The media has always had to adjust with the changing times, and journalists are well-versed in rethinking and reworking quickly –  whether that’s moving from print to digital, starting a new beat, or altering a story once another lead comes to light.

One journalist that has been adapting to big changes in the media industry this year is Yara Silva, head of content for Reach Studio. We caught up with her to discuss the new job, the growing importance of podcasts and social media, and what aspiring journalists need to thrive in the modern media industry.

‘Anytime there’s a new platform, it’s worth diving into and testing the waters,’ says Yara. ‘Video isn’t going anywhere, and social video is here to stay.’

At the start of the year, you were appointed as head of content of the newly-launched Reach Studio, tell us a little bit about the work you do at the studio?

Reach Studio was set up to bring together all the different talents that we have working in video across the company. Previously, we had people working in the north-east on video, people working on The Mirror on video, in commercial on video, and they weren’t talking to each other. This meant that not only was there duplication happening, but there were opportunities going missed because people weren’t communicating about it. We really needed to find a way to stop that happening and to streamline all our skill sets. That’s why Reach Studio started. 

It’s been a big transition, but it’s been great. People are already learning so many new skills and broadening what they’re doing day-to-day. A big part of what we’re doing in Reach Studio is improving the quality of our video. We want all our editorial content to be as brilliant as it possibly can be, and really elevate the quality of it. But we also want our commercial video to be so good that it works seamlessly with our editorial. The aim is to grow all our social accounts and then get more commercial partners on board as well.

Part of your job involves working across various Reach titles (both national and regional), what are the advantages and challenges of this?

I think some of the advantages are that people who may have been working on one thing, are now being exposed to other opportunities. For example, someone who may have been working at home, doing site video for one of our regional titles, could now have an opportunity to go out and do some filming, or work on something for a different title that they might not have had the chance to do before.

For the company, I guess the big advantage is that we’re not duplicating work anywhere. For example, if the Royals are out and about, then all our titles would be covering that because there’s a big audience for it. However, that would mean multiple people doing the same video, which was not a good use of time. This has massively streamlined that. I guess the challenge is that it’s a very different way of working, and it’s meant that we’ve had to rejig things. But to be honest, it’s all going very well at the moment. 

Can you tell us about some of the future projects that Reach Studio are working on and where you see it being in five years time?

The immediate thing that we wanted to do was launch some shows, and we’ve just finished two. The first we did was Euro Thrash, which was our Euros football show. We filmed it in Manchester, and it was the first time that we actually had a proper producer, editing teams and set design – we really threw a lot at it. We also had a commercial sponsor for the first time in Crown Trade Paint, which was wonderful. 

We want to do a lot more of that bespoke content for brands as well. But then we’re also very conscious that our brands are news brands, so we did the Division Bell. This pitted the politics editor for the Mirror against the politics editor for the Express. That’s a big USP of Reach, having these two very opposite brands under the same roof. It started in the run up to the election, and then ran all the way up until last week. That was really interesting and we had a good audience for that.

We want to be in a place where all our editorial content is good enough to get a commercial sponsor, and all our commercial sponsorship would be good enough to work for us, both organically and editorially. I think we’ll definitely be there in five years time, hopefully a lot sooner. But basically, we want to keep taking on more of these bigger projects, because people are loving working on them, and the audience is really enjoying them.

Podcasts have become key for publishers over the last few years – why is this, and what makes a podcast successful?

I think podcasts are becoming more and more important because people are just busier and busier –  it’s so easy to consume a podcast while you’re doing other things. Therefore, it does make sense for publishers to be moving towards the podcast space. It’s hard to stand out, because there are so many of them, and a lot of it’s down to very simple things, like audio quality. Audiences will instantly switch off if audio quality is rubbish, and that’s very understandable. 

It sounds counterintuitive, but I think video does make podcasts work better. A lot of the podcasts that I find myself as a consumer, I will discover through TikTok. A lot of TikTok accounts do ‘fake’ podcasts. So they sit presenters there with podcast mics and just film TikTok videos like they’re doing a podcast, but there’s no actual podcast. Podcasting and video do go hand-in-hand, and we’ve seen the success that video can bring. I think podcasts are only going to get bigger and more important to us.

The majority of your journalism career has been spent working on the social media side, what can publishers and journalists do on social media in 2024 to ensure they are engaging with their audiences?

I think listening to feedback is key. Are people actually engaging with and interested in what you’re saying and the content you’re putting out there? If you’re repeatedly producing content that’s flopping, then it’s probably because you don’t have an audience for it. You should change what you’re doing, rather than assuming that the audience is going to change their interests. Publishers need to be where the audiences are rather than waiting for the audience to come to them. We all need to get better at that. 

Also, anytime there’s a new platform, it’s worth diving into and testing the waters. It’s not always going to work. We dived into threads as soon as it started, and that didn’t take off the way we hoped it would, but we would have been kicking ourselves if we hadn’t tried it. I think we always need to try new stuff. But video isn’t going anywhere, and social video is here to stay.

You also work as a lecturer in journalism at City University, what would your advice be to aspiring journalists?

Keep on top of trends – make sure you have a TikTok account and that you’re on YouTube and looking at what publishers and content creators are putting out there. Upskill yourself at every single opportunity. If you have an internship, and someone offers you the chance to go out and do a Vox Pop, then do it. If someone asks you to pull some data, even though it might sound boring, do it because you’ll learn something from it. If you get the chance to go along to a shoot, then go. The more that you can learn as a student journalist or an aspiring journalist, the more you understand about different areas of the industry.

Qualifications like the NCTJ and journalism courses in general are also really valuable for what they provide people. Media law is still essential to being a working journalist. There’s a lot of very good skills that can come from a course like that, but you can also get those skills through working in the industry.

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