What's going on at Byline Times?
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
I used to be a local journalist in East Anglia, UK, and I thought the whole Byline network was a really good idea - a model for funding grassroots, often investigative reporting, holding local councils to account, etc.
According to their website:
“We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.
East Anglia Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Networks Limited which is separate to, but allied with, Byline Times.”
However, this was on their East Anglia Bylines BlueSky account this morning. (pic also attached).
And their website is full of similar slop: https://eastangliabylines.co.uk
It’s Reach PLC style indiscriminate ‘bung it out everywhere for social media clicks’. Much as I hate the orange manchild, this has nothing in particular to do with East Anglia, or what Byline was set up to do.
Have they been taken over? Are there VCs starting to tighten their financial leash? What’s going on? Have they been hacked?
