Dear readers — last week we stooped rather low. On Friday, we published a piece of journalism which had been billed as Premium content by the Manchester Evening News. It was a piece written by six reporters and put behind an MEN pay-wall, which read: “This is a Premium article created exclusively for our subscribers”.
This was a lie. The piece was not written by MEN reporters, nor was it created exclusively for their subscribers. It was written by Local Democracy Reporters as part of a scheme funded by the BBC Licence fee. It was a piece anyone could have published, so we did: we put the full MEN ‘exclusive’ up on our website. But we didn’t try to charge for it. We don’t think people should be asked to pay for journalism they’ve already paid for.
The response we got was very encouraging, with tonnes of you sharing our mini campaign and emailing support. “Lovely work from [The Mill] calling out Reach’s egregious badging of local democracy reporting scheme stories as ‘premium content’”, was one response. And another: “Glad to see this particular fox being shot”.
And one more for luck: “I didn’t think I could like The Mill any more than I already do. Is it possible to be petty and important at the same time?” To which we would say yes, yes it is.
In today’s briefing we’ve pushed both the MEN and the BBC further to explain this situation, but if we’re being honest we still don’t find their answers satisfactory. You can read all about that below, along with further updates from the Gorton and Denton byelection and the University of Greater Manchester.
Hi, Jack here. Reach PLC, a large, stock exchange-listed publisher, attempting to mislead readers by branding license fee-funded content as their own ‘exclusive’, is a pretty clear indication of how far standards of local journalism have fallen in recent years.
Of course, we’ve long-since been advocates of pay-walled journalism, alongside the large quantities of what we put out for free, because we think it drives up standards and means publications don’t have to rely on getting as many eyeballs as possible to drive ad revenue.
If you like to support a publication where the exclusives are actually exclusive, then join 4000+ Mill members today. It would be great to have you on board.
Is Labour already falling out in Gorton and Denton?
The final candidates in the Gorton and Denton byelection were announced over the weekend. Angeliki Stogia, a councillor in Whalley Range, was selected for Labour ahead of Bury council’s leader Eamonn O’Brien. O’Brien was apparently the favourite in No.10, the Guardian reported, but Stogia enjoyed the backing of deputy leader Lucy Powell. To quote one Manchester Labour source, Stogia is not the Keir Starmer candidate, “she’s Lucy’s”. However there is already internal strife in the campaign, after local councillors who just last week were found to have breached the council’s code of conduct as part of the infamous “Trigger Me Timbers” Whatsapp group chat were present at the launch and even signing members in to the meeting where they cast their votes. “When I saw them, I thought: are my eyes deceiving me?” One Labour source says, describing their arrival to the meeting. These councillors and ex councillors — Alison Gwynne (wife to the exited Andrew Gwynne MP), George Jones and Brenda Warrington — were found to have been part of a group chat that complainants said peddled in racism, anti-semitism and hate speech, and wished death on constituents. While there are no rules against it, the fact they were involved in an internal candidate selection — and were around for the launch of Stogia’s campaign, founded on a “unity not division” message — has left a sour taste. When we sent questions to Labour North West about this, we received no response.
Elsewhere, Labour councillors from other wards who spoke to The Mill said they and their local groups are yet to start campaigning in the constituency, but local campaigners have said things are going well on the doorstep so far. Martin Rathfelder, a local campaigner from Whalley Range, told us there were serious numbers out for Labour on the weekend, amongst them Andy Burnham, who of course promised to be at the beck and call of the campaign team in Gorton and Denton after the Labour NEC stopped him running there. We will keep track of his movements in the constituency as the campaign goes on. Rathfelder said of the dozens of doors he knocked on in Burnage, only one constituent said they would vote Reform, but it’s in Denton that Labour expect trouble. But their real fear would appear to be Green candidate Hannah Spencer, a plumber from Hale who is running on a more upbeat message. “We’ll just be saying ‘born and bred’” says one Labour councillor about Stogia’s campaign. “Spencer comes across really good and like a normal person. She’s positive and upbeat, you can see she’ll pull a lot of votes from young people.”
Outside of the bunfight between Labour, the Greens and Reform (for more on their candidate, see our weekend read), also running in the seat is Lib Dem nuclear physicist and local school governor Jackie Pearcy, plus former Reform mayoral candidate Nick Buckley MBE, running under the banner of Advance UK. Meanwhile, the Worker’s Party of Britain, led by George Galloway, announced last night it would not stand a candidate so as to not pull votes away from the Greens. “This decision is taken in the best interests of the working-class,” the party said. “Labour and Reform must lose.”
Correction: The original version of this story said Jack Naylor, another Tameside councillor, was present at Saturday's candidacy launch. This is incorrect.
Pride of place
Following its collapse last year, Manchester Pride will return this summer as a not-for-profit company. In its previous incarnation, Pride had been led by Mark Fletcher, but its finances became a constant battle after the pandemic. A series of ambitious moves to rescue the situation, like the Mardi Gras show at the Mayfield Depot and a bid to host EuroPride, failed, leading to the company’s collapse in October. We broke that news at the time, and followed it up with an in-depth account of what went wrong, with the BBC also reporting that Pride owed over £1 million to performers and suppliers. The new company taking over is called Manchester Village Pride, perhaps indicating a return to a simpler festival based around the Gay Village. The team has already said that core elements of Pride, such as the parade, village party and vigil to those lost to HIV, will remain. The BBC reports that local venues have already pledged £120,000 to support the event.
The pettiest protest in UK media continues
Last week, we asked both the BBC and the MEN to comment on why the latter has been publishing licence-fee funded articles under the guise of “exclusive” content for their paying subscribers — a blatant lie given that not just The Mill but ILoveMCR have published the exact same content for free. Both newsrooms largely ignored our question. The BBC reiterated that paywalling LDR content is allowed, and simply did not address the lie; while the MEN said again that LDR-written articles still place significant demand on the MEN’s editorial capacity, as they commission the articles and edit the copy (they also did not address the lie).
This is true, and raises a number of points we didn’t have time to get into the first time we brought this up. The MEN are indeed in charge of commissioning LDRs — and they are paid to do so. According to the government website, in 2025 the BBC paid news outlets in charge of employing LDRs £40,790 for every reporter outside London. A Glassdoor job listing for an LDR reporter from the MEN in that same year lists the starting salary as £26k. This means at the lowest salary level the MEN could profit by just under £15,000 a year per Local Democracy Reporter. We asked the MEN for exact details on how much they’re paid by the BBC to employ LDRs, and how much they pay their LDRs, but they ignored the question.
But let's be fair — the MEN do spend time and energy commissioning and editing LDR work. BBC guidelines state that the role of an LDR is to “report on the decision-making process” of local councils: “what decisions are made in the public's name and how they are arrived at”. LDRs may provide other stories, so long as they are “focused on local democracy”, “in the public interest”, and don’t “detract from the core purpose of the service”. Here is an example of an article the MEN commissioned an LDR to write two weeks ago, about Bury Market.
The MEN makes money on this piece three times: firstly through being paid by the BBC to employ, commission, and edit; secondly by the fact that the article is currently littered with ads for Trainline; and thirdly because it is once again an article behind a paywall, billed as exclusive content — though we could publish it ourselves at any time.
In their response to our questions, the MEN said that because of the work they put into producing these articles, “we are comfortable in publishing this as part of the content mix we serve our Premium readers.” However, since The Mill promised to republish any LDR article published by the MEN under the guise of exclusive content, they haven’t appeared to have done so again.
Your Briefing
🎓 Andrew Roberts has been named the new chair of the board of governors at the University of Greater Manchester. Roberts, a local businessman who runs a communications agency, has previously been chair of Bolton College, a subsidiary of the university, and served as part of the university’s remuneration committee, which oversees remuneration of senior staff members. The vacancy was created by William Morris deciding to step down from the role in early January, a month after our reporting revealed another financial scandal at the university. The scandal related to a curious arrangement with the Centre for Islamic Finance, which has charged £3.2 million to the university since 2019 in return for attracting postgraduate students to its course. The main reason it looked odd was that Baroness Morris, a director of the company, is married to William Morris, whose role meant he was in charge of good governance. A senior staff member told us that the centre is “profiting to an unjustifiable level” and described the arrangement as “a flagrant breach of our own governance requirements”. In response to that article, the university said it was satisfied that the arrangement was “transparent and accords with good practice”. A spokesperson later declined to answer questions about why Morris resigned, citing his term coming to a close at the end of February. “We congratulate Dr Roberts on his appointment,” a university spokesperson said in a new statement. “Governors and senior leaders look forward to working closely with him.”
📷 Just two weeks ago, GMP announced that the major criminal probe they’d launched into the so-called ‘Manchester nightlife videos’ — a voyeuristic trend where women are filmed covertly on nights out, and those videos uploaded to social media — had formally concluded. Police had been looking into the videos for over a year, but a criminal investigation had proven untenable “due to limitations with current legislation”.
We wrote about the trend at the time, speaking to women affected by the videos, and going out onto Manchester’s streets in an attempt to track down the people behind the accounts. Despite the fact that criminal proceedings have collapsed, the BBC has gone undercover to reveal some of the most prolific filmers, linked to 12 different accounts. Trailing the city’s streets on Halloween weekend last year, journalists exposed several men: a local taxi driver and two individuals who had come from Sweden to film in the UK. Two more men were seen filming covertly but the BBC wasn’t able to confirm their identities, though their social media platforms allege they’re based in Norway and Monaco. Police have not accused any of the people exposed in the investigation of criminal activity relating to the filming or running of ‘nightlife’ videos.
📻 And on a lighter note, do check out Jack Walton’s turn on All FM, with the wonderful (both on their own terms and because they’re Mill subscribers) Don Berry and Mike Bath. Unfortunately his Desert Island Discs do include a Kanye West track, but we’re told his musical taste is at least more PG than Joshi Herrmann’s, who once had his own song choices censored by Don and Mike’s team (it was “filthy music” as we understand it).
This week’s weather
Tuesday 🌦️ Windy, cloudy & cold with occasional drizzle/light rain. Max 6°c.
Wednesday 🌦️ Wet & cloudy at first, then drier with bright spells later in the afternoon. Max 8°c.
Thursday 🌧️ Windy & mostly cloudy with light rain showers. Max 7°c.
Friday 🌧️ Breezy with bright spells & showers, which will be wintry to the hills. Max 6°c.
Weekend 🌦️ Remaining quite unsettled & often feeling cold due to easterly winds.
Home of the week
Ever wanted to live in Irlams o’ th’ Height (confusingly referred to as Irlam o’ th’ Heights in this listing?). This two-bed in the town named after some 17th Century publicans is going for £210,000.
What our writers are doing this week
🎨 Lucy is heading to Withy Hearts Arts, a free community arts fair featuring more than 15 local artists. There’ll be live music, pizza and Valentine’s-themed cocktails — though if you don’t have a partner to bring along, we see no harm in downing a romantic cocktail alone as you peruse the stalls. More details here.
🍝 Having recently undergone the universally stressful experience of the parent visit — Ophira is now more aware than ever of Quaint, Pleasant and Not-Too-Expensive places to take your mum for dinner in Manchester. Namely, SicillianNQ, who have extended their 40% Off January Deal way into February. She recommends the spaghetti Vongole, and not splitting a tiramisu with your mum because she will eat all of it.
🎭 And Road, with Lucy Beaumont, an award-winning Jim Cartwright play taking you down a derelict Northern Road, is arriving soon at the Royal Exchange (as we know all too well, after Beaumont stumbled upon our office last week looking for directions). Have a look.
If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up to get quality local journalism in your inbox.
If you’d like to sponsor editions of The Mill and reach over 60,000 readers, you can get in touch or visit our advertising page below
