Interview: William Sitwell, magazine editor (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
FOR a contract magazine with barely 6,000 paying customers, Waitrose Food Illustrated has been making rather a noise lately. Last week, almost every newspaper covered its announcement that an obscure 11-year-old cookbook had beaten the Nigellas and Delias in a poll to find the all-time culinary bible. Before that, you will have read about Luke Johnson's scandalous assault on restaurant critics as jealous alcoholics, or Marco Pierre White's headline-grabbing attack on rival chefs (think Gordon Ramsay) for spending too much time on TV.
WFI, as it styles itself, has a knack for attracting attention not normally apparent in the promotional "customer publishing" sector. Its unapologetic goal may be to shift more "product" from Waitrose's food shelves, but its combination of imaginatively contrived "scoops" and lavish celebrity photoshoots has made it one of the few marketing-led publications to become a talking point in the magazine world. In an ever more crowded lifestyle magazine market, it's all part of a deliberate strategy to shout for readers' attention, explains William Sitwell, editor for the past three years, and also an ES Magazine food columnist.
"We're competing against the likes of Olive and Delicious as well as Good Housekeeping and newspaper food sections," explains Sitwell, 35, in the Ladbroke Grove offices of John Brown Citrus Publishing. "We may have been the first glossy food magazine, but now we're having to compete that much harder. In every creative meeting, I ask what scoops we have to generate newspaper coverage."
Previously a reporter for the Express and the Telegraph, Sitwell is well aware that the contract sector is widely dismissed as the soft end of journalism, a murky world of undeclared product placement and compromised editorial integrity. Almost all his magazine's 300,000 copies are given away to Waitrose and John Lewis account holders, and he has to make sure that every item featured is available in stores to buy. Yes, he says, the magazine is "there to shift product", but his generous editorial budget allows a quality of writing and photography that more commercially exposed titles can rarely afford.
Sitwell has also attracted media attention for his own impressive social connections. Family ties found him an early job helping to run Conservative MP Bill Cash's anti-Maastricht campaign office, and a close friendship with George Bingham, son of Lord Lucan, provided some lucrative journalistic commissions. Not long ago the magazine featured Viscount Linley - for whom William's wife Laura sells bespoke furniture.
There is also, of course, the family name: Edith and Osbert Sitwell, the celebrated aesthetes, were his great aunt and uncle, Sacheverell Sitwell his grandfather. The Sitwell name was not so much a journalistic door-opener, he says, as an additional spur to earn the respect of suspicious colleagues. "The trouble now is that people are less likely to have heard of them, so it doesn't make a huge difference," he says regretfully.
Not that they were universally respected even in their time. "You know, [the critic] FR Leavis accused them of being part of the history of publicity rather than poetry," says Sitwell. "But sometimes you have to play that game."
It could be a metaphor for Sitwell's own achievement. His magazine continues to win awards, and is respected not simply by the food industry but by the wider media. Yet it remains at its core part of Waitrose's publicity machine. And as Sitwell knows, that brings its own compromises.
"Contract publishing deserves to be taken seriously," Sitwell insists. "Yes, we're part of the marketing world, but this is a magazine with some serious journalists writing for it. We've had people like Max Hastings, Ross Benson, AA Gill writing. People want to work for us because I can pay more than a lot of newspapers - typically £750 a day for photography and £500 for an 800-word piece." Gill, he confesses, demanded rather more - his "commercial rate" of £5 a word. "He said it was justified because he couldn't write that Waitrose was a terrible shop. I said, 'Well, you probably couldn't denounce Rupert Murdoch in your Sunday Times pieces either.'"
Each month, Sitwell meets the supermarket's representatives to pitch his editorial ideas. Very rarely, he says, are they vetoed - on the last occasion, because a tribute to Australian cheese by Sir Les Patterson was "just a bit too strong". A magazine staffer also travels to the supermarket's buyers' surgeries to discover which new sausages or pates merit the reader's interest. Waitrose meets the editorial costs and pays a " publishing fee"; John Brown sells the advertising. "And I," Sitwell adds, "just spend the money."
In pure commercial terms, the model appears to work well for the client. Waitrose attributes up to £4 million a year in extra sales to the magazine, including £300,000 on oranges and lemons from one issue alone. Yet equally importantly, Sitwell explains, it "defines and extends the brand". He then disappears hazily behind marketing jargon about the supermarket's "pyramid of excellence" and how "sales uplifts" can be traced directly back to articles.
Only when he returns to his magazine's subject matter does the passion resurface. Sitwell is the ultimate foodie, harvesting baby carrots and blueberries on his Notting Hill roof terrace, and waiting for his olive tree to produce sufficient quantities to make his own oil. He tries to sell me a £15 tin of imported olive oil, apparently a little sideline. "I baked bread at the weekend, and it's the most magical mixture of chemistry and art, hugely satisfying," he says, beaming. "And if you're trying to pull women, you will with a fresh loaf you've made yourself." This is not, he stresses, a mating ritual that he practises himself, being married with two young children.
"I would like to see more people cooking, taking an interest about where their food comes from, understanding seasonality," he says, fired up. "I see people wanting to return to simplicity, which means buying the best ingredients and not messing with them." And guess which supermarket advertises itself as place to go for higherpriced, higher-quality ingredients?
Marketing aside, the supermarkets - including Waitrose - are often blamed for squeezing out small local greengrocers and butchers. If he were serious about promoting fresh, locally sourced food, shouldn't Sitwell be lamenting the chains' dominance? He wriggles a little. "The realities are difficult, but the produce you find in a corner shop isn't as good as what you find in Waitrose," he attempts.
Such faith befits a man who does appear to be on a mission - albeit one which happens to fit remarkably closely with his client's commercial interests.
(Evening Standard, August 3 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
FOR a contract magazine with barely 6,000 paying customers, Waitrose Food Illustrated has been making rather a noise lately. Last week, almost every newspaper covered its announcement that an obscure 11-year-old cookbook had beaten the Nigellas and Delias in a poll to find the all-time culinary bible. Before that, you will have read about Luke Johnson's scandalous assault on restaurant critics as jealous alcoholics, or Marco Pierre White's headline-grabbing attack on rival chefs (think Gordon Ramsay) for spending too much time on TV.
WFI, as it styles itself, has a knack for attracting attention not normally apparent in the promotional "customer publishing" sector. Its unapologetic goal may be to shift more "product" from Waitrose's food shelves, but its combination of imaginatively contrived "scoops" and lavish celebrity photoshoots has made it one of the few marketing-led publications to become a talking point in the magazine world. In an ever more crowded lifestyle magazine market, it's all part of a deliberate strategy to shout for readers' attention, explains William Sitwell, editor for the past three years, and also an ES Magazine food columnist.
"We're competing against the likes of Olive and Delicious as well as Good Housekeeping and newspaper food sections," explains Sitwell, 35, in the Ladbroke Grove offices of John Brown Citrus Publishing. "We may have been the first glossy food magazine, but now we're having to compete that much harder. In every creative meeting, I ask what scoops we have to generate newspaper coverage."
Previously a reporter for the Express and the Telegraph, Sitwell is well aware that the contract sector is widely dismissed as the soft end of journalism, a murky world of undeclared product placement and compromised editorial integrity. Almost all his magazine's 300,000 copies are given away to Waitrose and John Lewis account holders, and he has to make sure that every item featured is available in stores to buy. Yes, he says, the magazine is "there to shift product", but his generous editorial budget allows a quality of writing and photography that more commercially exposed titles can rarely afford.
Sitwell has also attracted media attention for his own impressive social connections. Family ties found him an early job helping to run Conservative MP Bill Cash's anti-Maastricht campaign office, and a close friendship with George Bingham, son of Lord Lucan, provided some lucrative journalistic commissions. Not long ago the magazine featured Viscount Linley - for whom William's wife Laura sells bespoke furniture.
There is also, of course, the family name: Edith and Osbert Sitwell, the celebrated aesthetes, were his great aunt and uncle, Sacheverell Sitwell his grandfather. The Sitwell name was not so much a journalistic door-opener, he says, as an additional spur to earn the respect of suspicious colleagues. "The trouble now is that people are less likely to have heard of them, so it doesn't make a huge difference," he says regretfully.
Not that they were universally respected even in their time. "You know, [the critic] FR Leavis accused them of being part of the history of publicity rather than poetry," says Sitwell. "But sometimes you have to play that game."
It could be a metaphor for Sitwell's own achievement. His magazine continues to win awards, and is respected not simply by the food industry but by the wider media. Yet it remains at its core part of Waitrose's publicity machine. And as Sitwell knows, that brings its own compromises.
"Contract publishing deserves to be taken seriously," Sitwell insists. "Yes, we're part of the marketing world, but this is a magazine with some serious journalists writing for it. We've had people like Max Hastings, Ross Benson, AA Gill writing. People want to work for us because I can pay more than a lot of newspapers - typically £750 a day for photography and £500 for an 800-word piece." Gill, he confesses, demanded rather more - his "commercial rate" of £5 a word. "He said it was justified because he couldn't write that Waitrose was a terrible shop. I said, 'Well, you probably couldn't denounce Rupert Murdoch in your Sunday Times pieces either.'"
Each month, Sitwell meets the supermarket's representatives to pitch his editorial ideas. Very rarely, he says, are they vetoed - on the last occasion, because a tribute to Australian cheese by Sir Les Patterson was "just a bit too strong". A magazine staffer also travels to the supermarket's buyers' surgeries to discover which new sausages or pates merit the reader's interest. Waitrose meets the editorial costs and pays a " publishing fee"; John Brown sells the advertising. "And I," Sitwell adds, "just spend the money."
In pure commercial terms, the model appears to work well for the client. Waitrose attributes up to £4 million a year in extra sales to the magazine, including £300,000 on oranges and lemons from one issue alone. Yet equally importantly, Sitwell explains, it "defines and extends the brand". He then disappears hazily behind marketing jargon about the supermarket's "pyramid of excellence" and how "sales uplifts" can be traced directly back to articles.
Only when he returns to his magazine's subject matter does the passion resurface. Sitwell is the ultimate foodie, harvesting baby carrots and blueberries on his Notting Hill roof terrace, and waiting for his olive tree to produce sufficient quantities to make his own oil. He tries to sell me a £15 tin of imported olive oil, apparently a little sideline. "I baked bread at the weekend, and it's the most magical mixture of chemistry and art, hugely satisfying," he says, beaming. "And if you're trying to pull women, you will with a fresh loaf you've made yourself." This is not, he stresses, a mating ritual that he practises himself, being married with two young children.
"I would like to see more people cooking, taking an interest about where their food comes from, understanding seasonality," he says, fired up. "I see people wanting to return to simplicity, which means buying the best ingredients and not messing with them." And guess which supermarket advertises itself as place to go for higherpriced, higher-quality ingredients?
Marketing aside, the supermarkets - including Waitrose - are often blamed for squeezing out small local greengrocers and butchers. If he were serious about promoting fresh, locally sourced food, shouldn't Sitwell be lamenting the chains' dominance? He wriggles a little. "The realities are difficult, but the produce you find in a corner shop isn't as good as what you find in Waitrose," he attempts.
Such faith befits a man who does appear to be on a mission - albeit one which happens to fit remarkably closely with his client's commercial interests.
(Evening Standard, August 3 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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