The former editor of free financial daily newspaper City AM has started a company offering outsourced editorial coverage on everything from weddings, DIY and motoring to weekly celebrity columnists.
David Parsley is behind parsleymedia.com, a ‘one-stop shop’for newspapers and broadcasters seeking bespoke content, training or advice. The company offers a subbing and design service, targeted at newspapers where subbing cuts have been made.
Parsley Media will offer one-off articles or columns from its 80 newspaper and magazine journalists – and as many as 150 including freelancers – as well as regular features and broadcast material complete with ‘leading television presenters”. The company will even run editorial recruitment and training services.
Talent on tap
Parsley owns the business and has spent almost 12 months recruiting staff and preparing the service.
Parsley said: ‘With the economic climate we are in there are going to be inevitable cost savings across newspaper groups but I think many of those publishers still want to keep standards up and that’s what we’re doing.
‘There are many publishers talking about losing their subs and this is one way to keep standards high: we can get you the writers, we can sub it, we can design it. If a newspaper wants a supplement, we can do that too.’
Parsley stepped down from City AM, the newspaper he launched as editor, citing personal reasons in August last year, not long after the independent title – which for the moment is available only in London and its surrounding commuter heartlands – had broke through the 100,000 distribution mark.
Parsley was previously business editor at the Sunday Express and a financial journalist at The Sunday Times.
City AM is among the newspapers that could benefit from Parsley’s service – the paper’s current editor Allister Heath recently decided to axe the paper’s eight sub-editors.
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