At Home with magazine maven Kelly Baker

06/20/21 • 41 min

“We are a country of people who are very obsessed with travel...Australians are hardcore travelers...We're also a country who are obsessed with real estate...COVID-19 swept into town, which altered real estate quite dramatically, and also prevented us from traveling. So accordingly, it's not that surprising that we would start to get even more involved in our homes and more au fait with real estate markets in general. And NewsCorp is smart. And it knows what to do when these things occur...they saw that straight away. And here we are with At Home flipbook Real Estate.”

During the past 18 months, our homes have become, not just places where we live, but also places where we work.

We’ve all become obsessed with stories about skyrocketing property prices.

And watching live-streamed auctions on a Saturday is the new reality-TV binge.

So after a year of belt-tightening and closures across media outlets, News Corp Australia came out swinging, launching its new property platform and magazine lift-out At Home in January.

It’s PR Darlings has the great pleasure of welcoming At Home Editor Kelly Baker onto the podcast.

Kelly’s edited and contributed to some of the country's best-known titles, including Body and Soul, Nine Honey, New Idea and Who Weekly, to name a few, during her illustrious magazine career.

PR professionals and aspiring magazine writers tune in – Kelly’s opening the door wide-open to It’s PR Darlings’ listeners so you can learn how to pitch a winning cover shot or craft an enticing story.

But just because it’s magazine-style, doesn’t mean it’s not anchored on the principles that govern all media: news values.

“It's news-based lifestyle,” Kelly says. “It's not just pretty houses that we happen to stumble across that we like. Everything is tied back to a ‘newsy’ hook.”

You’ll also hear about Kelly’s journey to earn her hard-won skills and the mentors who’ve taught or supported her along the way.

Finally, today’s jargon gem is the complex media convention known as “backgrounding”. It’s different to “off-the-record”, although some people confuse the two. Listen until the end to find out what it is, when to use it and how to do so ethically. This is a technique that’s applied during very specific circumstances and not to be misused. It's a high-stakes strategy and one we believe is best suited to the more "seasoned" professional.

Thank you for tuning into It’s PR Darlings. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review.

It’s PR Darlings is produced by Jo Stone from Sticks and Stones PR and Greer Quinn from Forward Communications.

Kelly’s social links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellybakermedia?s=20

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-baker-a046b02a/?originalSubdomain=au

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