Behind the scenes with beauty journalist and founder Iantha Yu

Iantha Yu is the founder of Pic Studio, a former beauty and lifestyle journalist, and a UNSW graduate.  

Over the last decade, she's experienced the many ups and downs of a career in the magazine industry, and come out on top.

Now she shares what she's learnt along the way, her thoughts on AI and the skills she believes graduates need to get ahead in the media industry. 

Thanks for listening ! Follow Newsworthy on Instagram at @newsworthy_aus

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the journalism podcast. I'm Alex Spring, the editor of Newsworthy, and we are joined by Iantha Yu, a journalist, a founder, and a health and beauty and lifestyle expert. Welcome. Thank you so much. Yantha's journalism work has been published in Body and Soul, Woman's Health, Broadsheet, Adore Beauty, The Iconic, Virgin Australia's Voyeur magazine, Shop Till You Drop. And earlier in her career, she was also the acting beauty director of Mary Claire Australia and the beauty editor of Beauty Crew. These days, she heads up Pick Studio, a creative agency that specializes in strategy, branding, and visual storytelling for brands such as Woolworths Beauty, Officeworks, Samsung, McLaren's, Monday Hair Care, James Estate, and Skin Physics. That sounds really busy. And Deantha is a UNSW graduate, and she's here to share her wisdom about navigating the contemporary media industry. What skills she thinks graduates may need to get ahead in that industry, and also her thoughts broadly on the future of journalism. So welcome and thank you for joining us on the journalism podcast. So, first up, why did you want to be a journalist?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

That is a really good question. This goes way back when I was in high school. I was just dabbling into writing, into sort of like scrapbooking. Something that really jumped out at me. I really loved pouring myself into magazines, reading them, looking at layouts, looking at colour combinations. I loved fashion and I loved beauty as well. I think there's something very transformative about beauty. I think on the outside it can feel a little bit silly or maybe a vanity project, but I think really deep down it's such an emotional piece, and I think that's why I really connected to it. In high school, around year 11 or 12, BlogSpot was a really big thing. So BlogSpot, this was way before Tumblr was a thing, and I know now Substack is such a big thing. I had a BlogSpot and I was just writing about my favorite fashion things that I've come across, you know, beauty trends, you know. Back then Matt Cosmetics was such a big beauty brand, and I used to love sort of like reporting or talking about their latest drops. And so that's sort of where my love for discovering or talking about fashion, beauty, and lifestyle things came about. And from there, it kind of just snowballed. I wrote in that blog maybe a couple of times a week in my spare time in year 12 when I was on study breaks. Uh, and then slowly, slowly, I started getting approached by beauty brands. They would reach out to me and say, hey, um, we've been reading your blog. It's awesome. We'd love to send you the latest range of whatever beauty products came out. And that was super exciting to me. I was like 17 at the time in year 12, and to receive beauty products for free, and I got to write about it, like that was just the most exciting thing ever. And so the more I would do that, the more brands would take notice and they would send me products. And so from there, it was just kind of this thing that happened. And I'm just so grateful because it's been so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And so, what did you study when you came to uni? What was your choice? And how were you going to pursue the career that you could see was just ahead of you?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So, from there I decided I really wanted to be a journalist, and I applied to UNSW. I think that was actually my first choice. Um, the year that I joined, which was 2009, was the first year that they did the Bachelor of Media, Communications and Journalism. I think since then the name or the structure of the programs have changed a little. But I did that and then I did a minor in international business. I kind of wanted like a backup something in case journalism didn't um work out, and I figured international business was a great, you know, serious kind of subject that I can lean on if um I decided to leave journalism. And I was at uni for about three and a half years. I think I should have finished it in three years, but I think I must have um prioritized, you know, getting internships, getting work experience, and that sort of thing. And I figured there was no rush into uh finishing uni.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

You've mentioned how you had already started a little bit in the industry. How did you go from there? What were the internships that you did from there while you were at uni? And then how did you get further into the industry?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Yeah. So the more I was writing my blog, um, and this was before YouTube was really a thing, Instagram was really a thing. Like blogs were really big way, way back. Uh, the more I went to events, the more people I met along the way, people who worked in magazines. Um, digital platforms weren't really a thing back then either, but I remember uh meeting a few people that worked in magazines. From there, I got an internship at Shop Till You Drop, uh, which was at the time Australia's number one selling fashion magazine. It was a monthly magazine before it turned into a fortnightly magazine. Before magazines, actually, I did dabble in PR. I thought, you know, it's a similar industry. I really wanted to just get experience and see what the world was all about. I remember emailing a zillion PR agencies. A million. I remember actually doing a deep dive, Google deep dive, you know, PR agencies in Sydney and finding the contact details and emailing everyone. Most people didn't reply. A few said no. And luckily, one actually said yes, and that was the Trish Nickel agency. At the time, Trish Nickel was the agency that handled Cartier's PR and Tony Madachevsky. That was my first taste of luxury PR, luxury communications. That blew me away. They did so many uh fashion week presentations, being on the ground, doing guest lists. I remember I was taught all the silly little details, which might seem crazy, but it actually makes so much sense. Even tying ribbons for gift bags, they had to be a particular length because when they're wrapped in a particular way, the branding on the ribbons, it's actually on like the legs of the ribbon, so you can see the branding correctly. That place taught me so much about little details, but that's what luxury is, right? Um, I had a little stint there. I worked at Max Media Lab for a little bit. I was Lynette Phillips' assistant and I learned so much there about luxury comms as well. And then I was also doing my internship at Shop Tully Drop. From there, I was probably interning for about a year and a half for free, two days a week. Uh back then it was just one of those things where you just had to do it. I think a lot has changed now about equal pay, you know, being paid for your time, paid for your rights, all of that sort of thing. Uh, but yes, that was what I had to do in order to get my first job in magazines, which was eventually the beauty and lifestyle coordinator for Shop Till You Drop. I was there for a few years. I was made redundant, probably about two or three years into that. So that was my first redundancy. That was so big and scary. Um, I was in my early 20s, thought I was going to be a journalist forever, thought this was my life career, and to be told that you are made redundant and they no longer need you is just the most heartbreaking thing in the world.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

So you've worked with some of the most glamorous media brands and beauty and lifestyle brands. Is it always that glamorous?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I would say when I was a beauty editor, it really was. It really was so much fun. The amount of product that gets sent to your desk is out of control. If you think about every single beauty launch that hits Mecca, Sephora, David Jones, Maya, Coles, Priceline, you name it, right? Most of those launches land on your desk. How do you navigate that though, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

How do you not have your head turned, keep your head, you know, on your shoulders?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

I think at the end of the day, your job is to evaluate what works and what doesn't as a beauty editor. You are there to report on this is the best, you know, liquid blush I've ever come across because of its staying powers. And to get to that point, you actually need to try the products. And so you end up being a guinea pig. And that may sound like a lot of fun sometimes, but sometimes products don't work and they break you out, or it doesn't make you look very good. And so you've got to wash your hair again. Those sort of things. You've got to take your job quite seriously, even though it may feel silly to other people, it is still a very serious part of journalism. When um, so my roles have been predominantly in beauty um for over 10 years. I think what people don't see is how important the beauty category is for a magazine job. Uh, majority of the time, the beauty advertisers are what hold up the success of a magazine. So I think beauty can seem silly. It can seem like such a materialistic and transient sort of industry, but it is actually such an important player in the whole magazine publishing platform scheme of things. Do you feel that women's media is taken seriously? I don't think so. I think, you know, even looking back at my time at uni, context, right? When I left high school, I left a really small, um, tight-knit girl school, 85, 86 girls in the year. We were all not best friends, but we all knew about each other and what we were all about. Then going into uni, this was just, I arrived and I was like, this place is so big for starters. And then also incredibly transient. Sometimes you meet someone for a couple of weeks and then you just never see them in class ever again. And that that's it, you know, or even when you start group work, you've got a team of four people, you know, you're doing group work for three or four weeks, and then boom, someone leaves. That's it. They don't they don't tell you. It it just happens, right? And so I think coming into this, I I really struggled for a long time to fit in because I really wanted to work in women's media, really liked fashion and beauty, which might seemed silly to a lot of people, but compared to everyone else in my cohort, everyone wanted to be on Sky News or SBS or a hard news journalist or even sports journalism. I think that's when I was like, oh, maybe what I'm doing is really silly, and maybe women's media is a bit of a joke. And so I think sometimes that crept into my brain. But I think deep down inside I was like, but I kind of love what I do and this is so much fun. And you know, I I it I keep landing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And so I'm just gonna ride this wave and see where it goes.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

When you look back at everything that's happened, um, what are you most proud of, particularly in your in your media career?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I think the thing immediately comes to mind is the resilience. I've been made redundant twice in my career. So once um after Shop Shall You Drop, from there I went to Women's Health, then I went to the carousel, started Beauty Crew, went to Marie Claire, and got made made redundant there. And I think the first time, like I mentioned, I was just so upset and gutted because it was my dream to be a beauty journalist. And then the second time it happened, you're like, okay, it's part of the cycle. It's part of life. It's not personal. I wasn't the only person who was made redundant. Like hundreds of people got cut. And it's a business decision at the end of the day. So you sort of ride the wave and you learn a lot about the industry and learn to not take it personally. Of course, you, when you're in the job, you pour so much of your personal life and passion into a job, and it becomes your brand, right? I was the beauty editor. You know, I used to swan around to lunches all the time. But I think at the end of the day, you really learn, yeah, about resilience and just picking yourself back up and figuring out, okay, well, what's my next step then? I've taken, you know, I've worked in media for 12, 13, 14 years. Where do I go from here? What how do I reinvent myself?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

I was actually going to ask you that. That was my next question, which was like, what have been the greatest challenges? But it sounds like the pivoting is challenging, but something that you've mastered, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Oh, I wouldn't say I've mastered it. I'm still, I think that's still a work in progress. I think that all comes with just giving it a go. Um, what's the worst thing that can happen? Uh, I remember when I started my agency, I emailed 100, 200, 300 people. And the number of people that don't get back to you is sometimes heartbreaking. And you're like, okay, maybe this isn't the way to go for me. But you just keep going, and then one person says yes, and then another person says yes, and then all of a sudden you've got this agency with staff and projects lined up until the end of the year. You're like, you you take a step back and you're like, wow, this is not what I imagined, but I'm so happy that I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

What do you wish you you had known about the media industry generally and journalism when you graduated?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Oh, okay. Uh, relationships are so important in this industry. I'm not sure if this applies to other niches of journalism like hard news or sports sports journalism or that sort of thing, but in Fashion Beauty magazine digital world, it is so small. Everyone knows everyone. And people talk. So people might say, Oh, I've got a new assistant, I've got a new intern, or someone might say, Oh, I'm looking for a new assistant, or I'm looking for, you know, someone who can do TikToks or film themselves or talk really well on podcasts. Do you know anyone? And when someone recommends you, I think that is your golden ticket. Uh, with a lot of the jobs that I've landed, I've I've actually never really applied for a job and sent in my CV or anything like that. It's all been referrals. Uh so it's been really, I've I've been very lucky, but it's all been relationships-based and first impressions matter. And just like do a good job. Do it with a smile on your face. Because if you're not happy doing it, why are you even there, right? I'll never forget, you know, that there was there's so much grunt work that comes with being a junior. When I was working in a PR agency, the number of cardigans that I would have to hang up, I did that for hours. The number of ribbons that you have to tie, you do that for hours. And you do that on your knees. There's no, there's no spare chair and table. You've got to just sit on the floor, cross-legged, and just get on with it. But people notice all of the little hard work things that you put in, and hard work always pays off. Good relationships, hard works, um, make an impression. That all counts. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

What about the skills? Um, what are the essential skills that you think aspiring journalists should have when they graduate, especially these days?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Uh thinking back to some of my favorite interviews. So, being a beauty journalist, I interviewed, you know, all the celebs that launched their own fragrance. Michael Boobley comes to mind. Um, I've met Miranda Kerr two or three times, uh, Rosie Huntington Whitely. All those interviews, and sometimes you're only given like 10 minutes. It's very strict because they need to talk to, you know, 10, 15 journalists within their time bracket that they've given you. I think one thing that I learned was very important was the art of conversation. So I think sometimes when when I was a junior, definitely, I was very nervous. You know, I would have, you know, my 10 questions written out on a notebook or typed out on a sheet. And I would go, okay, question one, what is la la la? Question two, what is la la la. But I think towards the middle or maybe towards the end of my career, I learned the art of conversation where I would, you know, I would have the notebook open with the questions, but I would have that, put that down and just look at my interview subject and just have a conversation and be like, hey, what's how's your time going in Sydney? What's been the highlight? You know, what's the best thing you've eaten so far? All right, well, tell me about the range, like how, you know, with all your travels, you know, you travel so much. How has that um influenced the new fragrance that you've just brought out? And then you just have a chat, and then that's when the interview subject completely loosens up and they trust you and they want to give you all the little funny tidbits, you know. I think that is something that is maybe not lost, but maybe um needs to be highlighted more.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

What about things like social media skills and that sort of thing? Do you think that that's essential these days?

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Oh, definitely. Um having a good social media account, whether that's Instagram, whether that's TikTok, whether that's Substack, I think is part of your brand. So I think on first impressions, I think we've all done this. When someone applies for a job or wants to do an internship with you, you do a quick stalk on LinkedIn or Instagram and just see what they're about. Do they post, you know, bikini dances on them of themselves on Instagram? Because I probably wouldn't want to work with someone like that. Um, or do they do, are they passionate about painting? You know, they might be really good at helping me out with swatches when I'm shooting beauty products down the track. It it really helps to, you know, it's kind of like that first impression piece that I was just talking about. Having that platform there and it's sort of like, this is what I'm about. That is so important. Also, the little things people might forget is have a good profile photo. Maybe on LinkedIn you might, maybe you don't want to get a professional headshot done, but maybe just take a photo of yourself in good lighting. Always include your email address somewhere. Just make sure all those little ad mini bits and pieces are firmed up. So when people actually do want to contact you, it's easy and they don't have to be a detective to try and find out your details.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

What's your take on unpaid work? Do you think that that is something that people should do, shouldn't do?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah. When I was starting out in the industry, I was like, I am gonna do whatever it takes to get a job. Whether that's working two days a week for free, sometimes I bumped it up to three days when I was working at Shop Till You Drop, when um I was on uni break, and then I worked retail on the side. Um I was like, I need to stay competitive and I will, I know this is all going to pay off. And, you know, I at the same time, like I wish I'd traveled and all of that fun stuff more when I was a kid, when I was like in my 18, 19, 20, 21 years. But all of that hard work that I put in, all of that free work, ensured that I made a really good impression, that I made really good relationships, and my career has been relatively easygoing. I think it would be really hard to turn up somewhere and apply for a job and be like, you have no idea who I am, and I have no relationships, and I don't know anyone, and I haven't really proven m myself in how I can write or how I can style or how I can, you know, be representative of your team to get a job. I'm under the impression that you should just do whatever it takes to build your own brand. And I was willing to do that. And how do you think about the difference between freelancing work and in-house work? For a really long time, I was in-house journalist at a lot of publications. But once I got made redundant, I did a few years of freelance. So I was writing for Adore Beauty, The Iconic, those sort of magazines and platforms. Freelance can be ludicrous because you are paid per piece. So per article, you might be paid $350, right? And so the faster you work, the more articles you can write, the more you get paid, right? Being in-house has its perks as well because you are the face of that brand. So, you know, being the acting beauty director of Marie Claire, I was the beauty person for Marie Claire or for Beauty Crew or whoever I was writing for. And so that is also a way to build yourself up. But I also understand from a freelance perspective, and I actually looking at the industry now, a lot of the cohort of the people that I used to work with, a lot of the people now are freelance because that ensures that they can get paid by the publication that they're writing for, but then they can also do sponsored campaigns on their own Instagram. There are pros and cons of both. I I don't think you can do freelance without doing in-house first, because I think it's really important to work in-house to build your name and your credibility before you go freelance. Because I don't know why there's this perception that freelance doesn't have that uh prestige. Maybe you don't have the the CV of who you've worked for previously.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I'm interested to hear what your take is on the use of AI in beauty journalism and journalism generally.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah. I mean, we all use AI, right? I'm definitely using it as like a brainstorming tool. Sometimes you have this sentence in your brain and you just can't get it out. You try and massage it out and it just won't come out. Whereas AI will just like give you 10 different versions of that sentence in the one go very quickly. I use it a lot in um my day-to-day like brainstorming, you know, come up with 10 ways to say this, you know, what are um some ways that brands are doing XYZ? It's definitely a great research tool. In terms of the actual copy, I think it's still very robotic. I think a lot of beauty journalism, especially in Australia, a lot of marketing speak, we are very warm and friendly, especially for beauty brands. Fashion beauty health brands are very warm and friendly. We have a lot of personality, whereas the tone of voice that AI puts out can be very robotic. And so I think with AI, it's a great brainstorming tool, but you still need to apply yourself as an editor to make sure that tone of voice is relevant for whatever platform that you're applying it to. Um, just looking ahead for you, what what are you looking forward to next? I'm really looking forward to seeing where the industry goes. I think I've still got such a deep emotional connection with the beauty industry. I'm still kind of in it. Like I do, I dabble on Instagram doing sponsored campaigns. I still go to a lot of events. Um I'm excited to see where that evolves, especially with, you know, podcasting being such a big thing and then Substacks being such a big thing. What's the next big thing? But also on the other end of the spectrum, growing my agency and seeing where that takes me. Uh, we are doing a lot of social media strategy at the moment, and that's been really exciting. Um, we're working with a brand at the moment, and we're trying to get them into a big retailer. So, working on that strategy side of things, it's not like I said before, it's not just how do we, you know, publish this photo or publish this article and where is that going to go? It's like building this campaign, and where, you know, I jumped off a meeting this morning where we're talking about a campaign that's going on for the next six months in order to get us a meeting with this retailer. So, yeah, just seeing where all of that goes for the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

My final question for you is what is it that motivates you to keep doing what you do, that keeps inspiring you to try new things, to try new formats, to try all sorts of different things. What is it that motivates you and drives you these days?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I never want to be that washed-up person in the industry. I remember when I was starting out in magazines, so even at Shop Till You Drop, this was when we didn't even have online editors yet. I think we hired our first one a couple of years into me being at Shop. And that was such a crazy hire. People would be like, why are we doing that? We're such a magazine brand. Why would we hire a digital, like an online manager? That's crazy to manage a website and now look at us in 2026. Like the world has just blown up in such a different way. And I never want to be, I would never want to have those old ways of thinking where we're not facing the future in a realistic way and just, you know, burying our heads in the ground and being like, oh, that's not gonna happen. It's just a trend because it's not a trend. And I just want to make sure I'm prepared as much as possible. I am constantly learning. You know, I'm in my mid-30s now, and uni was such a long time ago. Um, I'm still learning. I'm doing a course at the moment called Um Mad Masters with um Rory Sutherland in the UK. And that has completely opened my eyes up to marketing and psychology and behavioral science. So I just want to keep learning, you know, even with AI, just download the program and, you know, pay the 30 bucks or whatever it is for the month and just have a play and see what kind of imagery can you create, what kind of copy can you create? So it's it, it's just you've got to keep learning, you've got to keep pushing, you know, even on TikTok. That you sometimes that feels like I'm being lazy, but you learn so much on there. You've got to keep being thirsty and curious, even way after you finish your learning years.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

That is uh fabulous and very inspiring. Thank you so much, Yantha. Thank you for joining us today and uh and sharing all your advice and wisdom with us. Thank you so much for having me.