The Times Live: Leader Conference, Cheltenham Literature Festival
In my roles as property editor and business reporter at Gloucestershire Media, I sit in weekly conferences to discuss content within these sections of our newspaper titles.
I was therefore excited at the prospect at sitting in on the Times Live: Leader Conference.
Such meetings do not always start when scheduled - as was the case this time - and the event kicked-off with a joke by The Times editor James Harding, apologising for the delay to proceedings.
He sat on stage with deputy editor Keith Blackmore and a handful of other senior journalists.
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Ideas for topics for the following day's three leaders included the Conservative party conference, the American presidential race, and Syrian and Turkish clashes.
The team were keen to participate as they would on a normal basis, stopping to explain particular jargon to the audience and filling us in when background was needed.
At times amusing, at others fiercely engaging, the event succeeded in educating members of the public about the steps needed to publish leaders that were inviting to the reader and in line with the newspaper's stance on current issues.
Particularly insightful was chief leader writer Daniel Finkelstein, who explained that although individuals in the team may disagree on the topic and content of what should be written, any one of them might be tasked with actually writing the leader and in those circumstances, would have to put their own thoughts to one side and write within the newspaper's views.
One member of the audience asked how the paper could afford to have such a big team discuss content that readers were taking increasingly less notice of, to which James replied demand for newspapers at The Times were up in recent months and leaders were an essential part of voicing the opinions of the title.
James described the conference, thought to be the first of its kind in front of a live audience, an experiment. It is one that worked and ought to be repeated.
Chris Campbell
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