 | |
| Editor | Hardeep Matharu |
|---|---|
| Staff writers | Adam Bienkov Josiah Mortimer |
| Categories | Politics, current affairs, social affairs, |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Founder | Peter Jukes Stephen Colegrave |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | London |
| Language | English |
| Website | bylinetimes |
| ISSN | 2632-7910 |
Byline Times is a British liberal[1]alternative media website and newspaper launched in 2019 byPeter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave, who are also its executive editors.[2]
After jointly registering theGreater Manchester-based company Byline Media Ltd in October 2014,[3] the British entrepreneurDaniel Tudor and his South Korean colleague and fellowUniversity of Oxford alumnusLee Seung-yoon launched thecrowdfunded media platform Byline.com that allowed "campaigning journalists" to make direct appeals to readers in April 2015.[4][5] By July 2015, it had 300,000 monthly visitors, and raised $850,000 inseed funding while the board of advisers was made up by the former editor-in-chief ofThe EconomistBill Emmott, the former editor-in-chief ofThe Sunday TimesHarold Evans, and the playwrightPeter Jukes who had joined as acolumnist.[6][7][8][9]
Peter Jukes and formerSaatchi & Saatchi marketing executive Stephen Colegrave took over the Byline.com website in 2016.
In November 2018, Peter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave registered Byline Times Ltd as aBirmingham-based company, with 51% shares held by LC Nominees Ltd, a firm headquartered in the same city.[10] The print newspaperByline Times was then launched in the summer of 2019, with an initial subscriber base of almost 1,000.[5]
TheByline Times newspaper is published monthly for subscribers, with three-quarters of the material restricted to print,[11] whileBylineTimes.com functions as a free news site.Byline Times's sister organisations are the former crowdfunding journalism platform Byline.com, investigative unitByline Investigates, theByline Times Podcast, Byline Books and the annual summer eventByline Festival. All are separate entities.[12]
Byline Times is also published byBywire News, an "independentblockchain news network", whose other partners includeThe Canary,Labour Buzz,Not the News,Business Wales,Our.London, andMedia Reform Coalition (MRC)[13] which, according to Bywire, means "each article contains a record on the blockchain detailing when it was created, by whom, and any revisions which are made and when".[14] In 2020, Byline Media collaborated with George Llewelyn and Caolan Robertson to create Byline TV, a subscriber-funded video channel.[15]
Recent expansions of the outlet include the 2022 launch ofByline Supplement, the outlet's additionalSubstack newsletter,[16] and Byline Audio, set up in 2024 to bring together the outlet's podcasts.[17]
As of July 2023,Byline Times had 29,000 paying subscribers, of which 15,000 to the print version, and arevenue of approximately £1m.[1]
In March 2025, it became regulated by the UK's official press regulatorIMPRESS.[18]
The editor ofByline Times is Hardeep Matharu.[19] Other writers and staff include its Special Investigations ReporterNafeez Ahmed, formerSpectator political columnistPeter Oborne, former BBC journalistAdrian Goldberg who hosts theByline Times Podcast,[2][12] former BBCPanorama reporterJohn Sweeney,[20]Kingston University's professor of journalismBrian Cathcart,[21] investigative journalistIain Overton,[22]Compass directorNeal Lawson,[23] and authorOtto English. The paper has also had contributions from others, including the actor and comedianJohn Cleese.[24]
As of August 2024,Byline Times' full-time reporting team included Political Editor Adam Bienkov, and Chief Reporter Josiah Mortimer.[25] The title employed 12 permanent staff members, had 30 writers on monthlyretainer and 500 freelancers to call upon,[11] which represented an increase from 5 permanent staffers and 15 regular columnists in July 2023.[1]
Interviewed in 2019, Matharu described the purpose ofByline Times as to "really dig down and investigate [...] pressing social issues, many of them to do with justice, or a lack of, which for one reason or another are not being widely or extensively reported on elsewhere." Jukes described the newspaper as providing "what the [other] papers don't say" and said it would be similar in tone to the broadsheet news magazineFT Weekend.[26]
Peter Jukes toldPress Gazette in 2023 that the outlet was "not politically aligned" and "not ideological", while professing a belief inliberal democracy,transparency and tacklingcorruption.[1]
Byline Times was showcased at the 2019 Trust in Journalism Conference, organised by IMPRESS.[27] In February 2024, it was described byNewsNow Publishing in a testimony made to theHouse of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee as a "successful example of non-local reader-funded 'alternative' news media outlet", alongsideDouble Down News andDeclassified UK.[28]
Mike Berners-Lee judgedByline Times to have "a very credible set of journalists" and stated that he "couldn't think of an example of it having been factually wrong", although he expressed a wish for its sources to be cited more frequently. He described it as a "counter-balance to the billionaire-dominated British press".[29]
Stories broken byByline Times have been picked up by other media outlets. These include allegations ofcronyism in the Johnson government's allocation of contracts during theCOVID-19 pandemic.[19][30] In July 2023,Byline Times broke allegations of sexual impropriety by the journalistDan Wootton,[31] based on the investigations of formerNews of the World journalists Dan Evans and Tom Latchem.[1] Wootton denied the allegations and sought tocrowdfund legal fees for a case against the paper.Byline Times subsequently said its journalists had been targeted with threats and intimidation, without suggesting Wootton was involved.[32][33] In February 2024 theMetropolitan Police announced they would be taking no further action in respect of the matter.[34]
In November 2025,Byline Times reported thatJeffrey Epstein suggestedSteve Bannon start a church for what Epstein called "'confession privilege'" to "shield communications from the special counsel criminal investigation intoDonald Trump regardingRussian interference in the 2016 elections, led by then FBI directorRobert Mueller."[35]