The Mill is Greater Manchester’s new quality newspaper - delivered by email.
Join our mailing list to get thoughtful, ad-free local journalism in your inbox every week, from reporters who have written for The Times, The Guardian and The New York Times.
Founded in June 2020, The Mill is for people who want a new kind of local news and don’t have the patience for pop-up ads and stories sourced from social media. Our newsletters dig into important issues in Greater Manchester every week, covering politics, culture, history, crime, business and new ideas.
We believe in the power of proper reporting and good writing rather than chasing clicks, and we particularly focus on giving our readers the context they need to understand what’s really going on. We know people are inundated with information so we purposely focus on offering quality rather than quantity.
How it works
The Mill Weekly is free - just sign up to our mailing list below and you will get one original story from us every week, plus our Monday news briefing.
The Mill Daily is for Mill members, who pay £7-a-month and get our stories in their inboxes 5 days a week. Members also join our discussion threads, contribute to our reporting and support our growth as we build a new home for high-quality journalism in Greater Manchester. All our work is funded by our members, so we hope you will consider joining when the time is right for you.
Click the button below to join our free mailing list or become a paying member of The Mill
“Everyone who is interested in the truth should be getting behind this.” — Diane Cooke, journalist
“The Mill is a great idea. Just the kind of local journalism I want to read - intelligent, trustworthy and insightful.” — Jon Connell, founder of The Week magazine
“This is brilliant! If you miss real, well-researched journalism without sensationalism and all the clickbait, have a read.” — Paula Wallen, Mill reader
“A great read. Subscribe, fellow Mancunians.” — Michael Rawlinson QC, Mill reader
The story behind The Mill
The Mill was launched during the lockdown by me, Joshi Herrmann, to give Greater Manchester a different type of news coverage, with different priorities and a fresh approach.
I have worked as a journalist for almost a decade, including reporting for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Spectator (you can find a few of my stories here). The Mill is my attempt to find a new business model for local news, focusing on the priorities of readers rather than advertisers.
Local journalism has been devastated in recent years, with thousands of journalists laid off and newsrooms badly depleted. I hope this project can be part of the fightback. (Read my piece about what’s gone wrong in local news).
The Mill is funded by its readers via a paid membership program. For the price of a couple of pints per month, paying members receive original reporting from us daily rather than weekly. They also join our community, including being part of our members’ discussion group and being invited to our meetups (once that is allowed again). The Mill’s members are supporting the growth of a new type of journalism in Greater Manchester, allowing us to take on more reporting and hire local journalists. To join them, click the button below
If you are interested in working for The Mill as a freelance reporter or on staff, please read this page about what we are looking for and how to pitch.
If you have a story you think we should be looking into, please email joshi@manchestermill.co.uk or get me on Twitter at @joshi.
What has The Mill published so far?
You can find our first stories on our homepage here, including:
An exclusive revealing a major data breach at Greater Manchester Police
A long-form investigation into the disappearance of three teenagers from a private school in Manchester.
A feature about the life of James Watkins, a fugitive slave who came to Bolton and Manchester in the 1850s.
An interview with the prosecutor who brought the first charges against the Rochdale grooming gangs, and an exclusive story about a new police investigation there.
And in-depth pieces about the death of Tony Wilson, the way Miles Platting is changing, and how Manchester property is sold to overseas investors.
You can follow The Mill on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram.
How can I help The Mill?
The Mill is entirely funded by subscription revenue from our members. The more we get, the faster we can become sustainable and start to grow our team. If you are interested in joining us as a member, just click below.
If you like the idea of what we are doing, please tell your friends and forward them the link to this page, so they can sign themselves up, or use the button below.
You can now follow The Mill on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram
