Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 6 (May 2020)

Note: This post was written, and scheduled for publication, just after the tragic death of George Floyd in police custody in the US. It was written just before the protests and outpouring of rage and grief that followed his death. Rest assured, June's post will feature a lot on George Floyd. I will not forget.

Welcome to this months roundup of interesting reads under lockdown. As you may have guessed, there will be a lot of Covid related content again this month but, not necessarily in the way you might think.

In fact, this months big story in many ways (aside from That One) was all about the media itself. Specifically, the ways in which an industry with a deeply flawed business plan (increasingly and fatally reliant on advertising) is being brought to its knees by the pandemic. Obviously, the media isn't the only industry negatively impacted by Covid but, my God was this the month things really started to go horribly tits up for it. 

An early sign of what was to come, in some ways, was heralded by a mercilessly funny but cruelly accurate pice of satire that appeared in the Medium publication, Sentimental Garbage, on May 1st, in which the author pondered what life might have been like for The Pied Piper of Hamelin as a struggling freelance worker. A week later, Rachel Charlene Lewis at Bitch Media took a more positive tone on the freelance journalist's plight by pointing to the ways in which Twitter had united journalists (especially freelancers) fighting for better pay and conditions. The role of the freelance journalist is often misunderstood so, with this in mind, Farah Khalique published a handy list of the ways Coronavirus had busted myths about the role over on Contently. Then, mere days later, the apocalypse happened, and many of those who had felt they were relatively safe in staff jobs at respectable, long established publications, found themselves without a job. 

A couple of weeks later, Laura Snapes at The Guardian tried to sound a positive note for the music press and how it was coping, and the i ran a lighthearted piece on how they'd adapted to lockdown, but there was no way anyone could pretend that the media wasn't scarily vulnerable. For some, such as Frankie Boyle over on Twitter, the destruction of the mainstream media is a moment to rejoice, but for those expecting to see the back of The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, or The Sun, they will be disappointed: The owners of those papers have bottomless pockets, and Coronavirus will have barely made a dent in their personal profits. 

In the meantime, while I never read Buzzfeed's UK edition, I will mourn the loss of the paper edition of The Economist: A calm, balanced, professional magazine with intelligent, responsible journalism, which will now only be available digitally. Similarly, it's unlikely that a responsible journalism organisation such as The Bureau of Investigative Journalism here in the UK will be untouched by Covid, even though it doesn't rely on the advertising model. As to why they are worth supporting, and championing, their recent investigations into the UK governments 'Everybody In' emergency housing of the homeless population provides a very good case for independent, honest, professional media. 

In happier news, Positive News (the clue is in the name) reported on the way in which community radio has become a lifeline for communities in a time of Covid, while Jonn Elledge wondered if cities should turn golf courses into parks during lockdown over at CityMetric. Also in the spirit of how we might use this moment to pause and think about creating a better world for ourselves was this piece in New Scientist, which made a balanced, scientific case for Universal Basic Income. 

With the furlough scheme opening for applications in May, and many workers having faced layoffs and financial hardship, thoughts turned increasingly to the workplace for many. Some have spoken despairingly of the lack of work available for applicants at the moment (it's not that bad; I have been looking this week) while many will not be searching for work at all. One area crying out for workers is the farming sector, and there has been a recruitment drive in recent weeks to get enough workers to ensure the crops are picked. Wicked Leeks Matt Chittock spoke to farmers and workers, who told him the Land Army rhetoric being used by the government is not helping their cause. Over at the Tribune, union activist Charlotte Bence was giving readers a short lesson in workers rights as UK employers were being encouraged by the government to get workers back to work.

There has been a rise in community activism, organisation and mutual aid initiatives in the UK thanks to Covid, which has not gone unnoticed. Rebecca Solnit wrote a long read for The Guardian about  mutual aid this month, which is worth a read. Similarly, Wired ran this piece about a citizen science project in Baltimore in the US, which is paying out of work residents to analyse images from the Hubble Telescope. In the Highlands of Scotland meanwhile, a rewilding project is still taking place, despite the lockdown and Positive News wrote about it. They also wrote about a London charity that turns food waste into meals and how they have adapted during lockdown. 

It would be hard to get through a survey of May's journalism without mentioning Dominic Cummings, and many of you will be inwardly groaning at this point. If you must read about it one more time, Hugo Rifkind does a good opinion take on the whole sorry saga over at The Sunday Times, and Full Fact have forensically fact checked his explanation for his behaviour to see if it adds up when taken against the official government advice. 

There were some non-Covid stories this month, but a lot of them are tragic ones, such as the death in custody of George Floyd in the US (a story very much evolving as I type), and the protests in Hong Kong. Hong Kong activist Wilfred Chan wrote this piece, The Infinite Heartbreak of Loving Hong Kong, for The Nation on the 23rd May. There will be a lot on George Floyd, and the fallout from his death, in next month's roundup. 

And finally, perhaps suspecting that many of their readers were yearning to escape from the world, 1843 ran a long read on British artist Sam Winston, and his quest to escape from information overload.

First photo by kilarov zaneit on Unsplash

Second photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash