Slow Journalism: The antidote to breaking news
“While everyone else is telling the beginning of stories, we pride ourselves on being last to breaking news"
Rob Orchard, Co-founder.
Rob Orchard was working for Time Out Magazine with his friend and colleague Marcus Webb when they started to formulate ideas for a longstanding ambition of theirs, to create the perfect magazine.
Growing sick of the ever-increasing pace of the digital news agenda and the growing pressures journalists were under to produce stories faster but often for less pay, the duo circulated a document among friends that would, some ten years later, evolve into ‘Delayed Gratification Magazine’.
The Slow Journalism company was setup in early 2011 to publish the quarterly magazine, providing a platform for journalists, writers and researchers to produce quality, considered, long-form journalism in an industry and world that is increasingly obsessed with just being the quickest.
In this film, shot at The Slow Journalism offices at Makerversity in London, Rob breaks down the mission at the company’s heart and reveals one of the great examples of ‘nonsense media’ from our age.
Slow Journalism in brief
- Each issue of Delayed Gratification includes several ‘Madam Fifis‘, which are small historical details in illustrations which might only be spotted by one in every thousand readers who know a lot about the topic
- One of Rob’s favourite things about editing a Slow Journalism magazine is that he gets to publish an April Fools’ joke in September
- Distributed and stocked in 13 countries around the world including Singapore, Taiwan and Lebanon
- 5,000+ copies of Delayed Gratification are sold per issue
Key insight
Many people and brands can say what they are for; an excellent service, quality products, sustainable design etc, but a strong brand really knows its edges. Knowing what it stands against just as strongly as it knows what it believes and represents. What are you taking a stand against?
Find out more about The Slow Journalism Company.
Music: ‘Day Like This’ by Robot Koch from the album 101.