SoWhat - the July issue

Here comes Substack journalism: a short biography of Alys Key

Dear reader,

So far, this has not been the summer I prayed for; temperatures have been higher than desired, but the good news is that another issue of the magazine is here. I’m excited to reveal the cover for this month’s issue: freelance journalist Alys Key. This issue, ‘Here comes Substack journalism’, touches on an ongoing trend of established journalists leaving their mainstream publications to start their own newsletters or other alternative media publications.

Alys was the features editor at Digital Frontier before it ceased publication last year. She now writes two Substack newsletters, UK2.0 and Sorry, We’re Prosed, in addition to her freelance roles for publications like The New Statesman and Unheard. We had an interesting conversation with Alys about her journalistic ambitions, the state of media today, and the need for UK ambition.

“We had Business Insider basically cutting a lot of staff in Europe. We had TechCrunch cutting a lot of staff in Europe. And then just at the very start of this year, Wired basically cut their whole UK team. That, taken altogether, I think, is quite a bad sign about tech journalism in the UK and Europe”, she explained during our conversation. The full piece will go live next week.

Hope you enjoy reading this and other pieces this month, including from John-Paul Kunrunmi, Account Executive at Hope&Glory PR.

Stay cool,

.