Growing up, my mother said I’d either be a writer or “showing off in public”. Thanks to the digital age, I’ve been able to do both.
I started getting paid for putting pen to paper (or arranging pixels on a screen) at university, as a music journalist for cocky new media behemoth VICE. From there, I somehow landed a job in the refined world of lifestyle magazines and spent three formative years at women’s magazine Stylist, a stint which introduced me to steak tartare and depths of my overdraft I didn’t know I could plumb.
Since then, my career has veered between putting in shifts at some of the UK’s most established news brands (BBC, the Independent) vs editorial roles at scrappy start-ups that punch far beyond their weight (gal-dem, Novara Media). As a freelancer, I wear multiple hats, writing on politics for the likes of the New York Times and the Guardian while also presenting podcasts digging into the hidden history of Britain’s transatlantic slave trade (Human Resources).
Why am I here now, writing this? Why are you here, reading this? I’d wager, for the same reason: we share an investment in rich, lovingly-crafted local story-telling that feels in shorter supply than previous years. That, and the site is yet to publish some of the fantastic pieces we’ve got locked and stocked to announce the The Bell to readers. But it’s mainly the former.
Glasgow has an incredibly rich media tradition, a torch carried by many journalists still working in the city today. But, as is the story across much of the country, newspapers have dramatically shrunken in size. News cycles have contracted and reporters have seen a reduction in both the time they can dedicate to stories, and the resources they are able to allocate to the pursuit of them. Local news has borne the brunt of this shift.
The Bell is one of several seeds being planted by talented, imaginative journalists to try and re-populate Glasgow’s media landscape once more. A thriving city needs equally vibrant and diverse news offerings to match it. Some of those are already in existence. Others – like the Bell – are just beginning. We can’t wait for you to join us on the journey; give me a bell if you've got any tips, pitches or just want a chat.
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