Meet The Mill

Dear readers — those of you who read yesterday’s newsletter will have already heard the big news: this week, we have not one but two new staff writers joining us here at The Mill.

If you’ve been with us for a few months already you’ll likely have already encountered work by Alec and Ethan. Alec wrote one of our most popular stories of the year so far, on some questionable affairs at Oldham Coliseum. Ethan, on the other hand, was one half of the brains behind our story that caused the biggest stir we’ve caused in a while, on the figure behind those posters about Salford University.

So we thought it was only right for them to introduce themselves. And then we also thought, while we’re at it, that we – Mill writers of old – might as well re-introduce ourselves as well. Here we go.

Alec Herron, Staff Writer

My career arc arriving at the Mill is more bent out of shape than the Eccles metrolink line. Formerly a newsroom BBC journalist, I’ve written for the Guardian, reported daily for freeview TV news, and produced an award-winning documentary on the Star and Garter music venue, before packing in the media game and joining the cosy world of PR. But then The Mill happened, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

I’m from a working class estate in Wythenshawe — not net curtains hanging out of windows rough, but it gave me the grounded upbringing that I think allows me to understand how the average Mancunian sees life. My first piece for the Mill in 2024 was a personal tale of my family history on a Beswick council estate living out its final days.

Much of what I’ve written since has focused on the city’s outer edges. I reported on allegations of electoral fraud in Tameside which led to six arrests and an ongoing investigation; and most recently I uncovered the dodgy goings-on at Oldham’s beloved Coliseum Theatre. My promise to you is this: If you offer me a tip, and there’s something in it, I will dig until the story lines the (online) pages of The Mill for all of Greater Manchester to see. So email me, please.

Ethan Penny, Staff Writer

In March, I surfaced from the cloistered depths of university exam revision to head back to my home town. A building connected to a local councillor had collapsed, and I knew there was a story in it. Guided by the dab hand of Jack Walton, we pulled together a long-read that I, and many other Millers, loved. Now, having finished my studies, I'm back at Mill Media for real – bouncing between Manchester and our sister publication, the Liverpool Post (for that reason you might see a little less of me than Alec).

I was brought up on a council estate in Oldham, before packing my bags for Oxford, where I softened the corners of a northern accent doing that famous degree that all the worst politicians do. I never fancied the dark arts, though. I spent my university years cutting my teeth on the student newspaper circuit, where a stint leading a news team bagged me the Philip Geddes award for the university's most promising student journalist. I've also spent a period at the Financial Times, where I picked up a fondness for maps, numbers, and cumbersome investigations.

I love those elusive, unyielding stories hiding in Greater Manchester's darker corners. Drop me an email if you want me to take a torch to something.

Lucy McLaughlin, Staff Writer

The pandemic brought my school years to an abrupt halt and, as sad as it sounds, I'd probably have gone stir crazy if it hadn't been for The Mill. I can still picture myself at my kitchen table reading the site's early stories back when it was a one-man band on Substack, wondering what it would be like to produce that kind of journalism one day. It seemed like a long shot.

I grew up in south Manchester but, by 19, I was convinced I needed to spread my wings and see more of the world, which is how I ended up exactly one hour down the road at Leeds University. I studied English, though my degree took second billing to a growing obsession with student journalism, which saw me become editor of my student paper. I graduated and started working at The Tab, a national student news brand, where I oversaw teams of university reporters across the country.

But that chapter didn't last long, because I'd never really taken my eye off The Mill, and sometimes still struggle to believe that I’ve found myself here this early in my career. Seven months on, I've investigated the corporate chains snapping up Manchester's nurseries, teamed up with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism to expose serial AI fantasist Chris Kenna, and delved into the bizarre goings-on plaguing Manchester's luxury tower boom.

If you’ve spotted something that feels consequential, complicated or just doesn’t quite add up (a business lead? A new academy trust? A planning row? A campus controversy?) I’m all ears — just send me an email.

Jack Dulhanty, Staff Writer

It’s a thought that makes me shudder, but my first piece was published in The Mill — about a man from Wigan trying to save an especially endangered bird — over five years ago. At the time, I was still at uni applying for internships at national publications, all of which would have required me to move to London, something I had no interest in doing. I’m from Salford, and The Mill opening when it did was a rare stroke of luck.

Since joining I’ve investigated the darker side of Manchester’s only michelin-star restaurant, found that one of the Andy Burnham’s closest advisers misled the government to give his company £400k, put the Night ‘n’ Day Cafe saga to bed and recently travelled to Northern Ireland to report one of the most comprehensive retellings of the 1996 Arndale Bombing.

More recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in the stories of the city’s most powerful: the developers, power brokers and politicians who will decide what the future of Greater Manchester, particularly the city centre, looks like. If you have any insight, tips or axes to grind in that area, get in touch.

Ophira Gottlieb, Editor

Back in 2023 when I was still a student at Manchester University, I wrote a strange piece for The Mill about reading Lancashire dialect poetry on the tram back from Rochdale while the train strikes were on, and ever since then I’ve been ruthlessly climbing the ranks to become your editor. I’m from Glasgow – shamefully the only member of the team not from Greater Manchester – but I moved here to study back in 2019, and you know what, that’s how Bev Craig got here too.

Aside from editing, I also write for The Mill regularly. I tend to be put on a story whenever something bizarre happens in the city; when people are arguing over something inconsequential; or when we’ve identified a particularly eccentric character we want to bother for an hour or two. See, respectively: the Manchester Victoria pigeon massacre, the tour guide turf wars, and my profile on England’s only matador — who happens to be the octogenarian son of a Salford mayor.

These strange happenings and characters are a huge part of what I love about Manchester, and this job. Long-term Millers will know that it’s always been my dream to write the ultimate story on Denton Rock, so if anyone knows anyone with the keys to the tower can you point them in my direction (and, similarly, if you’ve got any stories that you think might be up my alley, then send them over!).

Huge fan of Denton Rock. Photo: The Mill.

But where’s Jack Walton!?

For those of you panicking about the absence of former Mill editor Jack Walton — do not! He’s still right here in our office, only he’s editing our Liverpudlian sister paper The Post. Many of you will remember Jack W from his opus on Lee Twamley, the man behind the spate of Union Jacks that were flapping around the city centre last summer, which features such phenomenal quotes as: “We’re not French, we don’t stop lorries at Calais and burn sheep”.

Jack will still be contributing to The Mill from time to time, of course. Similarly, our ex-ex-editor Sophie Atkinson is still with us as a freelance editor, and ex-staff writer Mollie Simpson (who is over at our Sheffield paper now) will no doubt still be appearing in your inboxes with updates on the University of Greater Manchester debacle. It just goes to show that no one ever really leaves Mill Media, not now, not ever, they’re not allowed.