Dear readers — we have enormous news. Today, with four days to go on our campaign, we can announce that we’ve partnered with Postcode Lottery to fund 400 annual Mill subscriptions for 16-25 year olds!
This is part of Postcode Lottery's commitment to strengthen local communities by supporting journalism, and to help young people access trustworthy information. If you want to be quick and claim one of these free subscriptions before they run out, click the button below. And if you know someone in that age bracket, please forward this on.
Otherwise, read on.
When The Mill started six years ago, I was still a student at Loreto College in Hulme, and it didn’t take long for me to become one of the paper’s biggest — and probably youngest — fans. Reading The Mill made me proud to live in Manchester. It wasn’t just the quality of the writing and the reporting, but the knowledge that demand for proper local journalism hadn’t disappeared, and that together, a community of people were building a new home for it.
My biggest dream was to be a journalist one day, but not just any journalist, a Mill journalist. In my final year of university, I emailed Mollie Simpson, one of our star reporters (she’s won a British Journalism Award for her investigation into the University of Greater Manchester, which led to the vice-chancellor’s arrest), to ask her for advice about breaking into the industry. We met for a coffee, and less than a year later, a job at The Mill came up.
I remember thinking: this is a massive longshot, but you’ve got to be in it to win it, right? Since I’m the one writing this newsletter, you already know how that story ends.
The point is, The Mill has been inspiring young Mancunians since it launched. Now, in an initiative that still feels surreal, I get to go into schools across Greater Manchester to inspire the next generation of journalists too. Those school trips are a direct result of last year’s campaign, when we tried to get 1,000 new members in just one month. We pledged to give journalism talks to students across Greater Manchester if we succeeded — and we did.
We know that younger people often struggle to access reliable news, and cost can be a big factor. That’s why we’re hugely thankful to Postcode Lottery for creating this opportunity.
This year, we’re trying to get from 4,500 to 5,000 paying members in two weeks. We've almost hit 4,700, but we still need 313 to go and we’ve got four days left.
That means you’ve got four days to claim our discounts: £6.95 instead of £8.95 for your first two months, or £69 instead of £89 for the whole year. That’s two weeks left to get us into a position where we can really up our game, doing even more award-winning investigations, cultural features and interviews with the local community.
Giving out free subscriptions to young people holds a special place in my heart, because they deserve, like I did, to feel connected to this city. But it’s our paying members who have built The Mill into what it is today.
If you want to support us, sign up here.
And please forward this to any 16-25 year olds in your life who might be interested in becoming a Miller. If you are in that age group, hit the button below and confirm your age with our ID verification service to claim your subscription. And welcome to The Mill!
