A good week for the Millers

Joshi's editor's note

Dear Millers, I hope you’re having a restful weekend. What a beautiful Sunday morning we had. Our cat (she is called Kat) took confidence from the sunny weather and climbed the apple tree in my garden. Here she is, photographed from the upstairs bathroom, looking like she has concerns about where to go next.

Ever since I started The Mill four and a half years ago, I’ve sent these Sunday editor’s notes to update the community of Millers on some good news or to drum up some extra paying members when we’ve needed a boost. This week, we have two fantastic bits of news.

The first is that we’ve been shortlisted for a British Journalism Award for our multi-part investigation into the companies making big money from “exempt” accommodation, a form of housing that was intended to support some of the most vulnerable people in society. It’s a fantastic recognition of a piece of work that pulled in reporters and editors across the whole Mill Media network and involved a massive amount of financial analysis and sleuthing.

The most recent part of the series was that wild story about a run-down semi-detached house in Harpurhey being bought and sold on the same day — first for £575,000 and then for £1.8m. We managed to work out that the company responsible for the flip — which had been reported by the council to parliament as an example of a market “manipulation” — was in fact one of the council’s largest housing partners, HSPG, a firm which has received millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

But the series started in November last year with our story about Yale Housing, which asked how housing for the vulnerable became a “lucrative opportunity” for property investors. Ever since we ran that story, I’ve had emails from people thanking us for exposing this shady world, some of whom were about to invest in property that they thought was going to give them a solid financial return as well as doing some good for society.

Two of the stories in our investigation.

The other bit of good news is Ophira Gottlieb joining us as our third staff writer. It was great to see lots of Mill members giving her a very warm welcome when she introduced herself this week. They correctly intuited that she is going to be a major addition to our team, having already written wonderful stories for us over the past year as a freelancer.

For most media companies, adding one journalist wouldn’t be a big deal because they have hundreds of them. For us, it’s a giant step. The Mill has had two staff writers — Jack and Mollie — since early 2022, and we always said that once we hit 3,000 paying members (which we did earlier this year), we would start looking for a third.

That’s how we’ve built this newsroom: gradually and responsibly based on how much income we are earning from our readers. It isn’t easy to build a subscription media company in the age of social media, declining attention, and endless amounts of free “content” on the internet. But getting to 3,000 members and being able to bring in Ophira is a sign that things are working and that our plan is on track.

And being shortlisted for a major journalism award is a nice bonus which shows that a small team of people can have a major impact if they work together and have the support of a committed readership. The companies and individuals we are investigating tend to have much more money than us, but good investigative journalism is about beating the odds — and not being intimidated by expensive lawyers.

Some of you reading this have been paying members for four years now! We turned on paid subscriptions in September 2020, and I still recognise the names of some of the early converts in the comments. Others have joined us along the way — including many who signed up on the days when we published those supported housing stories I mentioned above. I’m incredibly thankful to all of you.

If you’re not yet a member, please join the gang by clicking the button below. The destiny of The Mill is very much based on how many people become members, as the hiring of Ophira shows. Members get access to all our sparkling members-only stories, our comments and our live events, and they can access our back catalogue of great writing from cultural essays to investigations into local controversies.

By joining, you’re vindicating what we’re doing and allowing us to expand and diversify our output in the months ahead, so that we can continue to grow from a small team to the large, trusted news organisation this city needs. Like Kat in the apple tree, we’re on a bold and sometimes terrifying ascent and we’re keen to keep on climbing.