The year is slowly drawing to a close and I’m sure all journalists and media professionals are looking forward to some well-deserved time off over the Christmas period. 

If you want a little break from the day job before then, then you can come join us at our Festive Fizz event on 13 December. Pop in any time between 2 – 6pm to raise a glass (and a plate) to this year’s successes – sign up here. 

There are still a few more weeks until the big day though and while the festive features might now be filed, January will soon roll around with more content needed for print and online. Before we get ahead of ourselves and look at what’s to come, it’s time to reflect on what was trending on the Journalist Enquiry Service in November. 

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Christmas requests have dominated the service for a third month in a row with just over 17% of all enquiries containing the keyword ‘Christmas’. This has been backed up with the key phrases ‘Christmas gift guide’ at 4% and ‘advent calendar’ at just over 1%, both performing well again. 

It has been reflected in the categories as well with Women’s Interest & Beauty remaining the most popular category choice again and a rise of 6% for the Consumer Technology category. Journalists have been looking to cover beauty products and tech gadgets that will be popular this Christmas as well as potentially looking for gift guide products to review. 

For many people, this Christmas will have to be on a budget due to the cost-of-living crisis and that unfortunately has been another recurring key phrase in the last few months. It cropped up in just over 2% of all enquiries last month with the keyword ‘inflation’ in just under 1% as well. 

The Personal Finance category was the second biggest growing category as a result with a rise of 27% from last month. Aside from the on-going cost-of-living crisis, the Autumn Budget was also announced in November which many journalists looked to cover on the service. 

The biggest increase from the previous month came in the Media & Marketing category as it jumped up by 31%. This could be a result of Elon Musk making the headlines last month after his acquisition of Twitter, and the rumours that the social media service’s future could be in trouble. November also had ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ which could fit into this category and those two key phrases were in around 1% of all enquiries. 

The other big growing category was the Public Sector, Third Sector & Legal one which increased by 26%. This would again encompass some of the Elon Musk requests but there is also the controversial World Cup in Qatar. As also highlighted in our last trends post, last month was Movember which would encourage more charity enquiries. 

Overall, use of the enquiry service increased by just under 4% compared to November 2021. Staff journalists remain the most frequent users at 58% followed by freelance journalists at 25%. The top three media types all grew from last month with consumer media now at 37%, national newspaper/current affairs at 27% and trade/business/professional media at 19%.  

December will see the final flurry of Christmas requests with a focus on last-minute deals so the consumer categories are likely to do well again. As we mentioned earlier though, Christmas on tighter budgets could mean the Personal Finance category will prove popular again. 

The New Year is now just on the horizon so the Health and Food & Drink categories should do well this month – both Dry January and Veganuary are coming up and many people will be looking to start 2023 with a healthier lifestyle. There could also be an increase for the Travel category with Winter breaks or getaways and the Public Sector, Third Sector & Legal category might perform well again with Human Rights Day coming up on 10 December. 

If you are looking for friendly festive financial advice or planning ahead for healthy lifestyle tips then the Journalist Enquiry Service is here to help you out. All you have to do is fill in our quick and easy form here.