By the Editor-in-Chief
Since 6 January last year, Kent Bylines published some 309 items, one a day. There have been contributions from 111 individuals. Some contribute regularly and some are one-off. In addition to articles, over 40 book reviews have been published, some dozen original poems (including the recent satiric carols), and some 15 cartoons including the 12 on the front page.
Seek, and ye shall find
The top menu is searchable by the broad areas that the article covers. The graphic below shows how this shifts from issue to issue:
This top menu was set up before we began publishing, and looking back over the output, we now think we should have made an extra category for “Europe” which was just mixed into “Global”. Kent Bylines has made a special effort to bring you news from the Pas de Calais (from scanning the local newspaper there).
We also published a series of articles on health provision in various European countries. With two editors having strong European links (Chris Hammond with Germany, and Magdalena Best with her recent travel blog from Hungary through to Spain) this enables us to recruit writers with specific knowledge of various European topics, a strength we hope to build on in 2022.
Topic categories
A more detailed graphic of the searchable categories appears below:
It is often difficult to pin-point the correct categorization for any submission: most cover several topics, which is why this graphic allowed for 2 categories per article.
The categorisation is based firstly on UK political topics which is divided up in accord with how HM Government administers through ministries and departments (linking Science with Energy for example, or Environment with food farming and fisheries). Secondly, there are articles which are not political but rather about leisure interests, or how we occupy ourselves in our spare time.
Book reviews
Book reviews are in this, and also all the Kent heritage articles, and articles about diet, pets, or travel. Some articles might span both: for instance an article about food might also get into the category of health; an article about a Kent Nature park might get into both “nature” (in the leisure group) but also into “local government” in the political group because there is some planning arguments about it.
Book reviews are often commissioned because a new book on a current political topic has just been published. Some book reviews have been submitted as part of a deal with writers who publish through Conrad publishers of Canterbury.
Most popular
As you can see from the graphic, the most frequent topics among the political articles are the Environment, Health, local government (all those planning disputes !), and democracy/human rights. This last category includes all the articles about migrants, as well as news on the Census and on elections. In the leisure group, the most frequent includes book reviews, as well as heritage and travel.
We hope you have enjoyed the variety of what Kent Bylines has brought you in 2021. If you wish to see more of any type of submission in 2022, help us to recruit more contributors for this !
