Progress is an Editorial Choice
The UK needs journalists and a journalistic outlet approaching current events with a focus on scientific and economic progress
Note: In a couple of days I am heading off on a three month sabbatical travelling South East Asia with my girlfriend. I’ll be back at TBI in June.
P.S. Views expressed here are my own/my co-author Jason and not that of my employer
In 2018, Vox Media launched Future Perfect. Through this vertical, the popular American media company created a team dedicated to covering important events that have historically been ignored by the news media. They employed talented emerging writers, given relative journalistic freedom, covering neglected but highly impactful events, often with a policy perspective attached.
Future Perfect is a highly successful platform. It provides analytical but accessible insight to topics such as whether AI systems should be open-sourced, or the challenges of vaccinating Monkeypox in Africa. Mainstream outlets rarely cover such issues in this level of detail.
It has always surprised me that nobody has tried to emulate this model in the UK. God knows we need the thinking, and the newspapers need the money.
The current state of UK media
UK media outlets have a habit of writing about things that don’t really matter. Many focus on political theatre at the expense of policy thinking, with the coverage of the COVID inquiry being the latest in a lake of data points to illustrate such a backward approach. Rather than journalists extensively covering Dominic Cummings’ comments on the structural challenges that led to mistakes in the UK’s pandemic response, reams of copy were dedicated to the Downing Street advisor’s swearing on group chats.
And although there is some great policy thinking emerging in Britain, it is often disparate. Great ideas remain stuck in the annals of Substack or Whatsapp groups with disappearing messages. Although some important advisors may stumble across them, they often bounce around the weird world of online forums, and rarely meme themselves into Whitehall.
Unfortunately, these ideas are losing out to the usual suspects in Westminster discourse - namely the comment section and pundits in the broadcast media.
Oftentimes the opinion columns of broadsheet outlets operate in the 20th Century paradigm of politics. The same dull people, writing the same dull arguments, unthinking and cynical. When one of the most exciting thing about op-eds in modern Britain is the column headline that Adrian Chiles selects, you know something has gone awry in our media ecosystem.
As long as politicians and their advisors dip into the broadsheet media to read the temperature of the country, to be inspired on political and policy agendas, they will come up short. Only with a new media model can consistently meaningful ideas and news commentary expand the mindset of news readership and the political leaders that wish to win them over.
A progress-focused vertical
We believe that an existing UK publication should establish a vertical with an editorial focus on on scientific and economic progress (for purposes of this piece, we will call this vertical “The Progress Pulse”. Examples of news trends in the last month that should be covered by The Progress Pulse include:
The partnership between DeepMind spinout Isomorphic Labs and Eli Lily/Novartis, and what this means for the future of biotech
What new generative AI courses announced for British civil servants mean for long term state capacity
The unnoticed change in the UK’s approach to intellectual property, and text and data mining
New proposals to develop next-generation geothermal energy
Although a small number of media outlets may cover some of these themes, the level of analysis and punchy policy opinion attached to such coverage means that the political class don’t appreciate the full implications of these big trends.
For a project of this kind to be successful, it would need:
Two or three reporters, preferably rising star writers in the science and economic progress landscape. Who is the next generation version of Ezra Klein and Kelsey Piper?
Examples of reporters could be Melissa Heikkilä and Ruxandra Teslo
An editor who:
Empowers the reporters to follow their nose/taste to write on a unique range of problem areas that have a radical, optimistic outlook
Commissions writers from beyond the traditional op-ed circuit, in particular targeting younger writers that often write raw but highly interesting content on Substack, often for free. In the same way the Klein and the like from the blogosphere, Substack is the new training ground for the next generation of influential writers
Examples of potential editors: Duncan Robinson, Kelsey Piper, John Burn Murdoch, Hal Hodson, Dan Milmo, Richard Fisher, and Madhumita Murgia
The resources to do additional forms of content, such as podcasts, newsletters, and Andrew Marr-esque 10 minute video essays.
FAQs
What do we mean by ‘progress’?
The definition of ‘progress’ we use here is deliberately narrow, focusing on scientific and economic progress. Other forms of social progress are critical for society to flourish, but we think there is a particular gap in mainstream writing on how to push the frontiers of scientific and economic discovery forward. This is the niche but important domain that a publication of this kind should cover.
How is this different to other media platforms out there?
Works in Progress is the most similar outlet in terms of vision, but is not news-oriented, not always policy-focused, and includes content that would be much longer than anything we are proposing. In this sense, our proposal would complement WiP.
Vox’s Future Perfect, the platform that inspired this piece, is both US focused and writes from the perspective of effective altruism. What we are proposing is something for the UK, and not necessarily aligned with EA thinking.
The New Statesman also has New Statesman Spotlight, which has a policy focus. Again, this is a very valuable resource, but their remit doesn't specifically focus on the scientific and technological frontier.
Wouldn’t this compromise journalistic independence?
Journalistic independence is important, but this approach needn’t compromise this value.Sky News and the Guardia have climate-specific coverage, while the Guardian also has a Gates-funded global development section.
In this sense, scientific and economic innovation needn’t be a party-political issue. In the same way that most mainstream political parties have accepted that climate change is real and requires urgent action, the issues covered in this proposed publication should be non-partisan.
There are a series of other questions that may need answering in order to make a project like this successful, although we welcome feedback from readers on what is missing:
How can this project create a sustainable pipeline for emerging writers to go into journalism/writing? Blog prizes such as the TxP Progress Prize could be one method, although there could be other approaches.
What sort of organisation could fund this model, and how does the funding relationship maintain journalistic integrity? Stripe/Patrick Collision fund a lot of ventures aligned in this space, but there is also a growing UK VC ecosystem that may be interested too.
To what extent does this project focus on long form vs short form, written vs audio/video?
We deserve a more vibrant media ecosystem. This proposal is not a silver bullet, but certainly can act as an enabling institution that turns the best possible ideas into the best possible outcomes
Many thanks go to Dylan Matthews and Will Henshall for providing feedback on this piece
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