Now that lockdown has forced us online – email, Google Meets, CMS – the analogue world is cooler than ever. 

Downtime is vinyl off eBay, books. I love it when a magazine drops on the mat. 

Mags fill the gap between books and online. Something shorter to read, but not tweet-short or hot-take throwaway, but something conceived, sketched-out and commissioned. Planned, proof-read and pre-loved, with design that smashes photography and words together in a new way.

Yeah, you can touch them. But when they’re done right, magazines can touch you back. 

No, not like that, you pervert.

Community. Lockdown has forced the re-evaluation of the very concept. How can we be together when we must be apart?

Normally, I’d be getting ready to bring the magazine community together at the Edinburgh International Magazine Festival. The coronavirus chasm claimed 2020’s edition. 

Furloughed, I’ve retained purpose by donating time to create The Big Miss You Podcast. Celebrating The Big Issue’s ability to bring socially excluded people into the heart of their communities, it’s a gift of hope.  

At heart, all magazines are community-builders. Whether accessed through paper, pixels or podcast, they’re clubs you can visit without opening your door.  

I guess I knew this already but lockdown has underlined just how resilient and innovative magazine people are.

When the threat of Covid-19 became obvious, these “snowflake” creatives calmly picked up their kit and began making their publications at home.

They also responded magnificently to the transformation of readers’ lives. I can’t put it any better than this unprompted comment from a reader, “They did a great job in tweaking content following lockdown – presumably at short notice – so it didn’t appear to come from a bygone age!”

A magazine is a friend who has your back – never more than now.

When it happens, you fall hard or you fly. And boy, we flew! 

Covid gripped, The Big Issue was off the streets for the first time in 29 years. We had to help vendors and make sure we were to be around when it’s over.

We called out with subscriptions. Readers came. We went into shops (for the first time ever). Readers came. 

We built an App and we built a podcast. We fixed online. 

The public support moved us in majestic, glorious ways.

Like being on the back of a wild horse, it’s terrifying at times. Onwards, we ride!

About six years ago, I reached out to friends and colleagues in the magazine industry and asked what it felt like to be working in magazine publishing “in the middle of the biggest disruption in publishing history”.

The Coronavirus crisis is clearly now the biggest disruption in publishing history and I’m resurrecting The Magazine Diaries to chronicle how magazine people are coping with the chaos that this awful disease has unleashed… and support The Big Issue

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