The Bylines Network plays a key part in keeping democracy alive. We’re a volunteer-led network of 10 online publications covering most nations and regions of the UK, with a global audience. Our model is professionalised citizen journalism – we’re Impress-regulated and facilitate as-yet unheard voices to find audiences and community. We host a diverse range of writers and encourage them to write about issues that matter most to them. Whether students, pensioners, nurses, campaigners, or business leaders, whether majority or marginalised communities. We’re a rich fabric of people in these nations and everyone should be empowered to be heard.
Now you know what we’re doing, let’s get our origins straight. I often hear, “I love the Bylines stuff, I’m a subscriber!” when they mean that they subscribe to Byline Times. The Byline organisation (Byline Times, Byline TV, Byline Festival) and the Bylines Network are sister organisations with shared values but are legally and editorially separate. Here’s how our rich Byline / Bylines ecosystem emerged in recent years, and how to support us both.
Byline timeline
The Byline(s) origins lie in Byline.com – a revolutionary effort to establish crowdfunded citizen journalism. In 2015, Byline asked its online audience to sponsor journalists and bloggers to write columns or pursue investigations. This media model isn’t directed by billionaire press barons but is independent of pressure and bias from such owners, advertisers, or governments. It’s built from the grassroots, with the news agenda and narratives set by the community of writers and readers together.
From Byline emerged the Byline Festival in 2017, where those writers and readers could meet and discuss broken systems within media, democracy, and accountability. This year’s Byline Festival takes place, rather presciently, from 5–7 July.
Out of Byline sprang the indie news Byline Times in 2018 – a subscription-based paper with the slogan “What the papers don’t say”. Supporters’ names are displayed in print and online editions. Its founders are playwright Peter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave, a once-punk rocker, author, and advertising executive. They’re hardly from traditional journalism backgrounds.
Byline Times instantly found widespread support in the online progressive community as it covered corruption in politics and media. It also investigated and exposed threats from the far right or foreign interference – topics most mainstream outlets avoid. Byline journalists are usually professionals, but it will take a punt on citizen journalists who may develop into pros.
The Bylines Network developed as an experimental collaboration between myself and Byline Times. The general election of December 2019 and the UK’s exit from the EU left many in the wider progressive, pro-European, and activist communities feeling disempowered and disenfranchised. In January 2020, I approached Peter Jukes with an idea.
Bylines Network born
There was still a UK network of grassroots groups: the local structures of the People’s Vote campaign. Was there another level of empowerment that could be developed beyond Twitter, Facebook, and occasional real-world meetups? I remembered how they’d tried to crack local news and thought they could just run their own publications.
There was a ready-made audience. Online communities coming together during campaigning – avidly sharing news articles and people’s blogs – helped forge a large audience to tap. I knew an excellent pro-democracy campaigner, Louise Houghton, and invited her to help build our first title: Yorkshire Bylines. A hat-tip to the Byline brand, but with an added ‘s’ to distinguish it.
Launching that first regional Bylines in April 2020 met a huge response. That year we introduced Bylines in the North East, West England, West Country, Sussex, Central England, and Kent (now Kent and Surrey). In 2021 we created our legal entity Bylines Networks Ltd; West Country Bylines evolved into the non-Bylines publication West Country Voices; and we launched Bylines in East Anglia and the North West.
We took a bolder turn launching in Scotland in August 2022 – no longer a regional network but ‘inter-national’. To mark the difference, we named it not Scotland Bylines but Bylines Scotland and picked the ‘.scot’ domain, not the ‘.co.uk’ used for English regions. We launched Bylines Cymru along similar lines on – of course – 1 March 2023.
Then volunteer Cliff Mitchell designed a free Bylines iOS and Android app. It’s a great overview of what we do and gives you all channels in one place in real time – plus Byline Times, Byline TV, and the Byline Podcast. It shot to the top spot of newspapers in the Apple shop upon launch.
Powerful citizen journalism
Millions of article-reads later, we see what people can achieve working together towards a common goal – that of empowerment, bringing with it bottom-up democracy. In giving a platform to diverse unheard citizen voices, and holding elected representatives to account, we’re part of nursing democracy in the UK back to health. It’d be easy to let offshored billionaires dictate what we should know and care about and bury our heads in the sand. But look where that leads.
We’re Impress-regulated and our editors ensure we keep the highest possible standards. Our social media teams ensure articles reach the widest possible audiences. Our student placement programme offers development opportunities to the next generation of journalistic talent. We reach out to marginalised communities to raise voices as diverse as the nations we represent. We speak truth to power together, as citizens and communities, with each other’s support.
Now you know who we are and where we came from, you won’t be one of those “I already help you, I’m a Byline Times subscriber” folk! You’d like to know how you can support the Bylines Network?
- We must accelerate our tech upgrade work so we can best promote citizen voices during this general election. Donate to our crowdfunder to boost essential upgrades.
- We’ve registered the Bylines Network with #easyfundraising, so over 8,000 brands donate to us every time you use #easyfundraising to shop with them online. It’s quick, easy, and completely free for you but huge for us! So sign up as a supporter now.
- Wear citizen journalism on your sleeve and drink it up – visit our merchandise shop. We chose Teemill as our print-on-demand supplier because of its sustainable model.
- Make a one-off or regular donation to help with monthly overheads. Our network is volunteer-powered but servers, insurance, etc are also necessary.
Put powerful citizen journalism in your pocket with the free Bylines app.
