CommonSpace

About CommonSpace

CommonSpace was a Glasgow-based digital news service covering Scottish politics and current affairs, operating as a daily online publication from January 2015 until its relaunch and rebrand as Source in February 2020. Born out of the energy of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, it became one of the most prominent new media outlets in Scotland, publishing news, analysis, podcasts and investigations while remaining editorially independent of its owner, the Common Weal think tank. At its peak it reached between 100,000 and 150,000 unique readers a month, and its successor, Source, continued until June 2021.

Origins after the referendum

The CommonSpace news service was announced by the Common Weal think tank in September 2014, in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum. The referendum had generated an extraordinary flowering of new media in Scotland, from blogs to crowdfunded outlets, and CommonSpace was conceived as a professional, daily digital news service that would carry that energy forward. Common Weal itself had launched in May 2013 as part of the Jimmy Reid Foundation before becoming an independent organisation in October 2014, and it backed CommonSpace as its media arm, funded by individual small monthly donations rather than corporate or party money.

Launch and the first team

The website launched in January 2015, though its launch party was held later, in June at the Glasgow School of Art. It began with five editorial staff, led by founding editor Angela Haggerty, a journalist well known in Scottish media circles. The service was headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland's largest city and the hub of much of the country's new media activity. From the start, CommonSpace positioned itself as a general news service rather than a campaign mouthpiece, with the explicit understanding that it was editorially independent of its owner Common Weal.

Editorial independence and coverage

CommonSpace covered Scottish politics, UK politics, social issues, economics, culture and international affairs, with a particular emphasis on the stories and perspectives that were under-represented in the established press. It published daily news stories, long-form analysis, opinion columns and features, and it treated independence-adjacent topics, land reform, housing, workers' rights and media criticism as core beats rather than niche interests. The site's tone was progressive and pro-democracy, but its news operation followed journalistic standards, and it was read well beyond the independence movement by people interested in a distinctively Scottish take on the news.

Audience growth

By late 2015, CommonSpace was attracting between 100,000 and 150,000 unique users a month, a remarkable figure for a new Scottish publication, and it reached 200,000 unique users in the month of the May 2015 UK Parliament election, when Scotland's politics were the centre of national attention. The site promoted its work through a daily newsletter and social media, and its Glasgow launch party at the Glasgow School of Art in June 2015 underlined its roots in the city's creative and political culture.

Podcasts and multimedia

CommonSpace expanded beyond text journalism into podcasts, most notably "Beyond the Noise", a weekly podcast hosted by CommonSpace journalist David Jamieson that aimed to get behind the 24/7 news cycle and find the substance behind the headlines. Episodes covered topics from the pensions debate and austerity to the constitutional crisis around the prorogation of Parliament, often featuring voices from campaigns, unions and academia. The podcast built a loyal audience and extended the brand's reach into audio, an important part of the service's identity in its later years.

Change of guard at the top

In February 2018, founding editor Angela Haggerty announced her departure from CommonSpace after her appointment as news editor of the Sunday Herald, itself a landmark of Scotland's pro-independence-leaning press that would announce its own closure six months later. Ben Wray replaced Haggerty in April 2018, announcing his appointment alongside a series of planned changes in an editorial. Wray, who had previously worked with the Jimmy Reid Foundation and Common Weal and was a columnist on the site, took the publication through the Brexit years and the revival of the independence debate.

Special projects and campaigns

CommonSpace ran themed weeks of coverage on major topics, including a notable special series marking ten years since the 2008 financial crash, examining the legacy of the crisis and the search for economic alternatives. It invited readers to contribute their own ideas, drawing on its community of politically engaged supporters. The service also covered grassroots campaigns, trade union disputes and cultural events across Scotland, using its Glasgow base to report on stories from across the country that larger outlets often missed.

The series was promoted with a call for readers to send in their own ideas about economic alternatives, contributions of a few hundred words outlining their thoughts a decade after the crash, and it drew on the site's loyal audience of politically engaged supporters. Picture desks and partner outlets also carried its work, and its archive preserves reporting on campaigns, union disputes and cultural events from across Scotland that larger outlets often missed.

Rebrand as Source

In February 2020, CommonSpace underwent a site redesign and rebranded as Source, under the editorship of Sean Bell. The rebrand was intended to mark a new phase for the publication, sharpening its identity as a source of news and analysis distinct from its think-tank origins. The archive of CommonSpace's five years of journalism carried over, and the new title continued the same commitment to daily Scottish news coverage, investigative reporting and progressive commentary.

Closure

Source ceased publication on 30 June 2021, bringing the CommonSpace era to an end after more than six years. The closure was part of a wider contraction in Scotland's new media landscape, which had seen several of the outlets born in the referendum era struggle to sustain themselves financially despite loyal audiences. The commonspace.scot domain and the Source archive preserve a record of the publication's journalism, from breaking news coverage of elections and referendums to long-form investigations.

The readers who kept it going

CommonSpace's business model was inseparable from its politics. Like the Common Weal think tank that owned it, the service was sustained by its readers rather than by corporate advertising or party funding, and it returned to those readers regularly with fundraising appeals to pay for reporters. Its campaign video "No longer the alternative, we are the media" asked supporters to help raise £60,000 to fund two new reporters at a pivotal moment in Scottish and UK politics, an appeal that traded on the credibility the title had built in just two and a half years. A daily newsletter carried its stories to inboxes across Scotland, and events such as the launch party at the Glasgow School of Art in June 2015 turned the audience into a community. That direct relationship between publication and reader was both the service's strength and, in the end, the limit of its resources.

Legacy in Scottish media

CommonSpace's legacy lies in what it proved was possible: that a reader-funded, Glasgow-based digital news service could employ professional journalists, break stories, produce podcasts and reach hundreds of thousands of readers while remaining independent of its think-tank funder. Alongside outlets such as Bella Caledonia, Wings Over Scotland, Newsnet and The Ferret, it helped build the networked media ecosystem that reshaped Scottish public life in the 2010s, demonstrating that online subscription and crowdfunding could sustain journalism outside the traditional press. Its journalists went on to careers across Scottish and UK media, and its archive remains a rich record of a turbulent decade in Scottish politics.