Edelman recruits the BBC's director of global news Richard Sambrook for new role

Edelman recruits BBC's director of global news Richard Sambrook for new role

Peter Hay, prweek.com, 15 February 2010, 08:54am

Edelman has appointed the BBC's director of global news Richard Sambrook as global vice-chairman and chief content officer.

Newly appointed: Richard Sambrook

Sambrook will be the agency's first chief content officer and will be in charge of assisting clients to produce written, video and audio content.

He will report to Edelman EMEA president and CEO David Brain and will sit on the global executive committee chaired by Richard Edelman.

Global CEO and president Richard Edelman said: 'Richard's journalism and senior media company management resume is difficult to rival; equally important to us and our clients, Richard has been at the forefront of the digitisation of news and its interaction with the audience and stakeholders.'

Sambrook will work from the London office.

Ian Monk, a former journalist who established PR firm Ian Monk Associates said: 'Structural changes reverberating throughout the media industry have created an Armageddon in terms of journalistic redundancies. Many turn to what they are inclined to see as an entitlement to a lucrative career in PR.'

He adds: 'PR and journalism can be complementary professions but the requirements for success in each are often widely at variance with the other.

'Our industry should welcome a vibrant influx of journalists. But in the interests of professional respect and a proper estimation of its worth, PR needs to address the issues of proper mentoring and training requirements for the new intake.'

All Comments

Danny Rogers - 15 February 2010

Very pertinent comments from Ian Monk. To what extent is PR relying on trophy hires from journalism - and to what extent is it raising standards for entry?

On the flipside, the big question is what effect is this having on journalism, where so much senior talent is trickling away?

mark hanson - 15 February 2010

I think there's different levels of quality in terms of PR firms hiring journalists. This one is a seriously BIG hitter! 10/10 Edelman

AgentsForChange - 15 February 2010

I feel he will do well at Edelman, I disagree with Danny. I feel that PR needs the talent pool, and jounalists in that pool need PR too. Look at declining readership of many broadsheet newspapers such as the Guardian, or Times.

Their talent there for investigation, for storytelling, levareging connections that many in the commentariat have to politicians, in a olitical context are all usefull.

Think I need Mark Hanson to elaborate why he is big hitter. BBC Worldservice cmmnts on Social Media were short of off mark. They could have focused on China and Twitter, making a prodemocracy were so great because we embraces Twitter argument. We have all read Cluetrain there is more to this business than just allowing transparency. Especially in public affairs.

Neil Henderson - 16 February 2010

Richard brings various levels of expertise to the role. He is a first class journalist, a good performer in front of senior people, a top networker... and most of all for most of Edelman's clients he already has the huge advantage of having worked in a senior role for the BBC.

The benefits of having ex-journalists at PR agencies are huge.

Rather than concentrating on status reports and spurious e-mails the journalists can manage expectations, give strategic advice, and manage senior/junior level ambitions.

DAVID BRAIN - 16 February 2010

Trophy hire? What like a trophy wife? What an odd comment Danny. He's not been hired as a media relations guy, as we made plain in the release. He's been hired to help us move into a new area...one of content. The skills required for that are journalistic and editorial, but it's not about doing media relations in this case. Surely you should be congratulating us for getting someone into the business who is so eminently qualiified for this \(he set up much of BBC online) and not taking cheap shots? Or am I over-reacting? Ian is right on the mentoring bit though. At Weber Shandwick I experienced this with Michael Prescot and Peter Morgan and here we have Jo Sheldon and Rishi Bhatacharya. All made the leap and have then prospered, but it can be a very different world and some do not make it. I am confident Richard will succeed and don't forget, he has an awful lot of management experience to bring as well as journalistic.

Neil Henderson - 16 February 2010

It is also about contacts. PR people have very little time to make contacts because they're crafting campaigns, meeting client expectations, and offering counsel. Richard can ring up any newsdesk and they'll know exactly what he wants to deliver and how.

DAVID BRAIN - 16 February 2010

Neil you are right on that. But honestly, what we are really keen for him to do \(and we have sold in to two clients already) is to build content strategy....in other words, how can a company tell it's own story initially via it's own site as well as via social media. Companies of scale with multi-stakeholder audiences need to get better at systemically producing this sort of content. That involves hiring trained journalists to work internally \(one of our overseas clients is looking at hiring 3 now) who produce copy, video and audio, which goes through an editing and approval process and is published. Some of it will be for internal purposes some for discreet goups but some for wider consumption. That's what we want him to help us set up and systemise. It's not a replacement for media relations and we are not saying that credibility can come only from doing this, but we do think "every company should be a media company" and the best people to advise and set that up are people who did it for a living before - senior editors and journalists.

Alastair MacDonald - 19 February 2010

I agree with Danny's "trophy" comment, as some such hires do appear as little more than 'PR stunts' by the agencies themselves.

However, I can see what David is driving at in terms of telling the story across all content. However, it begs the question what value in-house corporate comms departments are adding if they are not already orchestrating this themselves, albeit aided and abetted by external support.

Hopefully, he might also brush up the Edelman content: ".. how can a company tell it's \(sic) own story initially via it's \(sic) own site.."!