On June 13, actor, author and film director Danny Scheinmann (pictured above) held a masterclass on the importance of telling simple, concrete and credible stories in business. Around 50 people came to see Danny explain how to make stories sticky by using emotions, painting pictures and showing what’s at stake. Afterwards, Danny signed copies of his new novel, The Half Life of Joshua Jones. Here are a few photos to remind you of a great evening.
Journalists love Twitter, favour personal contacts over press releases, rate NGOs highly and companies poorly, and think that PR people don’t understand their needs. These are some of the key takeaways from a major survey of Brussels-based correspondents written and published by Dober Partners today.
The poll of 80 correspondents, almost 10% of the total number in Brussels, offers a unique insight into what journalists are looking for from the army of communicators that tries to influence them.
Just over two years ago, we published a detailed breakdown of the Brussels press corps that shattered two myths: that the number of journalists reporting on the EU is shrinking – it has constantly grown – and that Brussels has the largest concentration of international correspondents in the world (that would be London.)
We followed that up with a piece on ‘10 Things You Need to Know About the Brussels Press Corps’ that contained such sparking nuggets of information as: almost half the correspondents based in the EU capital work alone, Chinese news agency Xinhua has 23 accredited correspondents and French reporter Jean Quatremer has the most followers on Twitter (still true.)
A couple of months ago I wrote a blog piece puncturing the myth of the shrinking EU press corps. Far from dwindling, I showed how the number of correspondents in Brussels has risen constantly over the last four decades – and continues to grow despite the crisis. According to the latest official figures, there were 1022 journalists accredited to the European Commission in September 2013. However, Lorenzo Consoli, the former president of the Foreign Press Association in Brussels, recently informed me this figure had jumped to 1095 by the end of 2013.
Remember all those scary stories about dwindling press numbers in Brussels a few years ago? Well, turns out they were wrong. Far from falling, the number of journalists accredited to the EU has actually risen over the past decade – from 929 in June 2004 to 1022 in September 2013, according to unpublished European Commission figures.
The error seems to have arisen when several journalists reported that the number of accredited correspondents had fallen to 752 in March 2010, prompting a spate of lurid headlines. “The media is deserting Brussels,” shouted the normally reliable ‘Coulisses de Bruxelles’ blog. “The incredible shrinking EU press corps,” screamed The Economist’s Charlemagne column, noting that the EU press pack was in “free fall.” And in an article entitled “As the EU does more, fewer tell about it,” The New York Times claimed the number of accredited reporters in Brussels had dropped by more than one-third since 2005. Read More
The Brussels press corps is the biggest in the world, right? Wrong. Washington D.C. and London are far larger.
Surely this shows that journalist numbers in Brussels are in constant decline, right? Again wrong. Data shows numbers have been fairly constant over the past decade.
There is a lot of misinformation about the Brussels press corps, which can lead to misunderstandings about how to deal with the 1,000 or so influential correspondents based in the EU capital. In our next open course on February 20 we will analyse previously unpublished data to look at how the press corps has changed over the last 20 years, the challenges reporters face covering the EU and how this affects the way you do business with Brussels-based journalists.
Our aim is to make you more comfortable dealing with EU reporters. So we will practice how to pitch stories and give you insider tips on the most influential outlets in the Brussels media bubble and how to approach them.
For a more detailed description of the day’s program click here.
The cost of the day course will be €285. Cava is included, VAT is not! If you are interested in taking part, please contact us.
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