Sheffield Tribune

About Sheffield Tribune

The Sheffield Tribune is the subscriber-funded local news publication serving Sheffield with slower, more considered journalism since 2021. Founded by former Star reporter Dan Hayes and modelled on the pioneering Manchester Mill, The Tribune publishes in-depth reporting and thoughtful analysis of the city's politics, culture, history and people — quality over quantity, funded directly by its readers. Part of the Mill Media Co family alongside its Manchester and Liverpool sister titles, it has become one of the great success stories of Britain's independent local press, breaking even within two years of launch.

Founding by Dan Hayes

The Tribune was founded by Dan Hayes, who left the Sheffield daily The Star in May 2021 to start the newsletter. Hayes had come to journalism relatively late in life and had spent nearly six years in the industry; he launched The Tribune because he believed newspapers had come to treat readers as a commodity to be farmed for page views. His pitch was a different kind of local journalism: fewer stories, less noise, and a slower, more considered and thoughtful approach that aims to inform and entertain readers without bombarding them. Almost 2,500 readers subscribed to the email list at launch, and paid memberships followed — giving Hayes the confidence that Sheffielders would pay for high-quality local news.

The Mill model

The Tribune was born from a conversation between Hayes and Joshi Herrmann, the founder of the Manchester Mill — the reader-funded newsletter that had shown the model could work in Manchester. The Mill provided what Hayes called "air support": journalists from the Manchester title helped with the launch, and the two publications have collaborated ever since. The formula is the same in both cities: a small team of professional journalists, a network of local freelances, in-depth reporting published via email newsletter and website, and funding from paying members rather than advertisers or click-driven traffic.

Subscriber-funded journalism

The Tribune is funded by its readers. Some stories are always published for free to the entire email list, so that the title serves the whole city and performs a public-interest function — but members who pay receive all of the journalism and directly support the title's growth. The model proved itself quickly: The Tribune hit 1,000 paying subscribers in January 2023, less than 18 months after launch, and broke even in April 2023, under two years into its life. At that point it had 1,300 paid subscribers, and its editor could declare that thoughtful, long-form local journalism was now financially viable in Sheffield.

The editorial team

The Tribune's journalists have written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times and The Spectator, and they bring national-level rigour to local stories. Hayes remains the founder and editor, dedicated to accurate, balanced reporting and getting to the heart of the stories he covers. Victoria Munro, the second full-time staffer, came from reporting and editing in London and tends to handle the title's more investigative work — digging into documents and speaking to off-the-record sources. Mollie Simpson joined from the Manchester Mill, where her investigations had prompted police inquiries into serious allegations at the University of Greater Manchester. Daniel Timms also writes and edits for the title. In its short life, The Tribune has commissioned more than 30 local writers to produce high-quality work.

What it covers

The Tribune publishes thoughtful, nuanced reporting on Sheffield's politics, culture, history and people — the context readers need to understand what is really going on in their city. Investigations have shone new light on areas needing scrutiny, from the workings of local institutions to the decisions shaping the city's future; long-form features have explored everything from where Sheffield's rubbish goes to the entrepreneurs transforming its hospitality scene. The title also celebrates the city: its writers interview the people making Sheffield interesting and tell the stories of its neighbourhoods, its heritage and its culture with genuine affection.

Mill Media Co

Together with its sister publications in Manchester and Liverpool, The Tribune is part of Mill Media Co, a wider company that allows the titles to share editors, exchange tips and support each other. The collaboration has produced some of the titles' best work, with journalists crossing the Pennines to report on subjects from George Orwell to the Sheffield environmental campaigner Ethel Haythornthwaite. In 2024 Herrmann led a fundraising round aiming to raise £200,000 to strengthen the team and expand the model to more places; in the event, investors committed £350,000 — a striking vote of confidence in reader-funded local news during a cost-of-living crisis.

Audience and community

The Tribune reaches some 30,000 highly engaged readers across Sheffield, and its relationship with them goes beyond the transactional. Readers send in news tips and story ideas — serious leads and softer feature suggestions alike — and the title's journalists are known for responding personally. The publication's tone, set by Hayes's own writing, is warm and conversational: emails to subscribers read like letters from a friend who happens to know the city inside out. That intimacy is deliberate — it is what a reader-funded title can offer that an advertising-funded one cannot.

Investigations and impact

The Tribune's investigative work has been its calling card. Victoria Munro's document-digging and off-the-record sourcing have brought new scrutiny to institutions and decisions that affect Sheffielders' daily lives, while the title's long-form reporting has tackled subjects the daily press rarely has space for — the hidden infrastructure of the city, the fate of its waste, the deals shaping its development. Mollie Simpson's arrival brought the investigative pedigree she had built at the Manchester Mill, where her reporting on the University of Greater Manchester led to police investigations into serious allegations of fraud and bribery. The Tribune applies the same fearlessness to South Yorkshire: no story is too entrenched, no institution too powerful, to escape proper journalistic scrutiny.

Culture, history and the city's stories

Not all of The Tribune's journalism is hard news. Some of its most loved pieces have been cultural and historical: collaborations with its sister titles on subjects as varied as George Orwell's connections to the North and the life of Ethel Haythornthwaite, the Sheffield environmental campaigner who helped save the Peak District's moorlands. Daniel Timms's deep dive into where Sheffield's rubbish actually goes exemplifies the title's approach — taking a mundane civic question and turning it into a fascinating piece of explanatory journalism — while his interview with James O'Hara, the city's biggest hospitality entrepreneur, showed its access to the people shaping Sheffield's present. History, in The Tribune's hands, is never dry: it is the backstory to the city readers live in.

The newsletter experience

Reading The Tribune is a deliberately different experience from scrolling a news site. Editions arrive by email, written to be read rather than skimmed, with a rhythm that respects the reader's time: a few substantial stories, well told, instead of dozens of thin ones. Hayes's editor's notes — personal, reflective, occasionally funny — have become a beloved feature in their own right, whether he is writing about the grind of founding a newsroom or about finally managing to take a proper holiday after three and a half years. The format creates a relationship that page-view journalism cannot: readers feel they know the people writing for them, and the writers know their readers are paying attention.

The future of local news

The Sheffield Tribune matters far beyond Sheffield. Alongside the Manchester Mill and the Liverpool Post, it is living proof that the crisis in local journalism has a solution: small, skilled teams, funded by the communities they serve, producing journalism good enough that people will pay for it. In under two years it went from one man's leap in the dark to a profitable newsroom. As the Mill Media model expands to more cities, The Tribune stands as the evidence that quality local journalism is not a luxury or a relic — it is a viable, growing business, and Sheffield is better informed because of it.

Visit the official Sheffield Tribune website