{"id":43823,"date":"2013-09-25T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T13:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=43823"},"modified":"2017-11-09T14:55:10","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T14:55:10","slug":"journalist-spotlight-asa-bennett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/journalist-spotlight-asa-bennett\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist Spotlight: Asa Bennett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asa Bennett<\/a> recently joined<\/span> The Huffington Post UK<\/a> as its business reporter. A digital journalist for the entirety of his journalistic career, Asa has replaced<\/span> Charlie Thomas<\/a> who left earlier this year. Asa spoke to Vuelio about the evolution of his role, his target audience and his new approach to working with PR.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"AsaHow has your role changed from when Charlie was the business reporter?<\/span>
\n<\/b>I\u2019m now reporting to the political director so there is definitely a political tint to everything. The role still covers macroeconomic things, whether it be the Bank of England, changing inflation, interest rates or quantitative easing, and what\u2019s affecting small businesses and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

How do business and politics work together?<\/b><\/span>
\nMy role is kind of an acknowledgment that business and politics are heavily entwined. In the context of the economic recovery, a lot of politicians are talking about business. It\u2019s my job to cut through the fluff in Westminster and see what it\u2019s actually like for the city and the high street, the latter of which is still struggling and needs to evolve.<\/p>\n

What type of content do you produce?<\/b><\/span>
\nWe do long-form features on topics and themes, for example business views from a wide range of sources on youth unemployment, or quick-fire things like business reactions to current affairs. A lot of it is news and reaction. It\u2019s never churnalism though, everything requires context and has to be original.<\/p>\n

Who is your target audience?<\/span>
\n<\/b>The content is aimed at someone who is definitely interested in business but isn\u2019t necessarily part of the industry in the day-to-day sphere. To put it crudely I think, \u2018How can I break it down for someone who doesn\u2019t know what I\u2019m on about?\u2019 As soon as I start babbling about quantitative easing, insolvency and interest rates, people\u2019s eyes glaze over. I need to bring it out and say why it\u2019s interesting. Every little twist and turn in business is relevant to people\u2019s lives. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Is your relationship with PRs different since joining The Huffington Post?<\/span>
\n<\/b>My relationship with PRs has both changed and flourished. I had built a good network of contacts from the business world, but there\u2019s been an evolution because I\u2019ve moved from the trade press to mass-media consumer territory. I\u2019ve had to politely tell PRs that because our readers aren\u2019t all business owners or insiders who know the jargon, their stories have to cater for my new audience.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I don\u2019t have the time to go to PRs, but I know if they\u2019re coming to me there is a reason for it and there should be a story in there.<\/p>\n

Any tips for PRs?<\/span>
\n<\/b>It\u2019s great if a PR is honest and able to supply extra information or answer additional questions. If someone calls it is great if they\u2019ve emailed beforehand, so I can give quick feedback based on that information.<\/p>\n

So you don\u2019t mind a follow-up phone call?<\/span>
\n<\/b>Do the follow-up phone call if you want, but email first.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

What do PRs do that\u2019s bad?<\/span>
\n<\/b>It\u2019s always a bit awkward (to put it politely) if they seem to have no idea what we cover. I sometimes ask those PRs, \u2018Where do you think we could put this piece?\u2019 That said, I\u2019m always interested to hear what they\u2019re up to because I\u2019m looking for something different and exclusive. If it\u2019s the same pre-packaged stuff that\u2019s not really our thing or for the right audience, then I probably wouldn\u2019t go for it. You\u2019ll know if it\u2019s right for us because I\u2019ll be chasing you<\/i> up.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>Take Five<\/b><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you could be the head of any business in the world, which one would it be?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nVirgin Galactic. It would be exciting to tell people, \u2018My work isn\u2019t that complicated, it\u2019s not rocket science… Oh wait, yes it is!\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who do you admire most in business and why?<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/strong>Michael O\u2019Leary. My reason is that he goes out there and almost doesn\u2019t care. He’s a businessman’s Machiavelli; for all that bad publicity, it seems to make Ryan Air and him stronger.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you could have a super power what would it be?<\/b><\/span>
\nWe all know the famous journalist alias Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you have any surprising hobbies or interests?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/strong>I\u2019m surprisingly excellent at Go Ape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who would play you in a film?
\n<\/strong>Adrien Brody.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Editorial information on Asa Bennett, The Huffington Post UK and thousands of other media contacts and outlets, can be found in the<\/span>\u00a0Vuelio\u00a0Media Database<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asa Bennett recently joined The Huffington Post UK as its business reporter. A digital journalist for the entirety of his journalistic career, Asa has replaced Charlie Thomas who left earlier this year. Asa spoke to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":322,"featured_media":43836,"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":[248,350,7272,3532,5741],"tags":[180,2000,3425,5111,5112,5113,104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43823"}],"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\/322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43823"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109807,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43823\/revisions\/109807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}