Wanted: researcher for The Spectator’s lunchtime newsletter

The Spectator is looking for a freelance newsletter assistant for early-morning morning shifts (which can be done at home) for our Lunchtime Espresso newsletter. The lunchtime email goes out to more than 120,000 people: one of our most-read, and one of the most influential newsletters in Britain. It should reflect the same ethos as the magazine, our website, and our broadcast offerings. We’re looking for someone with curiosity, who can separate wheat from chaff, who can work out what’s happening that matters – and summarise it all in a sentence. You provide the first draft: a team then pick up, add, enhance. But the first draft matters a lot.

Sounds daunting? Perhaps: but if you have a keen interest in current affairs, you’ll be across the news already. It means getting up quite early, but could also mean useful money in a way that you can combine with another enterprise: study, a WFH job, bartending, whatever. You could be done by 9 a.m. or 10  a.m. When we last advertised two years ago, we found a second-year history student who worked for us throughout his third year (working 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) and still got a first. He stayed with us, and is now moving on to the news desk: hence the vacancy. But this work could be a segue to a research job, all kinds of things other than journalism.

As ever with The Spectator we won’t ask about your age or your CV. My point about students is that this job can be supplementary to what you’re already doing. We may even hire two people, so you can say if you don’t want to do it five days a week. It pays better than bar work on Stint: it stretches your mind and you learn stuff. 

The lunchtime email is not quite a round-up of what’s happened: it’s about what matters. It’s a briefing, designed to put the news in some context and to show readers what the agenda will be over the next few hours and days. As it’s a lunchtime email, the question we ask ourselves isn’t what was on the front pages that morning, but what will lead the 6 p.m. news that night. We’re seeking to create a new gold standard for this type of journalism: accuracy, concision and judgment.

Your job will be writing the ‘bullet points’ for the email. They’re news bulletins, spread over three sections of the email: headlines and domestic news, global news, and money and business. There should be between 6-9 in the top section, then around 4-7 in the next two. 

We need bullet points done by 10 a.m., so it’s an early start. You should acquaint yourself with the BBC homepage first thing in the morning, so you know what not to lead with (our lunchtime email is about what has happened since the morning papers or radio). You should know what led the 8 a.m. bulletin on the Today programme, to ask yourself how to move on from that story. You’ll be given subscriptions to foreign-language newspapers (which can be read on Google translate), such as Der Spiegel, Die Welt, Le Figaro and La Stampa which are often far ahead of the curve than the British press.

We’re looking for someone with good news judgment, and most importantly, the talent to write to the point. Some call this style of writing ‘smart brevity’, Harold Evans would have called it good English. Essentially, it’s word economy: conveying the most important information in the clearest language. It’s best exemplified by Portrait of the Week from the magazine.

We do not editorialise in this email (we leave that for columnists) but we do use our judgment for what our well-read readers want. This is also not just a ‘traffic-driver’: it’s our collective verdict on what matters. Most of all, we respect the time and intelligence of our readers. If you assume you’re writing for the best-read, smartest cohort of people in the world you won’t go far wrong. The pay: £17 an hour.

Apply here by 23:59 on Sunday 14 May.

Our style guide for those emails:

• With this email, we’re seeking to set a new gold standard in the way news is conveyed: concision, judgment, primary sources, accuracy. Our engaged, knowledgeable audience means we don’t have to shout or dumb down. The lunchtime email should be so valuable that it’s worth an annual Spectator subscription price on its own.
• We also seek to draw from the judgment of our brilliant team, encouraging them to tell what they think is important – or fun.
• So this email is intended as a factual briefing, (as opposed to OpEds). We go for concise, accurate summaries over dramatic or commentary-rich language. We do not editorialise. We have in mind people who don’t have time to read all the newspapers, know who’s who, and want a quick precis on what’s going on
• Wherever possible we should use direct quotes. Our readers  hate being told that a politician ‘said’ x, y or z only to find that the words were selectively quoted and a new meaning given. Better to give the actual quote, let readers judge. 
• Brevity and concision will be key
  • Where possible use direct quotes rather than paraphrase: we aim to provide readers with first-hand material should they wish to dive deeper. Indicate where the comments were made (‘he told BBC Radio 4 Today’ or ‘he told the House of Commons’). 
  • Prefer cautious figures to top-end ones. The world is crazy enough without need for any exaggeration.
  • Don’t worry about always giving a first name (as we would in the magazine). We can assume our readers know who Sunak and Zelensky are.

Links and sourcing

• If a newspaper is reporting a press release or statement, find and link to the press release or statement. Always find primary sources.
• Avoid linking to stories from websites with a reputation for sensationalising or editorialising.
• Hyperlinks on verbs unless it’s a statement such as ‘full details here’, single quotes only, dates as ‘15 May’ rather than ‘May 15th’.
• Include, even look out for points that challenge a narrative. Our readers know the world is nuanced.
• Dismiss any notion you might have about The Spectator’s political orientation. We’re after originality of thought, elegance of expression, independence of opinion. Our writers have politics from left to right; their circumstances from high life to low life. Readers come to us for clarity, reliability and zest: that’s what you’re providing.