What was happening on 15 April 2020? Well, the UK was in the fourth week of a lockdown that would, with minor adjustments, last across that calendar year. There were 2,752 Covid deaths in the United States, while 651 deaths were announced in British hospitals. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, announced a “new supply network to help get personal protective equipment to care home staff”. The headlines here were dominated by Captain Tom Moore, who had raised £8mn for the NHS by walking laps of his Bedfordshire garden, with the aid of his walking frame.
And Yorkshire Bylines was born!
Yorkshire Bylines is five years old
Yes, last but not least, an online publication, calling on volunteer citizen journalists to ‘speak truth to power’ was born in Yorkshire, England. Allied to, but independent of Bylines Times, (a free, crowd-funded news network set up in March 2019), Yorkshire Bylines had one important difference. Its writers and editors were to be ‘citizen journalist’ volunteers; uninfluenced by big business or political wheeler-dealing, drawing on their local, professional, academic and experiential knowledge to report on topics in the news and subjects of interest.
For my part, I’d just retired from research and teaching in a Leeds university, with many exciting plans for early retirement. Under lockdown, these narrowed to writing projects only: finishing off some academic articles and completing a half-written novel. Suddenly, I found myself dealing with various requests for input to online discussions about Covid-19 policy in schools.
Then an acquaintance gave me the details for Yorkshire Bylines as a potential platform to publicise our ideas – beginning a relationship that has continued ever since, generating over 100 articles on a range of topics, not only from myself, but from several colleagues.
The first 15 articles…
Focused on the two big issues in the news at that time, Covid and Brexit, Yorkshire Bylines’ first 15 published articles discussed these from a range of perspectives, forging the discursive path that the publication was going to take.
Anthony Robinson’s article considering the double austerity that was likely to follow Covid and Brexit made some salient predictions, while Juliet Lodge mourned the loss of shared ideas and solutions, cut off by Brexit, which had been finalised only two months previously. Stella Perrott considered the similarities between Covid and the Bubonic plague, raising some similarities that are still being discussed and analysed five years on:
“Covid-19 is changing relationships in different ways. Long periods of time spent with family members, or no contact other than electronically, exposes family strengths and weaknesses.”
She also raised the question of whether communities would begin to see themselves as rather more self-reliant, a point also discussed by Charlie McCarthy in two articles reflecting on concepts underlying a move towards a greater independence for the Yorkshire region: the rise of greater interdependence in local communities, and the need for Yorkshire to have a voice in its economic future beyond the pandemic.
Charlie, who later moved back to Scotland and is now part of the Bylines Scotland team, raised two points in his articles that were picked up in three further pieces amongst the first 15: reliance on food banks in Yorkshire, outlined by Louise Houghton, and the Green New Deal, which was the subject of an article by Jimmy Andrex. Jimmy also explored the concept of a universal basic income in an interview with Sam Gregory from the University of Sheffield UBI lab.
Other articles in Yorkshire’s first 15 explored Brexit-related issues – such as effects on artists and musicians, and on the Yorkshire economy – then extended to include the effects of both Brexit and lockdown combined. One article highlighted the actions of a Tory MP who had been blaming the EU for issues that were non-EU related. And other pieces looked at the mammoth task of repealing EU law within the national legislation framework and the difficulty of continuing Brexit negotiations in lockdown.
As a set, the articles offer a poignant snapshot of issues that were uppermost in the minds of the British public in general, explored by citizen journalists living within the largest county in England.
A born pioneer?
Bylines Network now hosts ten sister publications, all with independent commissioning and editorial processes, covering England, Scotland and Wales. The Yorkshire Bylines website recently notched up eight million hits. We publish articles on a vast range of local, national and international topics, all written by citizen journalists from their unique perspective on the relevant issue.
Since 2020, the national and international landscape has changed. Last year, the UK government changed from Conservative to Labour after the general election resulted in a Labour landslide. But across the pond, we started out with Donald Trump as president, and now five years later … well, Yorkshire Bylines is still here too, and it is still fiercely independent. We will be continuing to speak truth to power, regardless of who wields it.
What next?
Over the last five years we’ve written about climate change, war, politics, human rights, devolution, rollerblading, pie of the week … the range of subjects is too extensive to list. Right now, while war and climate change continue unchecked, global news is dominated by Trump’s tariff war.
So, what will be the impact of a tariff war on local businesses in Yorkshire? Will the UK benefit from new alliances being formed as a result of the shifting global dynamics? Joining a version of the EU has proved popular with Canadians, with 44% of them in favour. If this involves the creation of an outer circle of the EU for trading relationships without political union for nations pulling out of trading agreements with the US, would the UK be interested in joining?
Keir Starmer’s concept of a ‘coalition of the willing’ to assist Ukraine against Russian aggression, also hints at a new pan-European alliance without the participation of the US, whose leaders made their attitude to the current war crystal clear in their painfully critical public negotiation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month. If it proceeds, there will be much for us to report on as the process unfolds.
Meanwhile, the devolution agenda moves forward, most recently in the creation of the ‘metro mayors’. Yorkshire Bylines has published a lot on this subject and will continue to monitor it closely. And we will continue to report on austerity in Yorkshire and on the work of foodbanks, as the world wrestles with the economic chaos triggered by the Trump government.
The future beckons (and let’s hope it isn’t orange…)
It’s been a busy five years for our citizen journalists. If you’d like to join us as a volunteer reporting on local, national and international news from your own unique perspective (or helping out with editing, managing our WordPress site, or social media), we’d be very glad to have you on the team. Just email editor@yorkshirebylines.co.uk and we can take it from there.
And if you’d like to donate to help fund our publication expenses, that would also be very welcome.
We look forward to celebrating our first decade in 2030.
