Sister Northcliffe Newspaper titles, the Grimsby and Scunthorpe Evening Telegraphs, are carrying a lively new supplement – which represents the best of co-operation between the editorial and advertising departments.

Called Life the new health, fashion, family, fitness and lifetsyle publication replaces the old Health Telegraph supplement, which – like the new pull-out – used to come out every two months.

Life editor Jo Rodgers explained: “Its style had become dated, it looked dull and was filled with realms of dreary press releases about being ill! It had no reader loyalty and was very hard to sell advertising into.

“The advertising department approached my editor at Scunthorpe, Michelle Lalor, with a plea to somehow update it, as it simply wasn’t paying its way.

“A brainstorming session between editorial and advertising came up with the name Life and the various categories – Caring Life, Healthy Life, Life Style etc. Without being corny, it was an example of advertising and editorial working well together – they told us the kind of things they could sell ads into, and we melded that with features aimed at our readers.

“It is an outlet for the kind of things people want to read about (losing weight, mad sports, product reviews, all with a local slant) but which don’t sit very well in our very news-orientated main papers.

“Michelle and I wanted it to look completely different from the rest of the paper, so gave a free hand to editorial artist Ian Bolton, who designed the whole concept and got so enthusiastic about the project he refused to let anyone else near it and ended up subbing it himself.

“Advertisers loved it, the centre fashion spread has already been booked up for six months. Like the editorial, it is an outlet for advertisers who felt the main paper wasn’t for them. Reader reaction is also positive, so much so that we are hoping to change it to a monthly publication (if my nerves can stand it).”

Jo has been at the Scunthorpe Telegraph two years now, originally as a sub. She became women’s editor/chief feature writer in a channge arounf about six months ago.

She previously worked at the Hull Daily Mail as a reporter, assistant news editor, sub and feature writer.

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