Nick Wood

I hope my regular readers will forgive a little off-beat post but I would like to pay a little tribute to Media Intelligence Partners' Nick Wood.  Nick - former Times and Express senior political correspondent and former media director for William Hague and IDS - has been responsible for the media handling of the publication of Iain Duncan Smith's social justice report.  It has been a terrific success.  Not only did it produce the significant editorials that I highlighted on Wednesday, it also produced four reports on BBC1's Ten'o'clock news.  None of this is to say that the underlying report did not have something to do with the favourable coverage!  But there was a real understanding from Nick of what the media wanted and the six day strategy of daily pre-releases of the non-family sections of the report ensured that the marriage announcements did not overwhelm everything else.

Comments

[Donata]

A well deserved tribute! For the Sun to have said that the Tories have carved out “vote-winning territory beyond the reach of New Labour” screams success. Thank you Nick.

[Pisaboy]

A frightening capable PR man, glad he's on our side.

[Adam Tugwell]

Progress.

[Henry Mayhew - Ukipper / authentic conservative]

Wouldn't mind hiring him for business. He's got the mojo. Could do with a haircut.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Nick is a great 'trainer' as well as media man. His insight into the parliamentary selection process was really helpful to me.

[Richard Carey]

I have to concur that the media management around this report has led to a far better reception than the interim reports (including that of the SJPG!) enjoyed.

I hope that the other policy groups are learning from this, too - I have argued previously that they needed better support and staffwork on communications for these big events. I hope the other groups are bringing in serious support for their report launches too. The policy groups were intended to be at arm's reach, and in that context the use of Nick Wood and MIP probably lent the media operation more credibilty than if they were operating entirely through CCHQ staffers.