The Skinny deserves public sector support - Alex Cole-Hamilton
Readers may have heard the news that The Skinny magazine is set to close after 20 years of publication. The role that The Skinny has played in Scotland’s cultural life cannot be underestimated.
It offers a vast repository of free and independent coverage of music, theatre, film, comedy, literature and art. Available in bars, shops and venues across the country, it’s a trusted go-to for reviews and amazing listings, guaranteeing its readers a great night out. As an Edinburgh-based publication, it’s also been an important vehicle for promoting the city’s festival and fringe.
The announcement of its closure is a sad reminder of the immense pressures facing our arts and cultural sector. In a statement, their editorial team said they hadn’t “expected things to end this way”.
There is a quiet but important ripple effect when publications like The Skinny are forced to shut their doors.
For a start, the Skinny often features smaller, grassroots venues and artists, connecting them to audiences who they may otherwise have been unable to reach by themselves.
There is also the fact that many young journalists start out and cut their teeth in places like The Skinny. That’s a lot harder to do when those places don’t exist anymore.
Indeed, what’s happened to The Skinny is being replicated in newspapers and local media outlets across the country. Printed publications and independent journalism are under threat like never before.
In the unescapably digital world that we occupy today, the very act of picking up a paper or a magazine, and sitting down to pour over its pages, is fatally undervalued.
There is something in this act that nurtures a kind of stillness, a sort of thoughtfulness, that none of us can ever achieve in the swiping and scrolling that has come to dominate our lives.
I think that underpins the ethos of The Skinny too. Encouraging you to go to the theatre, to watch the actors move on the stage in front of you, in real time. To go to a gig, to listen to new music that isn’t just some recommendation from a precalculated algorithm, to be in the moment of a crowd and a performance.
Perhaps it sounds silly, but perhaps that is only because we are so used to taking those small pleasures for granted. If we are not careful, we will let those essential human experiences slip away, which is why I will always fight for the survival of outlets like The Skinny, and for a thriving future for our cultural sector more broadly.
Ultimately, we should be celebrating publications like The Skinny, not numbing ourselves to their demise. They are run by small, hardworking dedicated teams, and we should recognise their value.
The Scottish Government’s arts body, Creative Scotland, should step in and give The Skinny the support it needs to continue.
If John Swinney and his party are the ambassadors of Scotland that they so loudly claim to be, they would move beyond the performative gestures and heed these calls.