✨ Property4Media Spotlight On: Jayne Dowle! ✨
We'll be shining a spotlight on one of the incredibly talented, passionate, and inspiring Journalists or Editors from our amazing community.
This week, we'd like to shine the spotlight on Jayne Dowle.
We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!
Where are you based?
I work from home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire – between Sheffield and Leeds, just across the Pennines from Manchester.
What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your property specialties?
I write for several broadsheet newspapers, The Times Bricks & Mortar, Sunday Times Home and Telegraph Property. Also, I write for a number of magazines including House Beautiful, Country Living, Homebuilding & Renovating and The English Garden, as well as contributing occasional features to Property Post in The Yorkshire Post, where I also do a twice-weekly column on politics and social affairs.
I guess across every title I contribute to my audience is intelligent and curious in different ways, but always with lots of questions about property, homes and gardens.
A few years ago, in a fit of self-marketing, I devised a 'personal brand' tagline – 'writing about where we live, how we live and how we used to live'. This just about covers everything I do, from UK-wide location reports and market analysis to emerging interiors, garden and sustainability trends, to history and heritage. I do love a good period property piece.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
Freelance, but I've been writing for Times Bricks & Mortar for more than 20 years now, since I relocated from London back up to Yorkshire in 2003. Anne Ashworth (former editor) asked me to start writing about the North of England property market. So before the credit crunch in 2008, I spent a lot of time looking at new flats in Leeds and Manchester. And I once went to Gary Barlow's old mansion in Cheshire.
What are your professional pet peeves?
PRs who promise the world, then don't deliver. Writing life is becoming faster and faster. Pieces need to be turned around at very short notice. Some – not all – PRs simply don't realise this and leave you hanging on deadline when you're expecting crucial information or a contact for an interview or pix. Speaking of pix, people – including estate agents - who cannot grasp the concept of 'hi-res'. I must type the words 'hi-res please, 2MB-min' a hundred times a week. Not everyone reads or comprehends these words; it's very irritating and time-wasting chasing backwards and forwards for pix that can be used both in print and online.
In your past professional life you were…
I started out as the lowest of the low opening post and typing up manuscripts (this was way before email) on women's magazines, then experienced my first proper Fleet Street long lunches as a TV editor on a Sunday tabloid, enjoyed several glorious years writing about music, film, travel and lifestyle for the Telegraph Magazine under legendary editor Emma Soames, went to The Express for a short, brutal stint as deputy arts editor, then ended up at The Times, launching an entertainment magazine, later working on news and features. When I was 21, I wanted to be a fashion writer, so not sure what happened there.
What's on your bucket list?
To go overseas with a really juicy commission to write about a beautiful/interesting/controversial place. I've been very UK-based, due to family responsibilities, but my son and daughter are adults now and I'd like to spread my wings a little.
What do you see as the up and coming property hotspot (can be UK or overseas)?
I keep banging on about these places but locations such as Wakefield, Doncaster, and yes, Barnsley, in Yorkshire. Not always known for their glamour, but close enough to major cities to commute, good transport links, surrounded by lovely countryside, and with house prices that remain relatively affordable.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) story is …
Not sure if this is funny or harrowing or both. Being threatened with the police for harassment by the owner of Beatles' manager Brian Epstein's former home in a posh part of Liverpool. It was a door-knocking job for Times Bricks & Mortar. I forget the Fab Four anniversary, but my editor wanted a tie-in piece talking about all the Liverpool properties the Beatles and their close associates had lived in. The elderly owner of Ringo Starr's old house was lovely, welcoming us in to this amazing shrine she kept in his memory. But this chap was extremely cross. I was with Liverpool/Beatles aficionado Mitch Poole. We had to make a hasty escape in his Fiat 500.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
To know that journalism is a career that evolves in unexpected ways. What you learn at the beginning stands you in good stead for the rest of your working life. Try not to be terrified of scary editors – you might be one yourself one day and then you'll understand the pressures. And always be kind to those even younger than yourself. They might commission you in future (they have).
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
There's no substitute for good old-fashioned face to face interviews and reporting. AI is obviously making a huge difference to our industry, but as far as I'm aware, there's no robot yet invented who will go out and collar strangers on the street to tell us why they love/hate their town centre.
How best should people contact you?
Email at jayne@jaynedowle.co.uk or find me on LinkedIn.
