Paddle Media striving to open up journalistic pathways in Thanet

Born off the back of Strange Tourist, Paddle Media is a Community Interest Company that works to creatively engage children with journalism and literacy, as well as working to create pathways into the industry for Thanet-based young people. 

Established in December 2024 and currently in its start-up phase, Paddle Media has created - and is now delivering - journalism-based literacy engagements for children and teens in Thanet while working towards the long term aim of setting up a training newsroom in partnership with Strange Tourist. 

Our aim with the training newsroom is that it will provide meaningful, vocational experience for early career journalists and writers, who can obtain their vital first bylines while they learn the trade. 

The idea came from the shrinking pathways into journalism and professional writing careers, with the slimming down of publications and the hubbing of editorial teams. 

Following several years of sweeping redundancies and employment freezes, over 30% of the 3,00 reported journalism job cuts in 2025 were in the UK. Just days after Jeff Bezos gutted the Washington Post, it was reported that the BBC is looking to save up to £600 million in operating costs.

At a local level, major regional press publisher Reach PLC, announced an editorial overhaul last year which would see more than 320 job losses, while BBC Radio Kent, Radio Surrey and Radio Sussex have been sharing a chunk of programming since 2024. 

Another disheartening fact, the University of Kent’s Centre of Journalism will close with the graduation of the current cohort - across the board, journalism is a struggling industry, with local media on the front line despite often being the entry point into a career. There are fewer opportunities still for young people who cannot afford to undertake unpaid or low paid internships, or do not want to relocate to London. 

While this may seem like a bleak outlook, we still strongly believe in the power and importance of journalism. It is true that the bigger media companies are facing a tough future, and established structures are making it difficult for them to adapt. However, we're also seeing a boom in smaller, independent titles. As tools to promote and monetise writing become more accessible, there is a lot of exciting innovation going on in journalism right now.

We hope that the Strange Tourist newsroom will enable young Thanet-based writers to gain experience while writing stories about the community they are part of. That they enrich their enjoyment of writing as they decide their next writerly step. 

However, Paddle Media is some way off from providing this training. We want to expand on what we cover in the newsletter and on the website to include more in-depth stories about cultural issues that matter to Thanet. Ideally, we want Strange Tourist to be a sustainable venture before we launch the training newsroom. And that requires advertising revenue, subscribers and followers, which take time to build.

Meanwhile, we’ve created journalism workshops for children and teens, with three workshops covering ages from seven through to 16 years old and older. Partly funded by Broadstairs and Ramsgate town councils, we started delivering these workshops in Broadstairs and Ramsgate schools this year. 

Thanks to The National Literacy Trust, we know that children who enjoy reading and writing are more likely to have better wellbeing than those who don’t and that those children who engage with literacy for fun have better life outcomes in the longer term. While these workshops are grounded in journalistic principles and ideas, they are also about engaging participants, especially the younger ones, with story, creating narratives and having fun with words. 

As we work towards launching the training newsroom, we have more ideas on how these workshops can evolve.

If you’ve got questions or would like to support what we do, follow us on Instagram or drop us a line at hello@paddlemedia.uk.