I am passionate about journalism, but more passionate about accessible journalism. I have met so many amazing writers with brilliant ideas who never get the chance to push their works out into the tricky field of professional publishing. Not every writer has a mile long portfolio or an in with their uncle who works at the BBC, yet every writer has fascinating ideas. When I began building In The Know, I wanted to create a space where young writers can build a portfolio stress-free, where a writer can use the service as a launch pad into a journalism career – or just simply a place to write about what interests them. In a sense, I want to build a community of journalists who are passionate about their writing – whatever it may be.
University newsletters or professional digital newspapers can produce some spectacular pieces of writing; however, they lack one key thing: the freedom to write as you please. In The Know is not just another student newspaper. In fact, I would go as far as to say it’s in a whole different category of function. Rather than focusing on regular ‘releases’, our key priority is to build a hosting site for individual writers to build their own portfolio. Let’s take two examples:
You’re interested in writing for the first time. You’ve never written an article to be published before and you’re nervous but excited to try something new. Unfortunately, due to your lack of experience, no newspaper service will take you on or let you produce works for them. You’re stuck at square one.
You’re an accomplished young journalist. You’ve had pieces published with your Uni newspaper and are starting to build a name for yourself. But you’re missing something. You’ve been writing articles the newspaper wants and not what you want. There’s so much you want to explore and nowhere to publish them.
Now, in a traditional newspaper, these two writers are in vastly different positions. One of them doesn’t know where to begin and the other wishes they could’ve explored their own writing passions more. With In The Know, both these writers have the same opportunity to direct their portfolio’s trajectory.
Building this site was not an easy task. As an English student, I can confidently state coding is not my area of expertise. When I first began working on this project in May 2026, I thought building an article archive would be straightforward. I was wrong. After spending months working my way through a never-ending stream of YouTube tutorials and technical mumbo jumbo, I managed to build the site by myself into the form you see today. However, the website as you see it is what I’d like to dub ‘In The Know 1.0’. Once we can build up a wider team and community of writers, exciting new changes are coming. Personalised accounts, commenting, customisation, creative competitions, junior journalist schemes and more are all on their way!
Ultimately, I hope this article effectively explains what In The Know is and what we’re trying to achieve. If you’re not confident in writing or, conversely, you’re getting drained by the pressure of only producing high-stakes pieces, give writing for us a try! All it takes is a few clicks and you’re well on your way to getting an article published with us. If there are any questions, queries, doubts or concerns (or if you just fancy a chat!), our details can be found on the ‘About’ section of the site and they are attached below. I look forward to reading what you write 🙂
Evan Hedges, Founder & Creative Director of In The Know
evan.hedges@outlook.com
intheknowbristol@outlook.com