It’s now just over a week since we hosted our first event in the new PA Meets series, “How to build your network of journalists” and we couldn’t be happier with the reaction we’ve received from attendees.

In association with leading PR body, the PRCA, PA Meets is a series of events which gives PR and comms professionals at all career levels the chance to hear from, and engage with, a range of leading figures in news and PR.

Our first event featured excellent speakers from Sky News, TfL and PA Media, and delved deep into the challenges facing PRs when establishing strong connections with the media.  It also covered valuable tips and advice on selling in stories, producing effective press releases and getting stories out amidst the challenging backdrop of what has been one of the biggest newsworthy stories of the last year – the pandemic.

Ahead of the new F1 season, Formula One correspondent for PA Media, Philip Duncan shares his experience of reporting on the most recent season amidst the backdrop of the pandemic. Be it bubbles, quarantines and regular testing – last season was a complete new experience for Philip and these health and safety practises will continue for this coming season.

File photo dated 15-11-2020 of Mercedes AMG F1’s Lewis Hamilton (GBR) celebrates on the podium after winning the Turkish Grand Prix to secure his seventh world championship.

We are delighted to announce that PA video content will now be showcased on our next generation wire platform, Create.

We’ve been looking forward to upgrading the Create platform for many months and the change means that PA customers can now instantly access video content linked to relevant stories.

In his latest blog post, PA Media’s Chief Sports Reporter Jamie Gardner talks about how, despite audience taste for sport content changing over the years, there still remains a great need for credible sports reporting that can cut through the noise of an increasingly saturated market of sport platforms and publishers.

The beginning of a new year is when we would typically be making plans for the months ahead, such as holidays, gigs, festivals and tickets for sporting events.
Whilst plans for spectators of sport remain on hold; our sports photographers continue to capture the action, albeit under very different circumstances.
The Covid-19 guidelines for live sporting events have brought many challenges, which our photographers have met face on with the continued dedication to delivering the best possible service for our customers. Online health checks, venue temperature checks, social distancing, face masks and bubbles (sometimes bubbles within bubbles) have become the new ‘normal’.
Photographer passes to sports events are limited; however, our strong relationships with customers have allowed us to continue to deliver without too much disruption.
Despite the challenges, our photographers have grasped the opportunity to document sport in the Covid-era with both hands.