The Slow Journalism magazine turns ten

In the summer of 2010 we approached Shepard Fairey and asked him to let us use one of his artworks, Freedom of the Press, on the cover of the first issue of Delayed Gratification.

He kindly said yes even though, as he points out on p006, he “really didn’t have high hopes for the viability of your project.” We are delighted to celebrate the magazine’s 40th issue and tenth birthday with another of his artworks on the cover.

Shepard was right to be sceptical of the magazine’s chances. The first issue of DG was launched in the midst of a grinding recession, on a shoestring budget, by five journalists and a designer with no business plan beyond an instinct that news coverage needed a slower approach and that the death of print had been greatly exaggerated. We worked on DG#1 throughout the winter of 2010, in a tiny office which was alternately freezing cold and – when we put on an ancient, dust-belching heater – tropically hot.

That first issue – and every issue since – was free from advertising and funded by readers. You’ve helped to support a decade of in-depth Slow Journalism that aims to make sense of an unstable world, including features like this issue’s return to Beirut after the explosion (p052) and our report on migrant pushbacks in the Aegean (p094).

Over the next ten years we’ll continue to look back on big events after the dust has settled and to tell the stories others missed – or mistold. We’ll keep expanding our roster of online classes too and, when the vaccines kick in, look forward to real life events where we can meet you in person.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the issue – we’re as proud of it as we were of that very first edition and, as always, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Rob and Marcus, editors

Posted on Thursday, September 14th, 2023 - Categories: #40 - Jul-Sep 2020, App Issues.