New music journalism website launched by Salford alumnus

Soledad, a site designed to foster a new funding pathway for music journalists in Manchester, is the brainchild of BA Journalism (Multimedia) alumnus James Young, Charlie Stanley and Oli Wilson, the founder of Manchester's Beyond the Music conference and festival. 

The website intends to provide a new way to pay music journalists for their skills in article writing, gig photography, and much more. By doing so, the creators plan to restore a support system for writers and photographers who follow and capture Manchester’s world famous music scene.

The trio, which launched the site on Friday, have a goal to raise £5,000 in four weeks to fund their business initiative for the next 12 months.

Soledad intends to generate an income by encouraging people to pay a subscription. Subscribers will then have access to gig listings, merchandise and, a monthly newsletter with live music reviews, interviews with artists and industry feature pieces, as well as their monthly podcast. 

Any profit would then go towards paying journalists and editorial staff's wages and article rates. This then provides the artists and concertgoers with the opportunity to give back to journalists and photographers reporting on their musical journey and careers. 

This business initiative was co-founded by Salford alumnus James Young. James is a former presenter for Bro Radio and currently works as a freelance football journalist since graduating last year. He was most recently hired as part of a team of five Salford graduates and student to produce the ‘This Is Media City’ podcast.

James said: “[It’s] really important to fund the industry so Manchester stays a proper creative city. We want to give artists the exposure that they deserve which will have ripple effects for the Greater Manchester region. This will also have knock on effects for smaller venues and those on creative courses at university.”

Typically, music writers are often hired on a volunteer basis, in exchange for concert tickets. However, as this may not provide a viable income, Soledad believe their subscription service could revitalise a career path for music journalists. 

James added: “We’re building Soledad for artists who deserve coverage, exposure, and to be part of a thriving scene, writers and journalists, who deserve fair pay, not ‘exposure’ and fans – who want to know what’s good right now without trawling TikTok or trusting corporate-owned playlists."

Oli Wilson, the son of Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson, began his career as a broadcast journalist, before moving to his position as director of Beyond the Music, an international conference and festival, aiming to platform new artists and create social change in the music industry.

Co-founder Oli said: “We’ve had thousands of artists apply to play Beyond the Music over the last couple of years and what’s abundantly clear from working with them is there’s no regular, independent platform for music journalism that they can rely on to support and grow their careers."

"There are so many good writers out there in Manchester doing brilliant things but they’re not getting paid enough (or at all) and, like a lot of the artists they’re writing about actually, they’re working two or three other day jobs in completely unrelated industries.

"So it just makes sense to make a platform for artists, for music lovers, and for people that want to write about it. This is a brilliant time in Manchester's music history, people might just not know it yet. But they should do. There’s more music than ever before waiting to be discovered. 

"And beyond that venues, labels, promoters, DJs, studios that we want to shine a light on so I hope people will want to help us make this happen and make a subscription!”