My name is Jim Waterson and I’m the editor of London Centric, a new subscription-based news outlet doing proper in-depth journalism about London. A friendly Reddit admin suggested I do an AMA, so here I am. (proof: https://www.instagram.com/p/DByeTIfs1e\_/)

Since launching three weeks ago I’ve broken stories that have hit the national media about London hospitals charging by the hour for wheelchairs, explainers on why the capital’s phone signal is so bad, and published investigations on topics such as the sale of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and the Transport for London cyberattack. 

You might have seen some of these articles pop up on various Reddit forums (and I’m a long-term lurker on this subreddit). One happy reader is Lord Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard, who called me a “prick" after I asked who is funding his newspaper.

I quit my job to start London Centric because I wanted someone to write proper coverage about the capital without following the dying clickbait local news business model. Subscribers receive a handful of pieces a week but all of them should be of high quality and tell you something new, fun, or interesting about how the city really works. 

Before this I spent six years as media editor of the Guardian, five years as political editor of BuzzFeed UK, and had a short stint at London freesheet City AM where my journalism career peaked when I fried my lunch using the death ray from the Walkie Talkie skyscraper. 

Do let me know what you hate, love, or want from local news in the capital. I can answer questions about setting up London Centric or the media industry in general.

I'll be online from 7.30pm GMT — until then I'm off to knock on doors and do some investigative reporting.

If you like what you hear, I rely entirely on paying subscribers – click here for 25% off for the first year.

by londoncentricmedia

48 comments

  1. The balls of you to ask the owner of the Evening Standard where the funding is coming from is hilarious.

    Good on you for setting up your own thing.

  4. Well done for starting your own thing! Look forward to seeing what other stories you break.

    Why do you think there isn’t a bigger local media industry in London compared to other major cities? London always seems to lag behind (Evening Standard now slowly fading away, and the London Live channel has always been a joke) compared to what I’ve seen in cities like New York and Toronto where they have multiple local newspapers, magazines, a healthy local radio industry that doesn’t rely on national programming, and even multiple 24/7 rolling news channels covering their cities.

  6. I just paid for a year’s subscription. Although I no longer live in London, and in fact live elsewhere in Europe, events in London still mean a lot to me. Good luck.

  7. Will your paywall be defeatable? And what makes you think there is a subscription model for general news?

  8. How do Guardian hacks feel about Katharine Viner paying her husband Adrian Chiles to write his meaningless brainfarts in the paper?

  10. It’s good but please remove the subscriber pop ups, especially those when you enter the site, they’re really annoying and it discourages me from reading further.

  11. When can we expect a restaurant review for the hidden gem of a place called Angus Steakhouse? 🥩

    Not a lot of people know about it so it could really drive subscribers to your news outlet! 🏃‍♂️📰

    Hurry! Before you miss out!

  13. What inspired the creation of London Centric? It’s a bold move to go out on your own. Did the success of other hyper-local, sub-based publications in other regions give you the confidence to have a go?

  14. Dave Hill also left The G to go off on his own and run his own London reporting at [OnLondon](https://www.onlondon.co.uk/). Will you be collaborating much with him? Do you think there are similar underlying reasons why you both left the same organisation to go-solo to focus on London reporting?

  17. Thanks for setting up this outlet. It seems that we’re getting more and more devolution in the UK just as traditional local journalism is dying off, which seems like a bad combination.

    Do you think London deserves to keep more of the economic output that’s generated here? Sometimes it feels like the national government treats city like a giant cash cow for other parts of the country.

  18. Hi Jim! I subscribed to London Centric earlier this week and loved your reporting. Do you welcome freelance writers? I’d love to contribute

  19. Thanks for taking a risk like this – it is quite amazing how bad news coverage of London is! Why do you think there’s seemingly no one doing good local coverage? There’s free sheets and garbage like mylondon, and most nationals cover London through an aura of barely concealed contempt.

    Follow-up: Did you ever find out why they let him build a death ray in the City [after he’d already done the same thing in Las Vegas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vdara)?

  21. I instantly recognised your name but couldn’t remember where from.

    It was from the Rest is Entertainment podcast I was listening to earlier this week.

  22. What are your ambitions for London Centric – are you hoping for something that pays the bills and fulfils you professionally, or to eventually be a outlet that can sustain multiple journalists on multiple beats?

  23. I just subscribed because I believe in paying for things that matter, and fact based media matters.

    I only ask that it doesn’t end up as 75% guest written Op Ed pieces and a slack handful of interviews.

    Would love a night time economy piece that goes beyond

    “Sad music promoter says one thing while grumpy resident says another. Local politician says they’re listening to both points of view.
    Meanwhile here are some facts about the decline in late licenses copied from the last place you read them.”

  24. Hi Jim Just a question on your approach to the different platforms out there. Was London Centric always going to be on Substack? What’s your view of the other ways you can share – and sell – your journalism?

  27. I really want the UK government to crack down on the Russian money laundering operations in the UK and money laundering operations in general.

    Will you be planning to expose them?

    I feel like the government won’t do anything unless shamed into it by protest, but we need to be reliably informed as to who the guilty parties are.

    Independent media could make a real difference here.

  28. Just a heads up your website gets blocked on my work internet. Haven’t seen this happen with any other sites. I will be checking this out though, sounds very interesting!

  31. Of course journalists need to be paid for their time and efforts, but do you think in an ideal world news should be free for the general public, or at the very minimum, not for profit?

  33. Did you ever meet Adrian Chiles whilst working at the Guardian? And is he really as vacuous as he comes across in his columns?

  34. Some cities still have thriving local newspapers – Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo spring to mind. Or at least I think they do.

    Why do you think London hasn’t managed to retain a thriving local newspaper?

    What do you think was behind the decline of the Evening Standard? Do you think they made a mistake in moving to become a freesheet?

    Wish you all the luck in your new venture and will sign up.

  35. Do you plan to engage with and go digging for local stories (ie specific to areas rather than London-wide)? Also, how do you prioritise what kinds of things you want to write about?

  38. Good luck to you my friend and I hope you can manage to keep your integrity in a career where it can be difficult to

  40. Bias-free, local, independent journalism is so important today. Wishing you much success.

    What are some local issues you believe Londoners should definitely know about, but most don’t?

  41. Good for you dude! It feels like the news just repeats two or three major headlines and ignores stuff that’s happening on the ground. Best of luck!

  42. Hi I’m a graduate whose interested in the field of journalism, are you looking to fill any roles, I would be interested in applying to cover politics

  44. Would love to see proper local court reporting, it gives a direct insight into what’s going on in the city (and our justice system), from hyperlocal issues all the way to international oligarch shenanigans in London.

  45. If you are hiring, I can cover quite a lot because I’m regularly trying to figure stuff at the local level in Camden and Westminster, specifically around waste of public funds!

  47. Good for you. I remember your work at Buzzfeed and thinking it was a shame that their quality output had to die with the clickbait

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