Industry commentary

What industry commentary is

Industry commentary is a short signed piece that responds to something that has just happened in your trade — a rule change, a supplier announcement, a closure, a price move — and says what it means for the people who buy from you. It is published while the news is still being discussed, which in most trades means inside a week and usually inside three days.

It is not a news report. You are not a newsroom, and restating somebody else's announcement adds nothing a reader cannot get from the announcement. It is also not a thought leadership article, which argues a position you would hold whatever week it was. Commentary borrows the news for its timing and earns its place with the part only you can write: what this does to a buyer on Monday morning.

When you need one

Three situations produce commentary worth publishing. A rule, code or tariff changes and your customers do not yet understand how it lands on them. A large player does something visible and your phone starts ringing with the same question twice a day. Or a story runs in the general press that describes your trade badly, and a correction from somebody who does the work beats a complaint about it.

The test is whether you have something first-hand to add. If your only contribution would be a summary of the announcement with a line about how you can help, do not publish. That article is stale in a fortnight, and a plain explainer on the underlying subject will still be read in three years for about the same money. You also do not need this if the change is slow: something unfolding over a year or more belongs in a trend article, written at a different pace and length.

What goes in it

• The news, in two sentences. What happened and when, with the date stated, so a reader arriving late knows what they are reading.
• What it means for a buyer. Not for the industry in general. For the person who was about to order, hire, renew or wait.
• What you have already seen. The part nobody can copy: what your own quotes, jobs and suppliers have done in response.
• What to do, and what to ignore. One or two instructions a reader can act on this month, including the honest "nothing yet" when that is the answer.
• A dated line. Commentary that hides its date reads as wrong a year later, when it was right at the time.

What you get

The piece. Five hundred to eight hundred words in a shared document you own, in your voice, with a headline, a title and meta description, and every factual claim marked for you to confirm. It is short on purpose: commentary that takes fifteen minutes to read arrives after the moment it was written for.

The short versions. A paragraph for your newsletter and two social posts drawn from the piece, delivered with it rather than a week later, because the whole value is in reaching people during the same few days.

A published piece, not a draft. Where publishing access is part of the arrangement, it goes live rather than waiting in your inbox for a free afternoon. That detail is usually the difference between commentary and a week you meant to use.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A nine-person commercial refrigeration contractor in Manitoba holds a standing arrangement for six pieces a year. On a Tuesday the province publishes a change to the handling rules for a common refrigerant, effective the following spring. By that afternoon the owner has forwarded the notice and booked twenty minutes.

The call runs eighteen minutes. He explains what the change does to three jobs he has already quoted, which two suppliers hold stock of the replacement, and why the grocery chains in his area are affected before the restaurants are. A draft goes back the next morning. He corrects one product name and approves it before lunch. The piece is live on Thursday, two days after the notice, at 640 words, under a headline about what the new rules mean if you have a quote sitting on your desk. It closes with one instruction: check the refrigerant named on any quote dated before the announcement. Having seen how fast that moved, he keeps the remaining pieces for the consultation period rather than commissioning the longer article he would not have finished in time.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What you read, what your buyers read, and which kinds of news you would actually want to respond to. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Per piece, or a standing arrangement of a set number a quarter, which is how most people buy this. The turnaround is written into the same document.
3. The set-up, before any news breaks. Who is on the byline, who can approve, and whether I publish or you do. Commentary fails at approval far more often than it fails at writing.
4. The trigger. You send the story, or I flag one. The clock starts when you confirm you want a piece.
5. The call, inside one working day. Fifteen to twenty-five minutes, recorded.
6. The draft, one working day after the call. Claims marked for checking, nothing invented to fill a gap.
7. Live within three working days of the trigger, provided approval comes back inside one of them.

Speed on my side needs speed on yours. I need twenty minutes of the named person's time within a day, one approver who can say yes without a meeting, and the publishing route agreed in advance. Without those, three days is not a real promise, and I will quote a normal deadline instead.

What it costs

Commentary is quoted after the half-hour call, because the price depends on how many pieces you expect in a year, how fast you need them, and whether I publish them for you. A standing arrangement costs less per piece than commissioning one in a hurry, and it is the only version that reliably holds three days. Everything is in CAD and fixed in writing before the first piece is triggered. The pricing page sets out the four ways of working here.

What happens next

Commentary has a short life, and three things usually follow. A take that people argued with is worth restating properly as a piece written to be disagreed with. The subject travels furthest broken into short posts over the fortnight the story runs. And a year on, the dated pieces need a pass so they do not misinform anyone, which is bringing old posts up to date. None of that is assumed. A piece of commentary is finished when it is published, and you can stop there.