When Sir Ray Tindle launched 16 new titles last month, he commented that it was "a unique occasion because it may be the first time an established newspaper house has tried launching its way out of a very deep and very serious recession which has put much of our industry in jeopardy," indeed countless newspapers have been forced to make significant cutbacks and even stop operations altogether.

It is always interesting therefore, to see new start-ups and initiatives, even in a hostile economic climate, with journalists effectively launching their way out of the recession.

Hold the front page has today reported that a new news agency devoted entirely to reporting 'true life' stories, called Sell That Story has been launched.

The initiative is the idea of John Jeffay, ex editor of the Manchester Metro News and MEN columnist Angela Epstein. The new agency's website invites people to call or send an email concerning the details of their real life story, and then Jeffay and Epstein will then decide whether the story could be written about and sold to a tabloid or magazine.

Jeffay believes the future looks promising for the news agency, commenting, "Working with Angela seemed the perfect partnership. She has a lot of experience writing for national newspapers and is great with people," adding "I have a wealth of sales experience dealing with all the national newspapers and many magazines."

A promising partnership, although as all too many journalists are aware, talent no longer guarantees success in this fickle indistry.

Jeffay insists that there is a niche for this particular type of business however;

"There's dozens weekly true life titles and a vast requirement for ordinary people with extraordinary stories to relate - that's where we come in." Jeffay also points out that a lot of publications struggle with the reporting of these types of stories. Epstein is currently freelancer for women's magazines writing true-life features and has also undertaken interviews for Cutting Edge documentary on Channel 4's strangley entitled 'My daughter grew another head and other true life stories'.

The fact that the website boasts that people selling their story can expect to earn anywhere in the region of £200 to £2,000 content depending is likely to contribute to its success.

Source: Hold the front page