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Business journalist quits regional daily for PR role

Alex BellA business journalist has left a regional daily after eight years to take up a new PR role.

Manchester Evening News journalist Alex Bell, pictured left, as been appointed as head of media at Roland Dransfield PR.

Alex, 30, has spent the past three years as a business journalist at the MEN, where he served as a crime reporter for five years prior to that.

As head of media at Dransfield, he will report to associate director Caroline Aspinall, with whom he briefly worked at the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post.

Said Alex: “I’m really excited about joining Roland Dransfield. The agency has a great reputation for quality delivery and also has ambitious growth plans in place.

“I have a lot of respect for managing director Lisa Morton and associate director Caroline Aspinall, who I was lucky enough to have worked with during a brief spell early on in my career at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.”

He added: “Being here feels like a natural move, my colleagues are great and it’s exciting to already be working with the interesting businesses that RDPR has as clients.

“I’m also still very much working within the business community and have a lot of relationships and contacts within the region, who I will hopefully continue to work with, just in a slightly different way.”

Lisa Morton, Managing Director at Roland Dransfield, said: “Alex is an expert at building audiences and creating communities through storytelling, and as a former journalist has an acute nose for a story and what will get into print.

“He is also extremely well-connected and will use his extensive media contacts and knowledge of the modern newsroom for the benefit of all our clients.”

12 comments

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  • January 8, 2016 at 9:49 am
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    Is it me or is there a trend back towards PR firms recruiting former journalists?
    In addition to stories like this, I have recently come across a couple of ads from PR firms saying they are made of of journo and they seek more journos.
    For a time, it seemed that PR/comms firms were preferring to take on pretty blonde bimbos (both male and female) straight out of uni rather than an experienced old hack who knows how the media works.
    If there is a trend as I believe, it can only be welcomed.
    We journalists need all the opportunities we can get, considering the state of the industry.
    What other roles are we fit for?
    There was once a book called something like 101 Uses for a Dead Cat. Could we have a similar book, 101 Uses for a redundant Journalist?

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  • January 8, 2016 at 10:15 am
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    I see loads of stories about journos moving to PR, I’m sure HTFP has had three about business desk people in the past week alone, and I’ve done it myself.

    What really annoys me though is the attitude in most newsrooms about PR’s being sons of the devil, being given short shrift on the phone, or not even being answered (I’ve seen it when I was in news myself). Reporters moan and generally slag off PR people, until they become one themselves. Try a bit more respect first.

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  • January 8, 2016 at 11:47 am
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    It is not a popular sentiment but I am am impressed at the way some press releases are written since so many former hacks went into PR. Not all, of course, some I worked with never did learn to write properly. They became managers.

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  • January 8, 2016 at 6:36 pm
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    Why should we respect the PR industry, Pete? It exists purely to obstruct, manipulate and take advantage of the media for the benefit of corporate interests.

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  • January 9, 2016 at 8:59 am
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    “What other roles are we fit for?” Anything we put our minds to, Flossie. At best PR is a sad, unimaginative, post-journalism career and I’m tired of reading congratulatory stories about albeit well-meaning and possibly desperate hacks who’ve crossed the rubicon. But at worst PR is the very antithesis of journalism.

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  • January 9, 2016 at 1:59 pm
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    There’s 3 reasons to move from journalism to corporate PR 1) regular hours 2) you can’t hack it as a reporter 3) money

    I can’t imagine anyone does it for a love for PR

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  • January 11, 2016 at 12:10 pm
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    Yeah, nothing to be respected about PR work other than the money and not working on Boxing Day. Not only are you working for the man, you’re shining his shoes and valeting his beamer.

    I’m fairly certain nobody ever grew up wanting to be in PR, and if they did, it’d be a ‘we need to talk about Kevin’ style situation.

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  • January 11, 2016 at 2:55 pm
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    Cynical bunch of old hacks on here. I’ve worked in PR for the past 40 years. I have bulging cuttings books to prove my worth and its been achieved by working with editors and journalists as opposed to (both sides) regarding each other with suspicion. It works, try it. Many PR’s actually pitch some pretty decent stuff.

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  • January 11, 2016 at 3:35 pm
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    I’ve been a journalist since 2006 and remain keen to stay in the industry, but I think hacks who take a holier-than-thou attitude towards PR need to take a step back. Yes, there are examples of unethical practice by the industry, but it’s not as though the press tells the unvarnished truth without interference from business interests. Don’t believe me? Try telling your editor you’ve got a great story about misconduct by a major estate agent on your patch and see how keen s/he is to run it.

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  • January 11, 2016 at 4:52 pm
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    Jimbobble. Spot on. As a veteran hack I recall newspapers are more than capable of pulling a fast one when it comes to their own bad PR. Witness the sly placing of corrections and apologies way down the paper and the latest fad for slipping blatant advertising into papers under the thin disguise of news.
    Then there is the sucking up to local MPs, big advertisers even councils if they are spending big money on advertising. I can recall one story against a county council that was completely re-written by a then group editor because the paper was so desperate for the council’s shilling. The reporter despaired.
    It’s all happened and is happening. Get off your high horses those still left hacking for a living. PR and journalism is closer than you think in the modern ultra-capitalist world. I wish it was otherwise.

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  • January 11, 2016 at 4:57 pm
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    before some pedant strikes on HTFP is should be PR and journalism ARE closer. I know, I know. That’s what comes of subbing your own copy!

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