Confessions of an ex-editor

The job of a B2B magazine editor is more nuanced than you might think. Phil Chadwick shares his experiences from nine years in the role.

Think of a newsroom in any movie and it’s big. An entire floor filled with the clacking of keyboards and workers frantically breaking that Big Story. It’s All The President’s Men. It’s exciting, tense and oddly stressful to watch.

B2B titles, in general, don’t quite match that drama. You can count the editorial staff on one hand (or sometimes a finger) and stretched teams are left to spin many, many plates. It can get the adrenalin going and press days were always a buzz. Online news meant the satisfaction of breaking stories remained intact.

As an editor of a B2B title for nine years, it amused me how many people thought they knew my job. They assumed so much and yet only hinted at my responsibilities. So, I thought I’d share a few of those experiences to give you a flavour of the ups and downs of editing. And if you’ve ever wondered why your press release or story pitch hasn’t got the coverage you think it deserves, then read on. Because it’s not necessarily because it’s bad…

It is hard not to roll your eyes or let out an audible sigh when someone tells you what they think your job involves. Everyone’s an expert. When it came to role of an editor, it wasn’t that everything they said was wrong (yes I did write articles, yes I did make calls on headlines) but it was that their description barely scratched the surface

So (deep breath) my day job was magazine editor, news writer, features editor, online editor, event coordinator, marketing assistant and manning the complaints department. And fielding any queries about published material was often dwarfed by correspondence about events; from organising speakers for conferences to liaising with marketing on messaging. And post-event meant fielding messages about anything including ‘robust’ observations about venues and catering.

None of that is really your responsibility but it all adds up. It’s why your attention is everything everywhere all at once. It’s why press weeks on the magazine were a joy; a chance to be laser focused on putting together the latest printed edition and shutting out all the external noise.

Many editors face the same challenges so it’s no surprise that press releases and PR pitches get lost in an unwieldy inbox.

Smaller titles mean smaller editorial teams. Jaws would drop when I told people that I had, including myself, a workforce of three (which eventually dropped to two) and there are B2B

titles that operate with a single editor. But if there is anything approaching a ‘team’ then your pitch will be better received through a section editor (news or features) or a young, hungry reporter keen for a byline. Getting to know the editor is no bad thing, but others might give you a more direct line into print or online.

Knowing the publication’s audience also gets you bonus points in the eyes of a journalist. Pitching about how consumers can use cardboard boxes to help them move home (true story) won’t get you very far when the audience is senior decision makers across the packaging supply chain. Having said that, any idea or story that keeps captains of industry awake at night will have legs. Especially if your organisation or client has a solution to help them sleep soundly.

Everyone wants a piece of an editor and knowing production schedules and deadlines means you get a pretty good idea of when life is calmer; a small window of opportunity before the cycle cranks up again. So many PR campaigns are fighting for attention, so it’s not an exact science. And while we’re talking attention, wordy releases will only annoy the time-poor journalist. The best way to write a press release? Read any news story from any publication. Short, sharp and punchy. All containing the essential elements: who, what, where, why and how.

Different editors will have had different experiences. For me it was a buzzy and draining job in equal measure. Yes, there was stress but in truth it could have been tougher. After all, in nine years I was never sued once.

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