Dear readers — I hope you’re all having a relaxing Sunday. I wanted to write a quick email about a recent story we published, and how, I hope, it demonstrates the kind of publication I want The Londoner to be.
Finding a story is an imprecise science. It might come from something your friend’s dog’s mum’s boyfriend told them offhand, or it might be the result of a tip from one of our beloved readers landing into our inbox. It might be something as vague as a vibe, a feeling you’ve got walking around the city. Or, somewhat more prosaically, it might just come from an Instagram post from one of the country’s biggest food critics.
I first saw Jay Rayner’s Instagram post about how Brixton News were being forced out of their kiosk in the neighbourhood’s tube station on the morning of Friday 6 February. It caught my eye: I’d walked past that same newsstand earlier in the week, and thought how glad I was that it was still there and busy, as beloved as it was when I’d first encountered it years ago. Now, as fate would have it, it was closing — 36 years after it opened — due to a rent rise from its landlord, TfL.
That afternoon, my colleague Peter came back in from reporting. We spoke about the kiosk, and how much the rent increase might be. And we decided then and there that he should go down to Brixton as soon as possible and try to find out what the real facts of the story were: how much TfL was charging them, how owner Pritesh Patel felt about it, why the newsagent’s was so adored by the community. Peter got on his bike and pedalled south as fast as he could.
When he came back to the office, he had the kind of wild-eyed energy that for journalists means one thing: you’ve got the story. At that point, no nationals had written anything — other than local blog Brixton Buzz, nobody had. We prepped the story for our Monday briefing and then, when the new week rolled around, hit publish.
It’s often hard to gauge how people will react to a story, but in this case it was near instant: the likes on our accompanying Instagram post rolled in in their thousands, the comments in their hundreds. People shared their outrage, their grief, their memories. It can be difficult, in a city as huge and varied as London, to feel as though there’s community. But Pritesh made them feel as though they belonged to something. And though that was disappearing, in their love for Brixton News, and their anger at what was happening to it, people were united again.
Other outlets began to take note; first a trickle, then a deluge of pieces. But they also seemed to miss what was really important. This wasn’t an excuse to bash Sadiq Khan or blithely claim that London was better in the past. It was about uncovering what brings people together, about how casual conversations at a tube station kiosk might be precisely what we mean when we talk about "community spirit” or “local pride” or any of those other buzzwords (on top of, of course, the facts of the matter being rigorously investigated and reported).
I went down to Brixton News on the last day it was open with photographer Harry Mitchell. We wanted to create a eulogy of sorts, a piece that ten years in the future Londoners will be able to look back on and remember why the kiosk was so important. I think Laura, a regular customer who Pritesh has known since she was a child, put it best: “It’s a friendly place, but it’s also life advice, it’s political discussion, a human face when you come into the tube station… a loose one or two minutes where you discuss what you’re doing now, where you’re working.”
In many ways, this is what we’re trying to do with The Londoner: to build something that people feel they’re part of. No matter whether you live in Enfield or Sutton, Kensington or Hounslow, we want to make you feel like a Londoner, connected to the wider story of this metropolis.
In our first year or so, we’ve grown steadily, and now have around 1,250 members. It’s a great start, and stories like this one give me faith we’re on the right path, but we’re still a long way from where we want to be. People often assume, because the national press is so concentrated here, that London has a huge abundance of coverage. But look around. Who's truly telling the city's stories? And how much of what is written is focused on the ceaseless off-recording briefings of Westminster politicians — nothing really to do with London life at all? And how much of it is focused on the Pritesh Patel’s of our city?
If you’re receiving this email it's because you haven’t currently signed up as a paid member. I’m going to make the case for why you should.
We appreciate that paying for a local media subscription is not something everyone can prioritise financially, not least at a time where so much is available for free. There’s a reason The Londoner puts out half of its articles for free: we want to remain accessible to all of our readers. That’s never going to change. What that means, however, is that those who pay are in effect subsidising those don’t.
I’d like us to keep growing and covering stories like this one. And I’d like your help in doing so. If you appreciate the stories we’ve been sending you of late, do remember that someone has to pay for it. A thriving independent media will always rely on the people who believe in it putting their money where their mouth is. Without our paying members we would cease to exist.
If you think what we’re doing is important then please do join our community today.
