Today marks 15 years since PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen put the very first rudimentary version of this website live. He’s been reflecting on the past 15 years in this Twitter thread.
Incredibly, it’s 15 years, to the day, since I first started work on @PinkNews. It’s been a labour of love! We will celebrate later in the year, but I wanted to share a few memories about the journey from zero to tens of millions of users plus some of our achievements (1/22) pic.twitter.com/qSL0I3VGFB
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
I founded @PinkNews because I was unhappy with the way that gay media was run (the term LGBT+ didn’t really exist). Back then all of the media was effectively subsidised by porn and escort ads and news wasn’t well covered at all (2/22) pic.twitter.com/UJPzsraJee
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
There had been some proper newspapers: the Gay News, Capital Gay and the Pink Paper. But in 2005, just Pink Paper survived but was published monthly as a magazine and didn’t cover enough news and didn’t have a proper website (3/22) pic.twitter.com/utdMoqrgO6
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
I wanted @PinkNews to be different. No sex ads, constantly updating and with an accessible archive online. I registered the name and put a basic website online in July and formed the company in December of 2005, when we hired our first employee (4/22) pic.twitter.com/VnJ19tOJ8q
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
Our first foray into politics was a ground-breaking interview with Francis Maude, then Chair of the Conservatives, saying the party’s previous stance was morally wrong. It was the first @PinkNews mention by the BBC (5/22) pic.twitter.com/InZJpGri1z
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
Beyond politics, @PinkNews was ‘put on the map’ by publishing this story, which would ultimately lead to Ashley Cole reaching a settlement with the News of the World. Incidentally, my co-author and first PN employee @marcshoffman would later become my brother-in-law! (6/22) pic.twitter.com/ZqTx68FPMs
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
2006 was a special year: @SimonHughes came out as bisexual on @PinkNews and we won plaudits for our coverage of Ruth Kelly being appointed ‘Minister for Gays’, despite always abstaining on equality votes. (7/22) pic.twitter.com/fLJ0hWQkUS
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
It was also 2006, when we briefly tried and failed to be in print with ‘The PinkNews’. It was also when I was recruited to join @Channel4News as a correspondent and @PinkNews would be a side-project for the next six years. (8/22) pic.twitter.com/Sr4aA3niXl
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
In 2008, I was in California for the election of @BarackObama and Prop 8, the voter initiative to ban same-sex marriage in the state. When Prop 8 was passed, and I attended vigils, I became convinced that I needed to use @PinkNews to fight for same-sex marriage in the UK (9/22) pic.twitter.com/Y3MhEfDsBo
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
This interview with the then @stonewalluk CEO Ben Summerskill, convinced us that we would need to use the power of the @PinkNews audience to directly call for marriage equality from our political leaders as Stonewall didn’t look like it would under Ben’s leadership (10/22) pic.twitter.com/sgUMkhQMnO
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
We got @PinkNews readers to send in Qs. @nick_clegg was first and backed equal marriage. @David_Cameron said he was “open” to it. Gordon Brown didn’t back it, but @Ed_Miliband did during the Labour leadership election that followed (11/22) pic.twitter.com/NX8qcVDJF0
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
When my friend @lfeatherstone became Minister for Equalities under @theresa_may in the Home Office, she was able to use these words to @PinkNews to help boost her case for the Coalition backing equal marriage. She documented this in her definitive book ‘Equal Ever After’ (12/22) pic.twitter.com/X8KcYTesje
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
At the same time, we at @PinkNews worked on getting @stonewalluk to actually back equal marriage. We interviewed co-founder @IanMcKellen and fellow co-founder @mcashmanCBE wrote this powerful article begging Stonewall to change its position(13/22) pic.twitter.com/lWb0GXDE5c
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
While @Stonewalluk eventually did come on board, I felt that the campaign was not positive enough. So I co-founded @Out4Marriage with @Mike_Shapes + lots of amazing campaigners (too many to list). The first video was made by my Grandparents. (14/22) pic.twitter.com/nyfyZLhYNE
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
When same-sex marriage eventually happened, the only words from @David_Cameron to mark the occasion were in his article for @PinkNews. @DrAnthonyJames & I spent the day with @lfeatherstone going to two of the first weddings. She’d later be the witness at our own marriage (15/22) pic.twitter.com/XA1gRDOLll
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
In 2014 @PinkNews held the first #PinkNewsAwards at Speaker’s House in Parliament. Our team had grown to about 5 people, ironically then based in the old Pink Paper office. (16/22) pic.twitter.com/8zXA9HZZIU
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
2015 was the first year that the majority of the @PinkNews audience was in the US and we grew hugely off the back of Facebook. We held a 10th birthday party & #PinkNewsAwards at the Foreign Office and @David_Cameron recorded this message (17/22) pic.twitter.com/KzJWaD7tl2
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
In 2017, to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in E&W, we published articles by every living British PM. It’s also when @theresa_may made this ground-breaking speech on #transrights at the #PinkNewsAwards (18/22) pic.twitter.com/dXVEPHL09E
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
2018 was a year of change: @PinkNews grew a lot: We secured a grant from @Google to help us build @PinkNewsAction. We launched on @Snapchat, which has massively fueled our growth. @PinkNews grew up. After all the years of campaigning @DrAnthonyJames & I got married 😍 (19/22) pic.twitter.com/DcPiqzVSMK
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
By the end of last year, we had grown the @PinkNews team hugely, better representing our community in all its diversity. I wrote about what had been achieved 2010-2019 in this post on Medium. (20/22) https://t.co/vowZXDJF7W
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
This year has been pretty extraordinary. We’re working from home, but still growing. Three new full-time @PinkNews team members have started since March plus contractors & more to come. We’ve gone live with a new iOS entirely developed in lockdown (21/22) https://t.co/wTYX4iPRen
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020
Finally, we have soft-launched @MyPinkNews, where we ask our loyal users to fund our investigative journalism, get special access to features & services. If you value what we’ve done over the past 15 years, now is the time to support @PinkNews (ENDS) https://t.co/7fhsm7G6Cj
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 21, 2020