Another “spot” from a favourite scribe
No apologies from me for my link today.
I have made no secret of firstly, my respect and admiration for Tom Peck who writes political sketch/opinion pieces for The Guardian newspaper and secondly, my conviction that we Rust columnists exist not to ‘ape’ or attempt to provide front-line journalism – we can leave that to the professionals – but rather to offer an unique and sometimes insightful “take” on what is happening in the modern world (which at the moment, of course, is plenty).
Tens of years ago in my misspent youth, as the editor of a student newspaper, I somehow burrowed my way into the offices of several of Fleet Street’s finest – and Private Eye – on the pretext of undertaking a series of pieces on “The Editors”.
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time and it certainly gave me a ‘window’ of sorts into how the media world operated.
One of my subjects was Tony Elliott, editor and proprietor of the London listings magazine Time Out and then aged about 25 (he’s now 73, I’ve just looked him up on Wikipedia).
In the middle of a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion about how he managed to set up and establish Time Out during a vacation between terms at Keele University, I asked him how much preparatory research he had done beforehand.
He replied none.
The gist of his thrust was that the world of big magazine publishers like IPC and others was littered with instances of spending years and hundreds of thousands of pounds pulling in research further to (for example) the launch of a prospective new organ aimed at younger teenage girls – academic analysis, focus groups, going out and talking to people in the street, whatever – after which they’d bring it out with a fanfare media blitz and eye-wateringly expensive advertising campaign … only to find it then flopped like a poorly-made blancmange on Bake Off.
At the time Mr Elliott impressed me greatly with the tale of his somewhat different approach with Time Out. Living in London – and recoiling in disgust from the ‘middle of the road’ naffness of the market leader listings magazine What’s On – he initially set out to amass a database of what was going on in ‘the non-mainstream’ scene of the capital (music, films, books, art exhibitions, cultural events) simply for his own personal benefit.
As a result, his general rule/advice for anyone thinking of setting up a new business project in any walk of life was “Don’t waste your money doing research. Instead, wait until you come up with an idea or concept that excites you and/or you feel passionate about – and just go for it”. It will then either ‘work’ or it won’t.
Ironically, it was exactly this business model that the publishers of the National Rust had adopted around the time when they first invited me to join their adventure – and also the reason that I signed up.
And look at me now – a semi-retired multi-millionaire living in seclusion in a mansion in Gloucestershire when I’m not on my annual eight-week vacation in my usual room at the Hotel Du Cap-Eden Rock at Antibes in the South of France.
Anyway – as I was mentioning – see here for a link to yet another classic outing from Tom Peck, as appears today upon the website of – THE GUARDIAN
