‘If I was a young writer right now, I would want to work for Mill Media’ – Tina Brown

Mill Media is hiring two staff writers for our soon-to-launch title in London and applications close on Sunday 4th August. (We’re also hiring an editor in London).

Our new title – as reported recently by the Financial Times – will cover the capital in a new way, publishing rich long reads, profiles and political analysis about topics that have long required more in-depth coverage. We’re not simply interested in competent reporting (though that’s a decent start). We want to find writers with the voice and versatility to do justice to an in-depth crime investigation one week and a cultural op-ed the next; the kind of people who don’t just want their journalism to be accurate and nuanced, but also enormous fun to read. We’re looking for writers who believe that the UK needs more US-magazine style journalism and know how to deliver it.

Role details

• Location: London (we need someone who lives full-time in the city)
• Salary: Dependent on experience (£30k-40k)
• Basis: Full-time (including some out-of-hours work). 28 days of holiday per year.
• Office/remote: Three days per week in our office/co-work, otherwise remote
• Start date: August/September 2024 
• Application deadline: Sunday 4th August. Scroll down for details on how to apply

About us

By taking on this job, you will be joining Mill Media, a pioneering company founded in June 2020. Our success so far has been based on a simple idea: giving journalists the time they need to produce great stories.

In the past few years, this approach has turned Mill Media into a new force in British journalism, described as “One of the most interesting and impressive media startups of the last decade,” by the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch, and as “very, very impressive” by the Wall Street Journal’s Emma Tucker.

Last year, we raised money from a group of our readers, including the CNN chief executive and former New York Times and BBC boss Mark Thompson, who said he was investing because of the “exceptional quality” of our work. You can see all the roles we are hiring for here.

Our London publication will have the same DNA as our existing titles but will also represent an evolution, taking advantage of the fantastic pool of journalists we can commission in one of the world’s media capitals. Our website will look a bit different too, and we will be able to invest in some more custom ways of telling stories as a result. We’re planning to start publishing in October.

What we’re looking for

With these staff writer roles in London, we will probably hire a pair of people we think complement each other. Both will be very strong writers with a distinctive writing voice who know how to build and structure a great story, but one of the pair might have more of a track record in writing about newsier topics and uncovering scoops and the other might be someone who has more of a background writing cultural stories or classic features.

“I love the ambition of bringing deeply-reported narrative journalism to local news and I’m so impressed with how it’s going. That’s the kind of journalism Britain needs more of. If I was a young writer right now, I would want to work for Mill Media.”

Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.

We need people with at least three years of experience writing for journalistic outlets so please don’t apply if you have only just graduated. Ideally, you’re both talented and enthusiastic about developing story ideas — this may be because you read lots of incredible longform journalism and/or because you’re excellent at finding the best possible angle for a topic, transforming a topic that could be beige in lesser hands into something more compelling. You should relish the challenge of getting hold of people on the phone and who love chasing stories, even if they feel like dead ends.

You will have plenty of contact with editors and writers from the wider Mill Media team, so you should enjoy collaborating with other people on a story and finetuning it via multiple rounds of edits. You will also be expected to pitch in with various non-writing tasks, like helping with our social media and liaising with freelancers.

Key responsibilities

1. Producing consistently high-quality writing that informs and delights our readers and makes us stand out.
2. Generating lots of highly original story ideas every month, both for you and for our other staff and freelance writers, ranging from culture to crime, food to local politics.
3. Developing exceptional contacts within the city region’s political, cultural and business worlds so that we can break big stories.
4. Helping to grow our audience by posting on social media, assisting with our marketing and fostering strong bonds with our community of members.

Working pattern: This is a full-time role. You will work three days a week at our office/co-working space in central London and remotely the rest of the time. You will make monthly visits to the company’s head office in Manchester (paid for by the company).

Attributes required

1. Superb writing: Someone who can write stories that our readers don’t simply love, but which stay in their heads for weeks after reading — regardless of if it’s a feature, an interview or a news item.
2. Reporting flair: Someone with an unusual talent for unearthing information, including huge energy when pursuing a story, a knack for getting hold of people on the phone and the ability to develop contacts over time.
3. Independence: Someone capable of working independently without lots of supervision from editors — that means being exceptionally organised, very communicative with colleagues and self-motivated when working on stories.
4. Growth mindset: Someone with an entrepreneurial spirit who is motivated by our growth as well as our journalism and will enjoy growing our social media accounts and spreading our brand.
5. Mill Media values: Someone who is committed to our key editorial values: accuracy, nuance, thoughtfulness, fairness to sources and giving readers the context they need to understand what is going on.

How to apply

To apply for this role, email hiring@millmediaco.uk by Sunday 4th August at the latest, with an explanation (in the body of the email) about why you are interested in working with us and why you think you might be a good fit for this role.

• Please also include a few links to some of your favourite work you’ve done and please attach your CV or link to your LinkedIn.
• If you want to include story a few ideas you would like to work on if you joined us, that would be useful.
• If you feel that your past work doesn’t fully represent your writing voice, then please do write a 500-word colour piece about a recent experience or story and attach that to your application.

If you have any questions, just get in touch via the same email. We’re also hiring an editor in London and other roles around the country.