Eloise Parker – Features Editor, OK! Weekly
2/18/2010
By Anna Marevska
Not many people can say they have sung the Star Spangled Banner with Billy Idol, thrown a football with Matthew McConaughay or been asked out by Bruce Willis. That is, unless your name is Eloise Parker, the newly tapped features editor for OK! Weekly magazine.
“I started writing and editing for OK! about six months before coming on board full time,” said the editor, who was born in the United Kingdom and gained her permanent spot on the masthead in February 2010. “It certainly helped me get the job in the sense that I was a proven quantity when the role opened up.”
Another great perk to contributing to a magazine before joining the staff full time is the opportunity to find out whether the environment fits a writer’s long-term plans.
For Parker, it was an ideal opportunity to get acquainted with the team before signing on the dotted line, she said.
As a part of the news team, she is responsible for turning the big celebrity stories into compelling, cover-worthy features. She also edits the travel section, which is a weekly spread.
“It is great to take on a role that utilizes so many of the skills I’ve acquired over the years,” she said. “I enjoy writing and editing across entertainment news, fashion, lifestyle and travel and this job gives me the opportunity to work across all of those beats.”
Before reporting on the lives of Hollywood royalty, Parker covered lifestyle and entertainment for Britain’s national news agency, the Press Association. She moved to the United States as the entertainment correspondent where she did red carpet reporting and film junkets. She also spent two years on staff as a features writer at the Daily News in New York.
“A daily newspaper prepares you for almost anything as far as writing and editing,” she explained. “But certainly my experience within the entertainment industry as a former entertainment correspondent is invaluable in my current role.”
OK! Weekly’s content includes stories and photographs from the world of showbiz and entertainment. What separates the publication from the thousands of celebrity blogs, e-zines and entertainment tabloids, Parker said, is that reporting comes “straight from the source.”
“We know our audience and we want to engage, inspire and inform them,” she explained. “You’d be surprised how many people who claim not to be interested in celebrity news are dying to hear the inside scoop.”
Whether it is escapism or a guilty pleasure, the fascination with celebrities is everywhere, and OK! Weekly seems to have sparked competition from overseas as well, Parker said.
“I am British and OK! became the country’s leading celebrity weekly title over there after launching in the mid 90s," she said. "It’s the youngest of the U.S. celebrity weeklies but in the past four-and-a-half-years, it’s already gained a strong foothold in the market. I’m keen to help maneuver the brand into pole position here in the U.S.”
One way is to embrace the changing media landscape and involve readers online.
“I do have a Facebook and Twitter account,” she said. “They’re invaluable resources in terms of coming up with story leads, gathering info and finding sources fast.”
Parker certainly likes the idea of social media and online reporting and feels these new mediums make celebrity coverage “more democratic.”
She explained, “Celebrity coverage is no longer filtered exclusively through a few all-powerful entertainment news outlets with their own agenda. Ultimately, that’s a good thing because there’s so much more out there. We’re here to make sense of it all, and package the more compelling elements for our readers in a digestible format.”
Pitching Tips
Parker is always looking for new travel destinations with a strong celebrity angle. She prefers pitches by e-mail, but a follow-up phone call a day or two later doesn’t hurt if an answer is needed urgently. She is happy to let publicists know what areas of the magazine she works on, but it’s helpful when they already know the kinds of stories appropriate for OK!.
She also advises PR professionals to be personal with their pitches. “I don’t tend to respond to pitches that aren’t personalized,” she said. “It’s off-putting if there’s a possibility the pitch has landed in every other weekly editor’s inbox.”
She added, “A succinct pitch is key. Editors generally know whether they’re interested from the first paragraph alone. And be upfront with the key facts. I love hearing about a legitimate trend, but hate getting a hard sell that has little to back it up.
“It’s tough to get an e-mail that just says ‘Hi, what are you working on?’ I’d much rather hear what the publicist is working on and decide whether that could be a fit for an upcoming story with as little back and forth as possible.”