Creating a Buzz around The Bee

Leading a coalition of civic, industry and academic leaders, New Writing North’s CEO Claire Malcolm developed a £5m bid, submitted to the government’s Cultural Development Fund for a new national centre for the writing industries, to be based in the North East.

The ambition: to rebalance the southern-centricity of the writing industries.

Claire tasked Cause UK to launch the campaign in the media to help lobby decision makers.

It resulted in ‘Talent is Classless’ – which launched on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, news bulletins on BBC R2, and ran in The Guardian, The i, BBC Online, with comment in The Telegraph and the front page of its local paper, with 50 meaningful pieces of  press coverage.

Claire secured the £5m funds.

This month, Claire asked Cause UK to launch a new platform New Writing North was producing called The Bee.

The Bee – a website, magazine, and podcast – is in response to the growing chasm for working-class talent, and continues the legacy of Michael Sheen’s A Writing Chance and is edited by Richard Benson – the former editor of the iconic magazine, The Face.

The brief was to launch The Bee on Bank Holiday Monday – May Day, which has historic roots in giving workers a break; May Bank Hol was introduced by Labour Employment Secretary Michael Foot in 1978).

We liaised with BBC R4 again, who ran it as a broadcast exclusive on the Saturday PM show, before the Monday print embargo. The Guardian then ran it in print and online on May Day.

BBC Newcastle Radio interviewed Richard, and it ran on the BBC Online.

Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph wrote an impassioned and blistering comment piece supporting The Bee in the face of declining social mobility in the Arts.

And it inspired news stories and comment in a key trade publication, The Bookseller.

Media to come include a feature by Richard Benson secured in Writing Magazine, an opinion piece in the Yorkshire Post and interview on Times Radio.

https://thebeemagazine.com