Pressing pause on the Spy, for now

It's been a longer break than expected — and, sadly, we're not quite ready to return

Morning — we're feeling rather sheepish. The last time we wrote to you all, we were letting you know we were off on a break over August. And now it's late September... Sorry!

But unfortunately, our apologies don't end there: we're sorry to say we're still not quite ready to return to the Spy.

We've tried not to go on about this too much, but for the past couple of years we've been fitting in the newsletter around our day jobs in journalism. We'd always hoped we’d grow to a point where we could go all in on the Spy. And we've come oh-so-close, with enough of you becoming paid readers to allow one of us to go part-time.

But despite that, we're feeling a bit burnt out. We've not quite hit the goal we first set out to achieve with the Spy, and the extra time we've got still doesn't feel enough to meet our initial vision ― a fully fledged London news mag. We've found ourselves chasing publication deadlines rather than stories, keen to ensure you had something in your inbox each week ― but it was never supposed to be this way. We always wanted to do local news that took time, focusing on a few things to go really deep on. But with our current resources, each week has felt too much like playing catch-up.

All of this is to say that our passion for reporting on London remains unchanged ― the issue for us is format and frequency. So we've made a decision to step back and spend some time figuring out where we go from here. We're not sure when we'll return, and how often we'll publish when we do. We're basically weighing up if we can continue the Spy in a more light form, publishing an in-depth feature or investigation maybe once or twice a month. But to be frank, we don't know if that's possible yet.

What's already clear to us, though, is that for our paid subscribers, we'd be publishing this newsletter in a way which doesn't fairly reflect what you signed up for. So in the next day or two, we'll be issuing refunds. Our understanding of Substack's system is that you'll be refunded pro rata, up until the point we first paused publication at the end of July. If you're a monthly subscriber, you'll get part of the month back, and if you're annual, a chunk of your year, depending on where you were in the cycle. But if that doesn't feel fair, shoot us an email and we'll refund you in full: londonspy@substack.com.

This would have been a much harder email to write if the London media scene was still in the sorry state it was in when we first started publishing in 2023. Thankfully, it's not. At a city-wide level, there's been the launch of The London Minute, London Centric and The Londoner, who've all really upped the game. And it's been great to see borough papers trying new things over the years ― like the Camden New Journal's and Islington Tribune's expansion into Substack. Behind the scenes, there's also been the establishment of the London Newsmakers, which has been organising and supporting the city's indie publications. We're confident we're leaving you in good hands.

In the meantime, we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who's supported the Spy over our two or so years — whether that be speaking to us for stories, giving feedback or just quietly reading along. If there's one thing we hoped we've achieved, it's showing that London news doesn't have to be boring, shallow or clickbaity. And that, instead, there are things going on in the city that are worth taking the time to dig into properly.

So it's goodbye for now, but hopefully not forever. After all, to borrow a well-worn phrase: if you’re tired of London news, you’re tired of life.

Cheers,

The Spy team 🕵️