So what do we think: can Will Lewis survive at the Post? Or are the problems there going to slow down the British takeover of American newsrooms? Have we reached peak Substack? Whither the BBC under a Labour government? Didn’t season two of Succession get the Murdochs so right? And what about that columnist at the FT? A rash hire, wasn’t it?
When journalists convene, some or all of these matters get an airing, which is an excellent reason to be elsewhere. The challenge is to build and maintain that alternative circle.
Even the greatest cities on Earth fail to honour their central promise: that of wide-ranging human contact. Urbanites live near a jumble of different people but, in the absence of strenuous effort, end up in the social swim of their own and adjacent professions. This ghettoisation sets in during those hard-working years after university. By 30, it is difficult to undo. So — and here I address the young, chiefly those starting work this autumn — avoid this trap from the beginning. For it is a double curse. First, it creates a single point of failure. If your job goes, much of your social life goes with it.