Hearts & Minds: How to turn dry data into headline gold

The RAC comms people had a good day yesterday. Their press release bemoaning the hiking of drop-off charges at airports was everywhere. Except the motoring organisation didn’t call them that but ‘kiss and fly’ fees and that description was in all the headlines. The phrase isn’t new; it’s been around for a while. But it’s not the sort of term you associate with a dry as dust missive on data.

That is the point. By inserting it into the title, it got everyone’s attention. Journalists on receiving an email on airport costs might have been tempted to yawn and click immediately on to something else. Put kiss and fly at the top and you’ve hooked them. Likewise, the news editor would have taken it to the editor’s morning conference. There, a story is pitched in a matter of seconds. It’s rapid fire, quick, quick. No interest and it perishes there and then; grab them and it’s in the paper or in the bulletin. That is how it works – no fancy words, no ponderous introductions. Short, snappy, instantly understood. Even better, if the headline is already written.

There will be some who sneer at this, who call it dumbing down. But that is the way it is, that is how it has to be. Everything is reductive in the news media because it is, because all the journalist is doing is putting themselves in the position of the busy, easily distracted reader and look away viewer. Every day, they receive thousands of stories. They must boil those down to the most interesting for their audience. That is it, plain and simple.

No matter how important you are, how major the brand or large the company, you are competing. You might think that what you’re saying is so vital, that you’re so significant as to make the space a gimme. It isn’t, you’re not.

You may be guaranteed a slot in the schedule but that spectrum is wide – the difference between the splash, a page lead and a nib. On broadcast news, there is the lead, donuts, shorts and the kicker. Likewise, online, there is a running order. You want your tale, your company, to be up there, to be as prominent as possible, on whichever channel. That’s what smart comms does and that’s how the RAC elevated a piece of news about numbers, always a turn-off, by ensuring it stood out.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.