Former Sunday Times Style editor Jackie Annesley on swapping newspapers for tech
"I loved being a journalist," writes Jackie Annesley in a frank essay about losing her last job in journalism, as editor of The Sunday Times Style supplement, where, among many other things, she commissioned the PanDolly podcast from two of her columnists; it's now better known by its second name, The High Low, with journalists Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton.
Jackie's exit from The Sunday Times is accompanied with euphemisms about 'replacement' and 'commercial decisions'. In the months that followed what she felt was the end of a career in newspapers - editing The Sunday Times' News Review, being in charges of features at the London Evening Standard and editing the Daily Mail's Femail section - Jackie realised that this sudden change in circumstances could, in fact, work for her.
She's now Creative Director for start-up Soda Says. 'Soda' stands for School of the Digital Age, and, according to their Instagram bio, they've been "selling tech to you and your mother since 2017." Jackie writes a fun, irreverent weekly newsletter for them, and hosts the podcast Talk Tech to Me, where she asks starry guests to explain their relationships with their mobile phones. The first episode features Anne Robinson of the Weakest Link fame, and it's great fun.
What Jackie has to say is packed with wisdom and good advice, as well as an appreciation of how journalistic innovation has sped up thanks to the internet, while the money has drained away... thanks to the internet. A "sunset industry"? Perhaps, but the lessons in communication that journalism teaches you are more important in a digital age than ever before.
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How has your industry moved from analogue to digital? Each episode, creative guests tell host Suchandrika Chakrabarti how the internet has revolutionised work.
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