The new Glasgow-focused title from local newsletter start-up Mill Media will be named The Bell, Press Gazette can reveal. The new title will begin to publish on Monday (30 September), initially without a paywall, and aims to release new content three times a week. As previously reported by Press Gazette The Bell is staffed by two full-time employees: former Novara Media contributing editor Moya Lothian-McLean and former freelance Robbie Armstrong.
They will be supported by Glaswegian writer Ophira Gottlieb, who already writes for Mill Media, and former Slate managing editor June Thomas who edit some stories and share her expertise with the team. Stories have already been commissioned from Scottish journalists including freelances Dani Garavelli and Catriona Stewart, and Holyrood magazine writer Margaret Taylor. The Bell will be Mill Media’s first new launch away from Substack , the newsletter platform on which the venture originally started in Manchester in 2020.
The Bell, as well as an as-yet unnamed sister title in London, are both launching on rival platform Ghost , where they are set to be joined by Mill Media’s four other titles, which also cover Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham, before the end of the year. Mill Media uses a paid subscription model and promises readers longer, deeper reads on their communities. “Glasgow seems to be staring at its past, wondering where it is in the present and trying to reimagine a new future,” Armstrong said.
Lothian-McLean sa.
