The editor of popular football magazine FourFourTwo gave a talk at the University of Lincoln on Monday, February 11th, 2013.
Speaking as part of the “Journalists Speak out on Journalism” series hosted by Professor Richard Keeble, David Hall spoke on the topic of “Selling the Game: How to Score a Winner on the Newsstand”.
Despite some initial technical problems, Hall went on to discuss how a lot of the newspaper coverage of football is “very spiteful”. He also highlighted how the magazine costs £4.60, which he described as “a lot of money”.
Hall went on to explain the process he goes through when creating the front cover of the magazine, saying that the most important elements of a front page are “access, insight and humour”. He discussed how he selects the stories and the design, using the magazine’s cover for March 2013 as the example.
In the magazine itself, Hall said that FourFourTwo are “able to bring depth and a love of the game to everything we do”. He also went on to talk about how they generate content and the interviews that they conduct, despite footballers being “notoriously boring people”.
At the end of his talk, Hall answered questions from those who attended, offering advice on how to get into the industry. When asked on his thoughts about match fixing and corruption, Hall described it as “mind blowing”.
Further details about the “Journalists Speak out on Journalism” series are available on The Linc website.