You’ll have to forgive my self-indulgence in this conversation, because I’ve gone deep with Joshi Herrmann—not a celebrity name or a celebrated author, I hope he won’t be offended by me saying—about a bunch of things that scratch my particular interests in media: local news, New York media-startup scandals circa 2016, subscriptions versus ads, venture capital, and canceled Netflix comedians. 

Joshi is the founder of a fledgling media empire anchored by The Mill, a local news publication covering the city of Manchester, England, that he launched in 2020. The Mill, which is based entirely on Substack and funded by subscribers, just reached profitability—a rare success story in a space (local news) that hasn’t exactly been booming in recent years. Encouraged by The Mill’s progress, Joshi has since launched similar publications in Sheffield and Liverpool based on doing high-quality, low-volume longform reporting on issues that matter to cities that are poorly served by the existing media structure. 

Joshi was a reporter for the Evening Standard in London for four years before, in 2015, he moved to New York for a dream job as the editor in chief for a startup that published The Tab, a news site written by university students and young people about the cultural issues of the time. The Tab quickly gave rise to a spinoff publication called Babe.net, which shot to notoriety after publishing a story that detailed a young woman’s bad night with Aziz Ansari, which led to the comedian’s “cancellation.” The story came at the height of #MeToo, causing a fiery debate between people who felt it was an important reckoning for behavior that happens often but is under-discussed and those who felt it muddied the lines between truly abusive behavior and something closer to a bad date. Joshi watched it all unfold from an uncomfortable position: he was the editor on that story…

Joshi’s recommended reads:

The Bluestocking, PassTheAux, and Vittles.

Show notes

* Subscribe to The Mill in Manchester on Substack, as well as its sister sites, Sheffield Tribune in Sheffield, and The Post in Liverpool

* The Tab and Babe.net

* Aziz Ansari story on Babe.net and Ansari’s response

* NYT commentary on the Babe.net piece

* The Cut on Babe.net

* [1:46] Breaking even in local news

* [1:55] Feeling like a fraud

* [4:48] Getting into local journalism

* [8:07] On losing a parent

* [12:00] Pursuing an unpromising venture

* [13:55] Redefining the problem of local news  

* [18:56] Joining The Tab in New York

* [22:41] Steroidal audience growth vs. community

* [25:25] The “bullshit” of new media’s gold-rush era

* [26:37] How Babe.net started

* [28:28] How Babe broke the Aziz Ansari story

* [30:17] How the Ansari story relates to Me Too

* [38:06] Lessons from being on the other side of the story

* [39:51] Reflections on that time

* [41:40] Adapting a new approach to longform

* [44:48] Shutting down The Tab and Babe.net

* [46:06] Life lessons for The Mill

* [47:55] Launching two sister sites in the U.K.

* [48:38] The public hunger for great local journalism

The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hanne Winarsky, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, content production by Hannah Ray, and production support from Bailey Richardson. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit read.substack.com