, like learning about different people, different walks of life, as you say, because it is absolutely fascinating. Lou, I think we’re going to move on to some sort of questions about like links and things like that. It’s going to get a bit nerdy. It’s going to get a bit nerdy, Katie, so apologies.

Louise Parker:
Specifically, like our podcast and what me and Steve do, is around digital PR. So a lot of people are like, oh, you just mean online coverage. It’s a weird term that is basically linking the kind of PR and the SEO aspects of things. And the SEO aspects of things is about getting links to your client or your brand from great websites like yours, because that helps with the brand’s SEO, as well as getting lovely coverage and brand mentions and all that kind of stuff. thing that always gets talked about and our clients talk about it and then other PRs discuss is like how much influence journalists have on including links in their articles and that is basically my first question which is how much control do you and other journalists have in terms of including links in the things that you write up?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I mean, I can’t speak for every journalist because obviously I’d imagine every publication may differ on this. When it comes to a standard link, you know, and if I work with a brand regularly, I would tend to include a general link. I think the only thing I wouldn’t do is link every single time they were mentioned because I just don’t think it’s necessary to do that. But I don’t see the harm in including a link As long as the press release comes with it all prepared, the link is there, it’s been put together for you, I think that is generally fine.

Louise Parker:
Yeah, that’s interesting to know because I think maybe if a few years ago, maybe some journalists might have been more reticent towards it, but I think now it seems to be more like in the same way that that kind of PR journalist relationship, you kind of understand that a PR is providing you with a case study or whatever it might be to help write your story. That kind of tit-for-tat a little bit is like, well, include a brand mention about their brand and they get the kind of recognition from that and now it just seems that additional layer of and a link back to the their site. So it’s nice to hear it’s just more of a, you know, you’re doing it because it’s, I don’t know, I don’t want to say it seems fair, but just seems like a reasonable request that you’re happy to do, which is nice. The link that you do include, is there anything that would, I guess, make you want to link more or want to link less? So for example, often we talk about how if I send you a story, which is like the most Instagram breakfast items, and I say, it’s a great story. I’m sure you’re going to snap that one up. The client has a nice page on their website which goes into all the details about how they did the research and what the results mean and yada yada yada. Does sending a link back to that page which references all the original data and things like that, is that more of a compelling reason to link than me to saying Hey, could you just send a link to the homepage?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I think for me, if a PR makes it clear which one they prefer, I’m more than happy to include that link. You know, there’s been a few occasions where I’ve been asked to change links where That’s just been the case, but it hasn’t sort of been clear from the start what they prefer to be included as a link, if that makes sense. Really hard way of explaining it. But, you know, sometimes there’ll be press releases with links to the main website too. I think, like you said, an example of a blog post which links directly back to that blog, for example. So I think in terms of that sort of content, it’s just making clear what you’d like to be linked back to specifically, if that makes sense.

Louise Parker:
I mean, yeah, that’s great. I think that’s really great advice as well. It’s like, if you’ve got a preference, just ask and just make it clear.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, exactly. And it makes it a lot easier for us as well.

Stephen Baker:
I wanted to ask a potentially stupid question, but I have the opportunity, so I’m going to do that. I’m going to ask. When you’re writing up a story to go online, do you have control to the Daily Star CMS? You’re actually writing up the story and posting it. Basically, do you just press go and then it goes on the Daily Star website? What are the checks that go in place, if you see what I mean? You’ve written it up. Is it just you or is there someone else that’s sort of posting it live kind of thing?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
No, it’s not just me. I’m just a reporter. So an editor will glance over, you know, and make all the necessary checks before hitting the publish button.

Stephen Baker:
That makes sense. Okay. So, yeah, I kind of assumed it’d be like an editor there, but then I sort of had this like vision of if all the reporters had access to like the CMS, you could just publish anything you wanted at any time and just post it up there and just go wild.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
No, definitely not the case.

Stephen Baker:
So I guess it’s really good what you’re just saying about make it clear what you want, what link you want, because it’s going to be really annoying if you’ve published an article and then someone comes back to you and says, actually, could you put this in or this? Because then you’ve got to kind of go and ask or like, you know, take time out of your day and it’s not something you have full control over, right?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, exactly. And I just think it’s easier all around. And it’s the same principle goes for things like picture credits, because pictures can be attached to press releases. And, you know, credits are either not mentioned or the correct ones aren’t there. And then they come back, you know, people can come back saying, oh, can you just mention this photographer? Which is obviously fine. We’d rather do that from the start. But sometimes all the information is not there. Yeah.

Louise Parker:
I’m going to be nerdy again and ask about, I mean, has anyone emailed you before and asked for you to change a link to be a follow link when it’s actually a no follow link? Is this something that rings any bells?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I’ve never been asked that, but I personally wouldn’t have any authority over that anyway.

Louise Parker:
So interesting because I mean we still get clients sometimes say to us or could you change this link to be this type of link which is like one that’s particularly beneficial for SEO because yeah there might be that assumption that like Steve kind of said that you’re just sitting behind the controls and you can just do whatever you want so it does that mean that it’s just a It’s just impossible to change that kind of thing. You just give the copy, you say what link it is and you have no control over things like affiliate links or the type of link it is. Is it just handled by other people?

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
It’s handled by other people. If anyone came to me with an affiliate query, I would just pass them on to the team that deal specifically with Affiliate Links because day-to-day I have no working with Affiliate Links personally as a reporter. So the best bet for them would be for me to just hand them over to the correct department.

Stephen Baker:
And that makes sense, because clearly you need to focus on the story, writing up the story. That’s your job and kind of making the best of that. So actually, the reason we ask is obviously it’s of interest to digital PRs, but also we know that the pressure on journalists has probably increased, like getting asked to do more stuff within the same amount of time. So we’re quite intrigued. Basically, I can’t get that vision out of my head that you’ve got access to the whole of the Daily Star CMS. You could just post whatever the hell you want at any point. That fascinates me. But I know, obviously, you’ve clarified you can’t. You can’t do that. Have we asked all of our nerdy questions, Liv?

Louise Parker:
The nerd section is over, yes.

Stephen Baker:
The nerd section is over. I was going to ask more broadly again about the relationship between journalists and PR people. Do you have many, because a lot of people who work in PR have come from some kind of journalism background or training, do you ever see yourself Do you want to stay as a journalist, kind of see that as your complete career path? Did you always want to be a journalist or do you ever a lot of journalists move into PR? Do you ever see yourself making that move because you have all the all the skills to do it? There’s so much crossover.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I mean, you can never say never at the moment. I love writing and I have no no intention of sort of jumping ship anytime soon. But, you know, it’s something you can never say never to. I think it all just depends on how things pan out and, you know, no one can predict the next 10 years. So it’s just one of those things we’ll see, I guess. But for now, I’m more than happy writing.

Louise Parker:
I think we’ve come on to our last question.

Stephen Baker:
I think so.

Louise Parker:
Steve, to make sure he hasn’t got any other burning ones. So normally we’re talking to PR people, so normally we ask people about what they think the future of the digital PR industry is. But that would be a strange question to ask you. But I feel like much more insightful would be around what you think the future of digital publishing is. Obviously this could be, you know, for the rest of the year or it could be for the rest of, you know, the next 10 years. It would be really interesting to hear your thoughts.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
Yeah, I think, you know, I think it’s such a hard question to answer just because things change all the time. You know, from when I started it’s changed drastically and that’s only been around seven years. So it’s a really tough one to answer but I think the biggest change will be how people consume news. You know, social media is constantly changing, the way people are accessing content is constantly changing. I think even down to videos because I think a big thing with social media now is people sort of treat social media almost like TV where they’d watch the news. So you see a lot more of these sort of, you know, short interviews on video or sort of mini, even mini documentaries popping up on things like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and whatnot. So I think lots of things could change depending on how social media changes. I know that’s probably a very boring answer and along the same lines as what a lot of other people we’d probably say to you, but I think that has to be sort of the main focus.

Louise Parker:
Yeah. I think there was a study or something which said that Gen Z get most of their news, it was either specifically from TikTok or it was from kind of social media video content. And obviously there are like big names that have their own TikTok channels and stuff. And like you say, do those kind of really bite size bits of news and summarising them. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s definitely already like making a big change. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see where it goes, because obviously it’s great if a journalist like yourself is making news content, but if any old person’s making news content, it starts to become a bit potentially dangerous of what they’re putting out there. You’re not getting the same kind of quality assurance, maybe, from a professional journalist. But I don’t know, maybe that’s an old-fashioned thing to say.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
I know what you mean. Whether we’ll see news platforms go down the video route, I don’t know. But I think people will always want news, which is one good thing. I don’t think people will ever tire of the news. So I think we should always be leading some form.

Stephen Baker:
Yeah, for sure. I think you’re right though, Katie, it’s impossible to know what’s going to happen, absolutely impossible because stuff has changed and does change so quickly. I’m 40 and I was chatting to my father-in-law the other day, he’s like 67, but he still buys a newspaper every day and he loves sitting there, he has the time to do that. Whereas I’ve adapted and I use social as a bit of a filter, which actually is a bit of a shame. So I used to love picking up a newspaper or magazine and maybe reading things that I otherwise wouldn’t because it was there in front of me, but like social is a bit of a filter where you kind of go, Oh, I’m interested in that. I’m interested in that. And then if I’m really interested, then I’ll go and read the longer form of it somewhere, either in a paper magazine or, or online. But I think that’s, there is a bit of a shame in that because then I just default to my most, like I’m most interested probably in like football and food. and sort of travel stuff and then I miss loads of other things and you just gravitate towards what you know and algorithms obviously prey on that as well don’t they and like just keep serving up content you’re interested in so it’ll be fascinating to see where it goes. Maybe we’ll have this chat again in like five, ten years and we’ll see what’s advanced.

Louise Parker:
The Daily Star will just be a giant video scroll that you just go and that’s it.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
It won’t, it won’t. I just think that you just never know how it’s going to change. But, you know, I like to think people will always want to read because, you know, like you said, there is something, there is something lovely about picking up a paper or magazine or book even. There is something, I think it makes you, it makes you feel different. It makes the experience different. And like you said, you’ll be drawn to things that you probably wouldn’t read if you just saw it pop up on Facebook or on Twitter. So, yeah, I just think, you know, it’s such a, it’s a, it’s a fast moving, changing environment. And I think we just have to see what happens day to day.

Louise Parker:
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. That concludes all our questions. We’ve gone through a whole range of things from very nerdy to generally learning about your kind of journalism life. I think this is going to be really helpful to PRs listening. Lots of useful bits of advice and information. So thank you so much for being on.

Stephen Baker:
Thank you, Katie.

Katie-Anne Gupwell:
You’re more than welcome. Thanks for having me.