There was a real, noticeable despondency when Labour took power last year in the media. They’d got so hooked on the Tory sugar rush of constant crap announcements, U-turns and incessant drama that it was like taking away their Haribo. I feel the BBC are just starting to get used to it (for instance Breakfast are now doing more ‘general interest’ pieces) but if the last few weeks are anything to go by they’ll just fill the sugar gap with the Orange Toddler. Sigh.
100%!!! When Starmer gave his AI speech the other week almost ALL journos asked the same follow up question - 'Willl Rachel Reeves be Chancellor by the next GE'. It was utterly pathetic, and absolutely motivated by a thirst for chaos and drama. There were so many pertinent questions to put to KS. I would've preferred the big journos stayed home and let some AI nerds in to cross examine him at the end!
I'd go further, there's been a deliberate campaign by some elements of the press to destabilise and bring down the elected Government, by intimating that they're in some way illegitimate. We're at a very dangerous moment for our democracy.
This is, in my opinion, Your best post ever, Ian. And it’s persuaded me to become a paid subscriber; which is ironic given what you wrote:
“Very quickly, your most prized attribute as a journalist was whether you could convert readers into paid subscribers to the outlet, rather than how much traffic you got.”
This piece has become a self-fulfulling loop - I've had a bunch of sign ups off the back of it. It wasn't the purpose but it is rather nice. Welcome aboard.
I would love to see different payment options available on line. I follow a number of people on Substack and would pay to read some of their articles that are behind a paywall on an article by article basis. But I can’t subscribe to everyone I would like to follow. Equally, I would like to be able to pay for a newspaper for specific days (like buying a hard copy) rather than have to pay for longer term subscriptions.
I completely agree with this - someone has to develop a pay-per-view model.
I pay for a number of substacks and patreons, but there is so much that is occasionally of interest that it would be impossible to subscribe to all of it. Being able to pay for the occasional post instead would get more people more income (ableit less reliable for the substackers) and make more people better informed.
The same is true of newspapers - nobody has to pay for a year's worth of The Times to be able to buy one newspaper - why should I have to buy a year's subscription to be able to read it online occasionally?
Excellent analysis. I'm on little more than the minimum wage but I do subscribe to Birmingham Dispatch on Substack to try to have some better quality of local news than Reach plc give me via Birmingham live.
We shouldn't be squeamish about paying for news. It's only the past 25 years when it's been "free". The big issue is finding somewhere that brings multiple topics together and doesn't have an agenda. Economist and FT good but expensive; Guardian good but irritatingly "wokey cokey" at times as Mandelson might say; and The Times, well , it's really going to have to go.
The idea of bringing topics together is also what gives magazines value. That idea of receiving a collection of stories about a subject you care about, which also has the capacity to surprise. By comparison, the Internet is all about single-hit self selection and, frankly, a lack of focus and calm.
I suspect paper magazines are on a hiding to nothing, however, not least with the suggestion WHSmith will exist the high street this year (having annihilated the traditional newsagent years ago). But I hope some manage to survive. It’s an excellent format and people will, I think, greatly miss it when it’s not there. But once it’s gone, it’s not coming back.
Superb. Really brilliant piece. Thank you. Also- spot on about the value of Private Eye. That was where I got all my info about Covid- I’m a retired GP- solid reliable stuff, and controversial if it needed to be, rather than for the sake of making people jump. And actually- there’s good journalism, broadly. It scorns to startle us, or strive meretriciously to suck us in, with nonsense.
When I worked at The Independent in the late 1990s, it was half-owned by Mirror Group Newspapers, then ruled with an iron calculator by David Montgomery. We thought Rommel (not Monty, because "Monty was on our side" [in WW2]) was the worst that cost-cutting newspaper management could be. Seems I was wrong. Never realised I was Bart in the meme, but life turns out oddly sometimes.
Thank you for articulating how I've been feeling about journalism and media, but more importantly for sharing the love out to some of those high quality sources of accurate and insightful information.
Excellent job. Please join me in the world of suddenly having to wait for stuff, pay more for it, and yet nevertheless feeling pretty fucking good about it
And then looking at the magazine guilt pile, but thinking “fuck it” because, hey, you’re supporting this stuff and do occasionally chip away at it. (Also, Wired supported me in ticking a major game creator off my all-time interviews wish list, when I landed a chat with Tomohiro Nishikado, and so it gets personal kudos too!)
This reminds me a lot of the BBC’s Inform, Educate, Entertain. We need to somehow get slop out of the mainstream but there is no seeming rationale for anyone to do it. The BBC still manages to make bangers that people pay attention to. How can mainstream journalism create some bangers to warrant the attention? And then convert that attention into revenue?
I suppose companies like HBO have shows like Last Week Tonight that is relatively mainstream, act as a reason for some people to subscribe to their service or are a “freebie” if they’re paying for something else.
YouTube can be a cesspit but it’s also got some of the best and most entertaining journalism out there.
I think journalism perhaps needs to think outside the box a bit… drop some of the tradition… and use their talent to make great content in the right places. I think there is an appetite for it but you need to lure people in or they’ll never consume it.
Trouble is, BBC news is utter biased rubbish now. Question time is loaded, and proven to be so. But then with a Tory baroness in overall charge, a former assistant to Boris Johnson in charged of news, and several self confessed tory supporters (including an active campaigner for the party) among its staff, what do you expect?
Being comfortably off, I'm now paying for more stuff than I have time to read, including several newspaper subscriptions and substacks. I have an online sub to the Guardian and I pay my local newsagent to deliver it. Same with Byline Times. I like reading physical things and also being able to keep on top of moving news and search for old stuff.
I'm not sure that all this input is good for my mental health, but thank you for reassuring me that I'm doing my bit to counter the madness.
The guilt pile is real. I have this issue. Piles of magazines and books and comics. My wife tends to sternly counter that I’ll get to it eventually and so I should stop worrying about it. But obviously when things do get a bit much, I guess it’s a case of keeping what you most value and love – and also offering support where relevant. (I don’t have time to read a daily, but do subscribe to online papers eg. I figure something is better than nothing.)
Such an important column. Being a bit older than you I’m one of those people who were adults for quite a few years before the internet arrived, with its useful ‘mail order’ & ‘encyclopaedia’ & ‘entertainment listings’ stuff… and newspapers, worldwide - all free.
A few years later, the smartphone - apps, easy access, etc - great!
And yet just in the past few weeks I’ve started to I think genuinely feel it might have been better for everyone if it had never been invented… or at least, stayed at the level of when John Humphreys used to read out ‘www’ website addresses with barely suppressed scorn in his voice.
I buy The Economist in paper form but even with it in front of me now I’m distracted by the need to quickly find the latest reaction to the latest orange horror show…. But then I’ve found your BlueSky post about this piece, so not all bad.
I also have a digital subscription to The Guardian, because I’d rather it existed than not, even though so much of it feels so shallow when compared to the earnest publication I used to read in the 6th form library.
More recently I’ve recently taken out a Patreon subscription to Origin Story, because it’s one of my favourite things, and also because I read this, a bit guiltily, for free. Also a paid subscription to an another columnist on here, again because I like their free stuff.
A recommendation I’d make if you feed overwhelmed by tech influx is to spend a month retraining your brain regarding where and how you get information. If you have an iPhone, delete all the apps from the Home Screen to force them into App Library. That adds a little friction. Add more with Screen Time. For news and social media, consider NetNewsWire, an RSS reader that lets you subscribe to feeds. Those can be from news orgs, but also from things like Bluesky. So some days I don’t go near Bluesky, but I can still read/not miss what a few folks have to say, like Ian, one of the blokes from 2000 AD, a retro-gaming guy, etc. (If you’re on Android, similar tools and RSS readers exist.)
Excellent and helpful. Also, lots of people have more than two nipples: it's not a big deal. (It's evolutionary ....... ha ha ) I mean: What a con trick as well as total superficial rubbish. We need really good education systems to reduce the idiot factor.... instead it's about the three R's so we call all be mindless workers. sorry to go on...and thanks again to Ian
There was a real, noticeable despondency when Labour took power last year in the media. They’d got so hooked on the Tory sugar rush of constant crap announcements, U-turns and incessant drama that it was like taking away their Haribo. I feel the BBC are just starting to get used to it (for instance Breakfast are now doing more ‘general interest’ pieces) but if the last few weeks are anything to go by they’ll just fill the sugar gap with the Orange Toddler. Sigh.
100%!!! When Starmer gave his AI speech the other week almost ALL journos asked the same follow up question - 'Willl Rachel Reeves be Chancellor by the next GE'. It was utterly pathetic, and absolutely motivated by a thirst for chaos and drama. There were so many pertinent questions to put to KS. I would've preferred the big journos stayed home and let some AI nerds in to cross examine him at the end!
I'd go further, there's been a deliberate campaign by some elements of the press to destabilise and bring down the elected Government, by intimating that they're in some way illegitimate. We're at a very dangerous moment for our democracy.
I’d agree here, it’s less that they’ve had their sugar taken and more that the crack supply has stopped and they hit cold turkey hards a muthafucker.
This is, in my opinion, Your best post ever, Ian. And it’s persuaded me to become a paid subscriber; which is ironic given what you wrote:
“Very quickly, your most prized attribute as a journalist was whether you could convert readers into paid subscribers to the outlet, rather than how much traffic you got.”
😂
This piece has become a self-fulfulling loop - I've had a bunch of sign ups off the back of it. It wasn't the purpose but it is rather nice. Welcome aboard.
Agree. I will share this as much as possible.
I’d love to be a paid subscriber, but I’m all spent out. A lot of Substack writing is great (this included) but the cost gets out of hand really fast…
I find it annoying that Substack takes all the payments separately, making it difficult to track your spend.
I would love to see different payment options available on line. I follow a number of people on Substack and would pay to read some of their articles that are behind a paywall on an article by article basis. But I can’t subscribe to everyone I would like to follow. Equally, I would like to be able to pay for a newspaper for specific days (like buying a hard copy) rather than have to pay for longer term subscriptions.
Think this is spot on. Substack is great but becomes prohibitively expensive rather quickly.
Yes I commented elsewhere in the thread that it makes it hard to track your spend, unlike Patreon.
I completely agree with this - someone has to develop a pay-per-view model.
I pay for a number of substacks and patreons, but there is so much that is occasionally of interest that it would be impossible to subscribe to all of it. Being able to pay for the occasional post instead would get more people more income (ableit less reliable for the substackers) and make more people better informed.
The same is true of newspapers - nobody has to pay for a year's worth of The Times to be able to buy one newspaper - why should I have to buy a year's subscription to be able to read it online occasionally?
Excellent analysis. I'm on little more than the minimum wage but I do subscribe to Birmingham Dispatch on Substack to try to have some better quality of local news than Reach plc give me via Birmingham live.
Good choice.
We shouldn't be squeamish about paying for news. It's only the past 25 years when it's been "free". The big issue is finding somewhere that brings multiple topics together and doesn't have an agenda. Economist and FT good but expensive; Guardian good but irritatingly "wokey cokey" at times as Mandelson might say; and The Times, well , it's really going to have to go.
The idea of bringing topics together is also what gives magazines value. That idea of receiving a collection of stories about a subject you care about, which also has the capacity to surprise. By comparison, the Internet is all about single-hit self selection and, frankly, a lack of focus and calm.
I suspect paper magazines are on a hiding to nothing, however, not least with the suggestion WHSmith will exist the high street this year (having annihilated the traditional newsagent years ago). But I hope some manage to survive. It’s an excellent format and people will, I think, greatly miss it when it’s not there. But once it’s gone, it’s not coming back.
Superb. Really brilliant piece. Thank you. Also- spot on about the value of Private Eye. That was where I got all my info about Covid- I’m a retired GP- solid reliable stuff, and controversial if it needed to be, rather than for the sake of making people jump. And actually- there’s good journalism, broadly. It scorns to startle us, or strive meretriciously to suck us in, with nonsense.
When I worked at The Independent in the late 1990s, it was half-owned by Mirror Group Newspapers, then ruled with an iron calculator by David Montgomery. We thought Rommel (not Monty, because "Monty was on our side" [in WW2]) was the worst that cost-cutting newspaper management could be. Seems I was wrong. Never realised I was Bart in the meme, but life turns out oddly sometimes.
Ah, Rommel, probably the man Lord Gnome has the most contempt for in the entire media circus. And that, to be fair, take some doing.
I really look forward to receiving your article every Friday and this is one of the best. Keep it up and don't let the bastards grind you down!
Thank you for articulating how I've been feeling about journalism and media, but more importantly for sharing the love out to some of those high quality sources of accurate and insightful information.
Ok. Amazon Prime cancelled and wired subscribed to.
Excellent job. Please join me in the world of suddenly having to wait for stuff, pay more for it, and yet nevertheless feeling pretty fucking good about it
And then looking at the magazine guilt pile, but thinking “fuck it” because, hey, you’re supporting this stuff and do occasionally chip away at it. (Also, Wired supported me in ticking a major game creator off my all-time interviews wish list, when I landed a chat with Tomohiro Nishikado, and so it gets personal kudos too!)
Edit: ^ that being the Space Invaders guy.
This reminds me a lot of the BBC’s Inform, Educate, Entertain. We need to somehow get slop out of the mainstream but there is no seeming rationale for anyone to do it. The BBC still manages to make bangers that people pay attention to. How can mainstream journalism create some bangers to warrant the attention? And then convert that attention into revenue?
I suppose companies like HBO have shows like Last Week Tonight that is relatively mainstream, act as a reason for some people to subscribe to their service or are a “freebie” if they’re paying for something else.
YouTube can be a cesspit but it’s also got some of the best and most entertaining journalism out there.
I think journalism perhaps needs to think outside the box a bit… drop some of the tradition… and use their talent to make great content in the right places. I think there is an appetite for it but you need to lure people in or they’ll never consume it.
Trouble is, BBC news is utter biased rubbish now. Question time is loaded, and proven to be so. But then with a Tory baroness in overall charge, a former assistant to Boris Johnson in charged of news, and several self confessed tory supporters (including an active campaigner for the party) among its staff, what do you expect?
Being comfortably off, I'm now paying for more stuff than I have time to read, including several newspaper subscriptions and substacks. I have an online sub to the Guardian and I pay my local newsagent to deliver it. Same with Byline Times. I like reading physical things and also being able to keep on top of moving news and search for old stuff.
I'm not sure that all this input is good for my mental health, but thank you for reassuring me that I'm doing my bit to counter the madness.
The guilt pile is real. I have this issue. Piles of magazines and books and comics. My wife tends to sternly counter that I’ll get to it eventually and so I should stop worrying about it. But obviously when things do get a bit much, I guess it’s a case of keeping what you most value and love – and also offering support where relevant. (I don’t have time to read a daily, but do subscribe to online papers eg. I figure something is better than nothing.)
Thanks Ian for your cri de coeur.
Such an important column. Being a bit older than you I’m one of those people who were adults for quite a few years before the internet arrived, with its useful ‘mail order’ & ‘encyclopaedia’ & ‘entertainment listings’ stuff… and newspapers, worldwide - all free.
A few years later, the smartphone - apps, easy access, etc - great!
And yet just in the past few weeks I’ve started to I think genuinely feel it might have been better for everyone if it had never been invented… or at least, stayed at the level of when John Humphreys used to read out ‘www’ website addresses with barely suppressed scorn in his voice.
I buy The Economist in paper form but even with it in front of me now I’m distracted by the need to quickly find the latest reaction to the latest orange horror show…. But then I’ve found your BlueSky post about this piece, so not all bad.
I also have a digital subscription to The Guardian, because I’d rather it existed than not, even though so much of it feels so shallow when compared to the earnest publication I used to read in the 6th form library.
More recently I’ve recently taken out a Patreon subscription to Origin Story, because it’s one of my favourite things, and also because I read this, a bit guiltily, for free. Also a paid subscription to an another columnist on here, again because I like their free stuff.
I now firmly believe we should recognise Internet eras by John Humphrey's tone, from scepticism to acceptance
A recommendation I’d make if you feed overwhelmed by tech influx is to spend a month retraining your brain regarding where and how you get information. If you have an iPhone, delete all the apps from the Home Screen to force them into App Library. That adds a little friction. Add more with Screen Time. For news and social media, consider NetNewsWire, an RSS reader that lets you subscribe to feeds. Those can be from news orgs, but also from things like Bluesky. So some days I don’t go near Bluesky, but I can still read/not miss what a few folks have to say, like Ian, one of the blokes from 2000 AD, a retro-gaming guy, etc. (If you’re on Android, similar tools and RSS readers exist.)
Absolutely outstanding Ian. A MUST read for anyone and everyone interested in, well, everything. Thank you sir. Thank you
Excellent and helpful. Also, lots of people have more than two nipples: it's not a big deal. (It's evolutionary ....... ha ha ) I mean: What a con trick as well as total superficial rubbish. We need really good education systems to reduce the idiot factor.... instead it's about the three R's so we call all be mindless workers. sorry to go on...and thanks again to Ian