Thanks again – I hope that the job will now interest the sort of candidates we’re after, who are probably exactly the people who would have been deterred by the original ad!

Cheers,

Simon.

Great blog, I agree with all you’ve said about what constitutes journalism. I think maybe I should say how things are organised here at Spannerworks.

Our colleague, who formerly worked as a journalist, has the title of Copywriter. The bulk of her job is to write advertorial content and product copy, published in separate outlets to the editorial services.

Simon and I write news and blog posts, both of which are there to stand on their own merits as objective editorial. We aim to operate to the same standards of journalistic integrity as any conventional media outlet.

The clients who sign up for our editorial services understand that this kind of content cannot serve as advertorial or PR for their company – it’s ‘proper’ news, designed to add value to the client’s website because it’s genuinely useful. The client generally has no input into its creation other than to help us formulate a brief.

If it’s not the real thing, readers can get their news just as easily somewhere else – and the providers of dodgy news can be flamed in a multitude of public forums (including Hackbash), which may have a negative impact on the publisher’s reputation. So it’s in their interest to invest in proper news written by genuine journalists.

Charlie