{"id":140022,"date":"2022-07-26T09:57:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T08:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=140022"},"modified":"2022-07-26T11:00:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T10:00:20","slug":"inside-city-hall-the-journalists-shining-a-light-on-london-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/inside-city-hall-the-journalists-shining-a-light-on-london-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside City Hall \u2013 The journalists shining a light on London politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pictured, left to right: Callum Marius (MyLondon) Joe Talora (Evening Standard, LDR) Jessica Frank-Keyes (LondonWorld), Josiah Mortimer (MyLondon), James Cracknell (Social Spider)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For those outside of the Press Gallery<\/a>, the inner workings of political journalism can seem like a closed-off and mysterious part of the media. <\/strong><\/p>\n

What does a typical day look like for City Hall journalists, how do they like to work with PRs and how does one get into this line of reporting?<\/p>\n

ResponseSource community manager Andrew Strutt<\/a> caught up with MyLondon City Hall editor Josiah Mortimer<\/a>, founder of the recently-launched City Hall Journalists<\/a> lobby, to find out\u2026<\/p>\n

City Hall journos are a close-knit group<\/h3>\n

\u2018Having worked in Parliament\u2019s Press Gallery for a couple of years, I found it to be a really useful and supportive network.\u2019
\n\u2018When City Hall moved east to Newham earlier this year, it got me thinking about provisions for reporters in the new building \u2013 which aren\u2019t quite up to scratch.<\/p>\n

\u2018Often people say that reporting in the UK is \u2018London-centric\u2019. This isn\u2019t quite true \u2013 it\u2019s Westminster-centric but a lot of what happens in devolved politics goes ignored.<\/p>\n

\u2018There aren\u2019t many of us covering City Hall, so it is great to be working together to speak with a louder voice, improve transparency and build the profile of GLA reporting. I wanted to get this network off the ground to shine a brighter light on London\u2019s politics. Hopefully we can bring some of the best of the Press Gallery to The Crystal, adapted for today.\u2019<\/p>\n

No day is \u2018typical\u2019, but here is an idea of how things work\u2026#<\/h3>\n

\u2018It will involve watching a committee hearing \u2013 whether that\u2019s economy, planning, health or oversight\/scrutiny.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We work closely with the Assembly Members who are a font of knowledge on City Hall, and are \u2013 like us, in a way \u2013 there to scrutinise the Mayor, so there is a lot of interaction there. The Mayor has a lot of sway over high profile issues like transport and policing so we tend to trawl through new documents and data, and will often do one or two interviews with the Mayor a week. But the GLA impacts all Londoners, so we try to build links with as many community groups, activists, resident groups, unions and so on as possible.\u2019<\/p>\n

How PRs can work with those reporting from City Hall<\/h3>\n

\u2018I tend to primarily work with non-profit PRs \u2013 those at campaign groups and organisations affected by the GLA.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In terms of for-profits, that will often be in a reactive way, getting rights of reply or checking facts. I enjoy writing the occasional review so will work closely with PRs for music, food or travel content. On getting in touch, I\u2019m a big fan of chatting on the phone but a Twitter DM is usually a good way in \u2013 it is a good platform for a very succinct pitch. Please don\u2019t send ten identical emails, though!\u2019<\/p>\n

The best part of working the City Hall patch?<\/h3>\n

Having started in the role last October, Josiah already has some highlights:<\/p>\n

\u2018Getting to ride on the Elizabeth Line before it opened \u2013 Londoners had been waiting for it for so long. I was there on the day it opened, too \u2013 on the first train from Paddington, following the Mayor and revelling in the transport geekery.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sometimes the highlights are also lowlights, in a sense. I recently did a London Assembly tour of Brixton speaking to market traders about the cost-of-living crisis. It was moving to hear what they\u2019re going through, and it\u2019s also my patch so great to get to know more of the community.\u2019<\/p>\n

Find out more about the City Hall Journalists group and its members here<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

For news from the political and public affairs sector, sign up to Vuelio\u2019s Friday newsletter Point of Order<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does a typical day look like for City Hall journalists, how do they like to work with PRs and how does one get into this line of reporting? ResponseSource community manager Andrew Strutt caught up with MyLondon City Hall editor Josiah Mortimer, founder of the recently-launched City Hall Journalists lobby, to find out\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":140031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7383,7365,3532,3729,7271],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140022"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140032,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022\/revisions\/140032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}