Steve Anglesey, editor of The New World, says the magazine’s small team is “having a blast” while growing digital subscribers and being “horribly unpleasant” about Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.
Anglesey has been with the weekly magazine and website since it was founded by local publisher Archant in 2016, when he started as digital content director.
At the time the title was called The New European and was intended to last for four weeks following the EU referendum to provide the latest news, commentary and analysis on Brexit, but it kept publishing and eventually changed its name last year to reflect its wider coverage.
Anglesey became editor of The New European in 2021, a year before it was sold in a management buyout led by founder Matt Kelly and Irish media executive Gavin O’Reilly.
What was your breakthrough moment?
I wanted to be a journalist from the moment when, as a kid, I saw the presses rolling in the beautiful art deco Express building in Manchester at night. But I didn’t have a clue. Then at 19 I got the first proper job I ever applied for: junior writer on First Down, a weekly about American football, based in a village in Oxfordshire. Unbelievably, it sold 30,000 copies an issue. Alan Lees (later at the Mail) and Loz Hatton (The Sun) worked there and also did Fleet Street subbing shifts; they taught me everything. Within a couple of years I was editor, subbing at the Daily Star a couple of days a week and going to the US to report on Super Bowls.
What’s currently keeping you up at night?
Same at The New World as everywhere I’ve been: this work we’re doing is great; how do we make it even better? These people I’m working with are great; how can I help make them even better, and what can I learn from them? What can we tell audiences that they don’t know about, and how do we do that in an entertaining and involving way? And over the last 25-plus years, how do we grow our digital audience; how do we use what we do and what we believe in to reach different audiences on different platforms who like different formats; how do we make money from our quality journalism?
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
A burning desire to escape listening to Justin Webb on the Today programme.
How are things going right now, what’s working?
The New World, once called “Britain’s best politics and culture magazine” by Rory Stewart, has just celebrated its tenth anniversary. We started the day after the Brexit referendum, when I was working for founder Matt Kelly at the local newspaper company Archant, and wanted to do something as a protest. Matt called it The New European and it was supposed to last four weeks. We changed the name last year, to reflect a wider emphasis.
Last week we hosted a sold-out event with Alastair Campbell and Mishal Husain, we moved more furniture into our new office in King’s Cross, we put out one of the best papers we’ve ever done and also a special digital edition of our midterms coverage. We published superb pieces by Emily Maitlis, Slavoj Žižek, David Quantick and lots more, our excellent young team created some killer live video and podcasts, we grew our paying digital audience while being horribly unpleasant about Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. There are only a dozen of us, and we are having a blast.
What has been your proudest achievement?
Winning four prizes at the 2017 British Press Awards, including launch of the year, for The New European.
At the pioneering website Football365, being described as the world’s worst football journalist by Harry Harris of the Mirror, the man who is best remembered for writing the intros “From my hotel overlooking Mount Everest…” and “Here in Bethlehem, birthplace of the legendary Jesus Christ…”. Then joining the Mirror myself and having 14 hugely enjoyable years there despite, on my first day, hearing one of my new colleagues ask another, “What is the point of Steve Anglesey?”
Biggest mistake, and what did you learn from it?
The biggest mistake of all is to be safe and not to take risks, but God, there are so many. Turning up early to my first pitch to an advertiser – a digital fashion company with a massive budget and a habit of spending it freely – and making small talk with their head guy while we waited for our sales team to arrive. He asked if I’d watched It’ll Be Alright On The Night the night before; I said I had, but that Denis Norden was now seriously unfunny and should retire immediately. He said that since he was Denis Norden’s nephew and godson, he would be sure to let him know. We didn’t get the money.
When it comes to leading a team, what do you think works?
Employ what my old boss Danny Kelly used to call his “no-twats policy” (his version was more direct than “twats”). Be clear, consistent, encouraging. Being unpleasant is counter-productive. (And get well soon, Danny).
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what is it?
Never find yourself having to explain how the internet works to Sir Alex Ferguson.
Who or what inspires you and why?
Working on something I believe in, that is distinctive, that staff and readers regard as a club or a movement rather than a product; I have been lucky enough to do this several times. Amazing, creative bosses and colleagues; special mentions to the unstoppable Matt Kelly, Howard Johnson, Dean Morse, Dan Silver and our special young team at The New World. Working with genius writers who see the world differently: at The New World alone there are Matt d’Ancona, Marie Le Conte, James Ball, John Bleasdale, Emily Maitlis, Ian Winwood, Alastair Campbell and loads more. Rest in power, Bonnie Greer.
What is your work mantra?
“There are a lot of ways to practice the art of journalism, and one of them is to use your art like a hammer to destroy the right people,” from Hunter S. Thompson’s book Better Than Sex.
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