A year of restoring my faith in journalism

An editor’s note from Shannon

My 2024 is ending in a very different way than it began. Back in January, I was still trying to scrape together some sort of living from freelance writing, all the while wondering whether the time had finally come – after more than a decade in journalism – for me to give up and jump ship.

For one thing, I was finding it difficult as an American who’d recently immigrated to the UK to find outlets publishing the kind of in-depth, US-style magazine journalism that I was used to writing. For another: publications here and at home have been tightening or eliminating their freelance budgets, downsizing or closing altogether. Journalism around the world has been in crisis for a long time now – which doesn’t only affect those of us working in the industry; it’s also a crisis for democracy.

During my semi-regular rewatch of Sex and the City, HBO’s iconic series about working women in New York City in the late nineties and early 2000s, I felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart when I heard our columnist heroine Carrie Bradshaw bragging that she’d got her freelance rate at Vogue magazine up to four dollars a word. These days, most journalists I know are grateful to get even a quarter of that; a few pennies, even fractions of pennies (pence over here, of course) is much more common. Writers (even real ones who weren’t glamorized on television) were once able to make a decent living – even a very good living – in the pre-internet era, before everybody got used to reading their news for free.

I started my career during the blogging heyday of the early 2010s, writing for niche US websites with dedicated readerships. I parlayed bylines at smaller publications into assignments at bigger and more mainstream outlets, like the Atlantic and, eventually, BuzzFeed News, where I’d spend almost eight years bouncing around different divisions as a reporter and editor. Our newsroom there worked hard to distinguish our high-quality journalism from the buzzy quizzes and lists produced by the editorial arm of the company; my colleagues won National Magazine Awards, a George Polk, and even a Pulitzer. But all that prestige wasn’t enough to ultimately save the newsroom from shuttering in 2023. Anyone working in the media these days learns to expect disaster just around the bend.

Like the tens of thousands of journalists laid off in the past few years in the US and the UK, I was forced into the far more precarious world of freelance. I’ll be honest: if my wife hadn’t been supporting us on her civil servant’s salary in my first couple of years here, I simply couldn’t have afforded to keep doing the job I loved. By the beginning of 2024, when my luck hadn’t changed much, I seriously considered my options. I thought about going to dental assistant school. Perhaps becoming a dog groomer. Or joining my wife in the civil service.

Me, my wife Lynette, and our dog Gus on our stoop soon after moving into our beloved home in Wavertree. Photo: Shannon Keating

I had dozens of job applications out to companies of all kinds in Liverpool and Manchester when, over the summer, the Post announced they’d be hiring for an editor’s position.

I was immediately taken with the company’s editorial approach: hyperlocal, slightly eccentric deep-dives, rather than the terrible churn of endless clickbait that’s become all too normalised in today’s dismal media landscape. At a time when hundreds of local papers have been forced to close, and over four million people in the UK live in so-called “news deserts”, the Mill Media team were bringing informative and entertaining long-reads directly to subscribers’ inboxes and encouraging them to pay a few pounds a month for the privilege. It’s a strategy that, a little over five years in, has proven to be a sustainable model for long-term stability, and even growth.

I took the plunge and submitted an application. As my extraordinary luck would have it, at the end of the summer I was hired to team up with resident writer Abi, and we were later joined by our newest recruit, Merseyside culture aficionado Laurence Thompson.

Sometimes it’s still hard for me to believe my incredible fortune over the past twelve months. Right when I was on the verge of leaving journalism behind, I found a newsroom dedicated to this great city, where I’ve been made to feel at home as an interloping immigrant among lifelong Scousers and the cosmopolitan blend of people and cultures that make Liverpool, well, Liverpool. Every day I learn something new, whether through my own reporting or, far more often, the writing of my brilliant colleagues: Abi’s explosive investigations into institutions like homelessness charity the Big Help Project and renowned performing arts school LIPA; Laurence’s fascinating culture essays about the Wirral’s identity crisis and the rise and fall of Merseyside culture; and incredible freelancers like Melissa Blease writing about her childhood among rock stars all spring to mind.

L-R: Me, Abi and Laurence at Post HQ. Photo: The Post

It’s been quite the year here at The Post. We’re now supported by a whopping 1,700 paid members who choose to spend their precious pounds on deeply reported, independent journalism. Hell, we’ve even taken home awards for our work — Abi proudly dons the Young Journalist of the Year prize for 2024, and a collection of our writers just went toe to toe with the BBC at the British Journalism Awards.

More than 30,000 of you are currently on our free subscriber list, which is an extraordinary number (and one we could not be more grateful for). In 2025, we’re hoping to encourage more of you to take the plunge and become a paid supporter – and with your help, we’ll expose more corruption, illuminate more aspects of Merseyside culture, spotlight more amazing Liverpudlians, and ensure that the city can rely on high quality journalism for many years to come.

Thank you all so much for your comments, likes, emails, tips, and words of encouragement this year. What are you hoping to see us cover more of in 2025? Drop me a line anytime you fancy: shannon@millmediaco.uk.

A very happy new year from all of us here at Post HQ. See you on the other side.

With gratitude,

Shannon