In Michael MacLeod’s first reporting job, at the now defunct Wee County News covering Clackmannanshire, Scotland’s smallest county, every story published had an impact on the community. “You had people coming in with guns and knives and bottles of piss to tell you what they thought about you writing about [their] crimes,” he says.
After his stint as a local reporter, MacLeod’s career followed a journalist’s typical trajectory from local to national news, and he moved to the Guardian and Condé Nast before ending up on the Reality Labs team at Meta. “I was sitting there thinking, ‘What would I rather be doing?’ I missed the naive reason why I got into news in the first place, which was you can help people.”
At the end of 2022, MacLeod started a newsletter called the Edinburgh Minute, published on the newsletter platform Substack and delivered to subscribers’ inboxes five mornings a week. Each newsletter is a curated list of links to articles covering what’s happening locally in Edinburgh. “Discovery is down due to Google and social media deprioritising news, especially local news, in their algorithms,” MacLeod says. “On the other hand, the popularity of newsletters is rising. I just put these two [things] together in a simple format.”
MacLeod was not the only person interested in local news. In less than two years, the Edinburgh Minute has gained 12,500 subscribers and sent nearly half a million visits to local news sources. In 2023, with enough paying subscribers, MacLeod was able to make the newsletter his full-time job. “I’ve done no advertising. It has grown from word of mouth,” MacLeod says. “The Edinburgh Minute has more readers than the Scotsman.” While circulation of national and regional newspapers has plummeted in the past 20 years, MacLeod sees the Edinburgh Minute’s success as evidence that people do want local news—but without clickbait headlines.
Each morning, MacLeod sifts through local news to find stories. “I like news you can use,” he says. “[Readers] want to support good things happening, and I don’t think we can underestimate how determined people are to find out the details, especially if it’s on their street.” At the end of the Edinburgh Minute is a “community noticeboard” where MacLeod includes stories sent in by readers. “It’s better than what any algorithm could put together,” he says. “Real people are sending me things I couldn’t find on the internet.”
In May, a fortnight after the Evening Standard announced that it would stop publishing its daily paper, MacLeod launched the London Minute. “I believe there’s still a need for daily news, especially in a place like London,” says MacLeod. He knew that covering the span of London would be a challenge, but in three months the London Minute has grown to 2,000 subscribers. “I’m really cheered to learn that people do still care about where they live.”
MacLeod also consulted on the launch of the Glasgow Wrap, which follows the same format as the Minute but is written by the Glasgow-based journalist Marissa MacWhirter. Although the Minute and Wrap together now cover three cities, MacLeod has no ambition to franchise further. “Glasgow, Edinburgh and London are places I’ve lived or worked. I can’t do it in other places,” he says. “So, if people want to start [newsletters] in other places, I’m happy to help, because I think we need to support local news as much as possible.”
For now, MacLeod is happy to continue his mission of connecting local stories to local people. “Last year, I was still working for ‘the man’ and this was a hobby. I wouldn’t have believed that in a year’s time it would be my job,” he says. “So, I can’t predict what it’ll be in a year, but if it’s the same I’ll be thrilled. I’m not a big planner. I’m just planning tomorrow’s newsletter.”
