Local journalism is not dead... it's evolving.
In the early 19th century, London had dozens of daily printed newspapers. Today, with the exception of the business-focused City A.M., it has none. The recent retreat of the Evening Standard into a weekly format marked the end of daily local news in print.
The news goes on, of course. The rebranded London Standard and other publications now do most of their reporting online. It's where the audience is. It's cheaper. But the move away from print has also brought redundancies and a general feeling that local journalism is in the doldrums.
Well, Resurgam, as Christopher Wren might say. A new cohort of London news sites has sprung up to fill the journalistic vacuum. Most of them are enabled by Substack, the newsletter-based site that offers both a light-touch publication platform, but also a way to monetise through reader subscriptions. Advert free, it's an environment where good content trumps clickbait. They offer nourishing content and journalistic integrity without all the marketeering and celebrity fluff.
Here are four recent titles, all of which we keenly recommend.
The London Spy: The Spy is, in our view, the best of the new breed of online publications. Its twice-weekly newsletters feature sharp takes on hot issues. Recent stories include the demise of London's 24-hour culture, the latest attempt to pedestrianise Oxford Street, and a particularly astute insight into why locals are blocking al fresco dining in Soho. A second weekly newsletter offers a commentary on all the other local news stories that matter.
The Londoner: Borrowing the name of a defunct mayoral publication, The Londoner promises proper journalistic scrutiny of issues that aren't getting covered elsewhere. "Instead of a play review," they say, "we'll detail the clash of personalities behind that theatre that keeps pulling shows; instead of an exhaustive blow-by-blow recounting of the day at Westminster, we’ll delve into a single line in a council report which is set to change what time you get kicked out of the bars in Soho." The Londoner comes from the same team who launched The Manchester Mill, a highly successful local news site built on the Substack platform. Its early articles include an exposé of Labour MP Jas Athwal's activities as "parliament's biggest landlord", and a discussion of London's oft-fraught dating scene. They also promise regular news roundups.
London Centric: Jim Waterson is a seasoned and tenacious journalist who built his career at the Guardian and BuzzFeed. He's now gone rogue, setting up London Centric to ask: "What would happen if journalists actually had the time to investigate the powerful people in our city? What if there were a news outlet that tried to find the real story rather than trying to go viral?" Only a month or so in, the site has already served up some exceptional articles, including a look at why London's 5G signal is so bad, the best account we've read about TfL's ongoing cyberattack problems, and a piece looking at who funds the Evening Standard. The latter article, one of the first on the site, got the attention of the Standard's proprietor Lord Lebedev, who responded on X to call Waterson a "prick". That's quite polite for X, mind.
The London Minute: Another Substack publication, the Minute arrives at 7am every morning with a simple, punchy roundup of all the key London news. It will always take more than a minute to read because its author Michael MacLeod is a shrewd judge of the stories that are worth knowing about. The London Buzz, by veteran blogger IanVisits offers a similar service in the evening.
These new titles join an already rich if disparate online ecosystem. Dave Hill's OnLondon has been around since 2017, majoring in news from City Hall and other aspects of London politics, but also tackling adjacent stories. Dave has a Substack presence in the form of OnLondon Extra. Both are reader-supported rather than relying on advertising.
London also has numerous hyperlocal news sites (some of which still do print editions). Many of these are owned by Reach plc, who also operate MyLondon, a soufflé of news, ads and clickbait. Among the better and long-lived independent titles are the SE1 website, covering that postcode area, and Greenwich Wire (formerly 853 blog). Throw in an untold number of blogs, podcasts and video channels, plus local sections on national sites like the BBC, and the London news is all there... if you know where to find it.
And that's the rub. Physical newspapers, for all we liked to argue with their content, were well-recognised gatekeepers of local news. Move the whole lot online and we can still have "Proper Journalism", but it's decanted and dripped into a thousand silos. Quality and independence of voice may well improve, but visibility becomes the challenge. (That, and making a sustainable business out of it.)
Sites like the London Minute and London Buzz offer an invaluable service here, pooling everyone else's news into a daily digest. The London Spy, The Londoner and London Centric offer short commentaries across numerous stories while also breaking their own news. OnLondon continues to serve up measured, well-informed commentary on the capital's politics. It's a formidable hydra of local journalism, when you put it all together.
Good luck to them all, and we hope this article sends a few more subscribers their way.
