Editors from The Sun, the Daily Mail, and the Evening Standard spoke about successful campaigns, ‘All together’, and the need for trusted journalism.
The comments were given in Wednesday’s edition of BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show discussing the breaking of the Matt Hancock scandal. The Sun’s editor-in-chief Victoria Newton described the story as in “the overwhelming public interest”, adding she knew the story had achieved a big “national cut-through” when Hancock reached the top of internet searches on Friday morning.
Speaking more widely about The Sun’s experience of the pandemic, Newton stressed the success of campaigns such as Jabs Army as a demonstration of the brand’s “very positive force for good”. She also highlighted the importance of the news brand industry’s ‘All together’ campaign with the government to get vital public service information to readers.
Tobyn Andreae, deputy editor of the Daily Mail, agreed, pointing to the brand’s highly successful Mail Force campaign to fund PPE and then computers for disadvantaged children. That campaign won the news brand the first Public Service Award at the 2020 British Journalism Awards. He called the campaign’s success “an astonishing achievement and testimony…to our readers’ generosity and their sense of engagement with the brand”.
The three editors also agreed on the public’s real need for trusted journalism to navigate the pandemic, with a huge uplift in sales and traffic to match. Emily Sheffield, editor of the Evening Standard, pointed to the brand’s dramatic online growth, with eight million unique viewers month on month from October last year.
She also felt the news brand’s continued printed presence on London’s streets despite the pandemic was also “incredibly important” to show it was still there for Londoners despite the frightening situation developing around them.
You can listen to the full interview from this week’s edition of The Media Show here.
