EDITORIAL

by Hardeep Matharu

Seeing the Light

In Brighton this month – where I was invited to speak about journalism, truth, and Byline Times – I sat down next to Charlie. He said he loved our work and, at one time, had been a subscriber to this monthly print edition. But the magazine, he told me, was just too dense for him; it left him feeling a bit depressed.

It got me thinking about what we need to be offering our readers – and, more widely, how we navigate life when times are dark (which, inevitably, they sometimes will be).

Charlie’s comments chimed with recent feedback we’ve received as part of our online reader surveys – specifying that subscribers would like more light, more culture, a bit more inspiration – to offset the detailed, and admittedly ‘heavy’ but vital, work that Byline Times was set up to do (which, as you know, shines a ‘light’ in another way).

Sitting next to Charlie, I thought about how getting through life is a question of priorities – and how important this is. It is a choice as to what we focus on at any given time.