Coming up...
What you can expect after that opener
If you’re reading this, thank you for subscribing to my new arts policy Substack, Culture Together. If you read and enjoyed my opening piece, but haven’t yet subscribed, please do so now. It’s free, and you’ll get well researched posts about problems currently besetting the culture industries and media as well as suggested solutions.
Now that I’ve soft launched - and a chunky number of people have read and enjoyed my gloves-off first post, outlining my personal motivations for starting a centrist arts policy think-tank - I’m starting to research and conduct interviews with industry experts to get their take. Over the next few weeks, you can expect to see a piece on the music industry, artists’ pay and on the problems of AI in the publishing industry.
It’s worth noting, that my interviewees have their own opinions on the thorny issues that beset our culture industries and media. My politics do not necessarily reflect theirs, and where we might find common ground on one topic - say, the barriers to new talent or poor pay for jobbing artists - we might not agree on another - e.g. the encroaching of Middle Eastern geopolitics on the industries.
At Culture Together, we tolerate difference so that we can fight together for the greater good of a beloved sector that is definitely unwell.
If you’re an artist, journalist, editor or arts exec reading this - ideally a known name or someone with a good deal of experience - feel free to let me know in the comments, below, if you’d like to tell me (in confidence, if you prefer) about your own experiences and ideas for renewal, or tag me on Twitter: @Marnie_Riches . I’ll follow you back and we can chat privately. If you’re a culture industries business head or funder and would like to talk to me about restoring sanity and professionalism to your company or otherwise changing things up, you’re exactly the person I want to speak to. Ping me!
Until then, dear readers, nurture your inner strength, because we’re going to need all of it to push back against the current dysfunctional status quo.