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My further writings will be published in a new, co-edited Substack.
In November I hinted that “some things are in the works” as to the future of my publishing written material on Substack. Today, I am very happy to be able to reveal what I’ve been getting up to over the past few months.
The long and short of it is I have started a new newsletter in tandem with my co-editor and friend Mark McKibbin.
The Thornfield Quill is a new outlet publishing analysis, opinions, and essays about policy, politics, culture, and media. Please, if you were ever a fan of this humble newsletter, go and subscribe to that one. It quite literally will offer twice the output and at least twice the level of quality than I could have ever hoped to produce on my own here.
Meanwhile, this Substack will officially wind down after its long hiatus. If you want to read anything I write, you’ll have to go to The Thornfield Quill (or read my media reporting on The Media Leader.)
Mark is absolutely brilliant and I couldn’t be more excited to be working alongside him. Over the past few months, the two of us have been hard at work planning a content strategy for the TQ. We asked ourselves what our ideal news publication would look like, and set off to develop it.
I met Mark when we studied together at Oxford, and we’ve remained close friends despite a 5,300 mile and 8-hour time difference. At the moment, he works as a communications and policy advisor for state and local political and non-profit organizations and is currently drafting what I’m sure will be an outstanding book about the inventor of the electoral college (who ironically loathed the electoral college). He also has worked on over a dozen political campaigns at the local, state, and national level. In other words, he’s highly qualified to write on the core topics of politics, policy, culture, and history.
More importantly, he one of the kindest, organized, and most intelligent writers I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. If you like my writing, you’ll love his.
What You’ll Get
Each weekly edition of The Thornfield Quill will be released on Tuesdays, with the very first issue launching next week. To begin, each will include a selection of at least two articles, written and edited by the two of us, on various political and sociocultural topics of our choosing. These will typically be marked as belonging to one of the following sections:
Policy Spotlight: Why was a policy that affects your life drawn up and implemented in the way that it was? And can it be changed for the better?
Media Under the Microscope: What are the top stories in the news, and just as important, how were they presented differently across media?
Reviews: We’ve got a lot of thoughts about a lot of pieces of art, books, films, music and more, and you’re gonna hear about ‘em.
How Did We Get Here?: Location precedes correction. By tracing contemporary problems back to their historical roots, we can better understand how to address these problems and why they need to be addressed.
Start Making Sense: Imagine us in smoking jackets, looking wistfully out a fogged window, cigarette in hand, as we dive into the philosophy behind contemporary issues.
A Terrible Person Who Said Something Valid: Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Quips: We’re capable of writing humor. However we are morally obligated to note that does not mean we are capable of making you laugh.
Thanksgiving Table Takedown: A training program designed to help you DESTROY your conservative uncle (or, at least, politely engage with him) at your next family meal when he inevitably brings up a tried-and-true, but logically flawed, rhetorical tactic. Yes, Conservative Uncle, we can tell you how we are going to pay for that policy change we’d like to see.
Lost in Translation: An exploration of the subtle differences between American and British culture (since we’ve lived in both places).
Fiction in a Flash: A good magazine is not complete unless it includes (at least semi-) regular fiction. We’ll have a go of it with stories that are one thousand words or less, because we know we’re competing for your time with the likes of TikTok.
What You Won't Get
Horserace reporting: Too many outlets treat politics like a WWE match to maximize clicks. We won't do that. We don’t think being readable and substantive has to be a tradeoff.
Vague criticisms of “the media": Using "the media" as a broad-sweeping brush when critiquing other journalists is not constructive. When we want to criticize or disagree with a writer or outlet, we will be specific about what or whom we are referring to.
Faux Objectivity: Both of us lean left. But we are also not here to be a cheerleader for any one person, organization, or ideology. As long as you subscribe to basic facts and do not base your beliefs in a series of deplorable -isms, there is something for you on The Thornfield Quill.
Agreement with the AP Stylebook on the Oxford Comma: We will be using the Oxford comma. The end.
Sound appealing? We hope so.
Please give our publication a subscription (it’s free, as this one is) and come with us as we look to carve out our little space in digital media.
And thanks for your readership here. It’s been a pleasure.
Jack