Bron Maher

It's easy, perhaps, to imagine that the days of open street homophobia in the UK are a thing of the past. And sure, things aren't as bad as they were even two decades ago, of course. But, as I find in a new piece for @thefence.bsky.social, abject anti-gay hate remains a familiar occurrence.

I wonder what she would think of dating bisexual men.

It's easy, perhaps, to imagine that the days of open street homophobia in the UK are a thing of the past. And sure, things aren't as bad as they were even two decades ago, of course. But, as I find in a new piece for @thefence.bsky.social, abject anti-gay hate remains a familiar occurrence.

But, two: Asking around, I was surprised how many people I know have experienced homophobic hate incidents. For starters, I've had three, my boyfriend's had two, and so has another close friend.

It's easy, perhaps, to imagine that the days of open street homophobia in the UK are a thing of the past. And sure, things aren't as bad as they were even two decades ago, of course. But, as I find in a new piece for @thefence.bsky.social, abject anti-gay hate remains a familiar occurrence.

Prompted by a homophobic assault on a couple days before Pride (and in Hampstead village, of all places), The Fence sent me off to follow the justice proceedings and get a sense for how common these sort of attacks are nowadays.

New: Reach is working on launching bundled subscriptions. Since launching its first partial paywall on the MEN in December Reach has added them to another 18 sites. Bundled subs would let a reader buy discounted access to multiple brands.

Reach will also shortly begin rolling out new, initially free newsletters built atop local brands without a dedicated website, like the Southport Visiter and Ayrshire Post. Its aim is to eventually offer a paid tier on them, potentially adding another layer to any bundles.

JMG Media Limited, the company identified on the JOE Media website as its publisher, has gone into voluntary liquidation owing ~£3.7 million to creditors - including £213,383 to the group's CEO, John Quinlan. JOE's websites nonetheless continue to publish.

"...specifically in the gambling sector after the Autumn Budget, that office has closed. All work is now conducted from our Dublin and Manchester offices. This does not affect the JOE brands or the group's operations."

JMG Media Limited, the company identified on the JOE Media website as its publisher, has gone into voluntary liquidation owing ~£3.7 million to creditors - including £213,383 to the group's CEO, John Quinlan. JOE's websites nonetheless continue to publish.

tidbit: FT CEO Jon Slade mentioned in an interview with FT Strategies that they had a team look into whether the brand "should be experimenting with membership." (fwiw FT says it was just investigatory - they're not actively planning a membership product at the moment)

Job move news: New Statesman deputy editor Will Lloyd is leaving the mag to join the Financial Times as FT Weekend's senior features writer

Private Eye publisher Pressdram Limited has published its accounts for the year up to the end of September: - Revenue was just under £11m, up 2% year-on-year - Operating profit was £133,449, nearly double 2024's - Profit after tax was £308,739 vs a £74,230 loss the year before

New: The new owners of Scientific American magazine have asked the U.S. National Labor Relations Board to halt a unionisation election count due to go ahead tomorrow. It comes after Canadian publisher LabX Media Group bought the 180-year-old mag from Springer Nature, cutting 15 roles

Staff announced a unionisation bid with @wgaeast.bsky.social back in April and, after Springer Nature declined to voluntarily recognise them, carried out a vote on unionising earlier this month. The mag union, @sciamunion.bsky.social, says it's confident it won the election.

Asked about rumours Semafor has been tapping up reporters in Brussels, Ben Smith tells me: “We are always talking to great journalists all over the world, and I’ll be in Brussels next month chatting with people” - but says there’s “no plan or timeline for a European launch."

Looks like that exec said something he wasn't meant to: YouTube have been in touch fully walking back the claim they're working on publisher paywall integration. They're not saying he was misquoted - only that "at the moment, there are no plans to launch a paywall integration with news publishers."

New: NYT publisher AG Sulzberger says the company has now spent more than $20 million in its lawsuit against OpenAI that began two and a half years ago.

In a broader speech to WAN-IFRA in Marseille today Sulzberger decried a "tragedy of the civic commons" being encouraged by major AI companies, who he said had "raided civilization's entire corpus of original works."

It's a year since Tom McTague took over as editor of The New Statesman and it sounds as though things are going well: circulation is up around 10%, he told me, and peers at other outlets agreed the mag is doing more to set the news agenda. www.amediaoperator.com/news/the-new...

McTague's strategy involves a lot more scoops, "radical" cover stories and a more granular interest in left politics outside the Labour Party. “We’re trying to be a place that is the natural town square for the British left to thrash out its ideas,” he said.

I spoke to Politico co-founder Robert Allbritton about his plans to expand/rebrand his DC newsroom NOTUS in order to occupy the space ceded by The Washington Post. He's bullish on its business prospects. www.amediaoperator.com/news/robert-...