The Focus is a chance for editors listed on www.featuresexec.com to tell colleagues, editors and PRs (in our separate newsletter from www.featuresexec.com) a bit more about their work and experience. If you’d like to take part email us on news@dwpub.com.
This week (pictured): Frank Corr, editor of hospitalityenews.com
Frank Corr, editor of hospitalityenews.com
Tell us a bit about your title…
hospitalityenews.com is primarily visited by professionals in the Irish hospitality industry including hotel general managers and department heads, chefs, restaurant owners and managers, industrial and institutional caterers and Irish hotel managers working abroad. The total of regular visitors to the site is in excess of 5,000.
What stories are you most interested in covering?
We cover current news on hotel and restaurant developments, Irish and international tourism news, catering equipment, food and drink and personnel appointments.
Do you use freelance contributions, and if so, are they for any particular section/type of work?
Not as yet – but we plan to do so as the site and revenue develops.
What interests you most about your job?
A constantly evolving and dynamic Irish hospitality industry and feedback from our site visitors.
Where have you worked previously, and how did you end up in your current position?
I became a journalist in 1959 at the age of 19, worked for local and national newspapers, became a business journalist in 1969 and editorial director of a magazine publishing company in 1972. I edited a wide range of magazines, wrote thousands of articles, several books, did some PR work, wrote film scripts and retired in 2005. I then did speech writing and freelance work and launched hospitalityenews.com in March 2010.
Do you like freelance journalists to get in touch with you directly to pitch ideas? And if so, how?
We are always open to ideas – contact me by e-mail at fcorr100@fgmail.com
Name the three most important attributes that make a freelance journalist stand out for you:
Enthusiasm, accuracy, reliability and ‘making that extra call’.
If you can, tell us about the best approach you’ve seen from a freelance – and the worst.
Best was a young freelance who sat in my office one day and would not leave until she was hired. Worst was a journalist who took on a major project and never delivered a line for the two pages of a magazine we had held for the story.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
From my first editor on the ‘Limerick Weekly Echo’ – ‘News is what people don’t want you to print. Everything else is advertising’.
Find out more about hospitalityenews.com.
Posted by DWPub staff 
