Out of print

Charlie Baker, founder of The Fence magazine, on the trials, tribulations and tenacity of starting a new publication

I’m sure you remember how things were a decade ago. Every school child was to have a Kindle. Bookshops on high streets were to be a thing of the past. Print was dying, a corpse to be deposited pitifully into the grave.

But as you all know, things didn’t work out like that. Physical book sales are increasing year upon year (the publishing industry had a good pandemic). People still read newspapers, and there are even new magazines starting.

I set up The Fence in 2019. I didn’t have any experience in magazines beyond student journalism. I’d never filed a piece and been paid for it, and I had no idea what a flatplan was. But I did know there was a huge gap in the UK market for something wry and well-written, something funny without being mean, and that there were perilously few publications for young and youngish people.

Almost six years later, the magazine has done much better than I dared to dream. People say it’s a bit like a mix between Private Eye and the New Yorker, which is hugely flattering. Our big inspiration is a Manhattan magazine though, Graydon Carter and Kurt Anderson’s Spy, which prodded and poked at metropolitan delusions during their 1980s glory years. (Their most famous stunt was sending 13-cent cheques to the world’s richest people. Only two of them cashed the cheque: an arms dealer and Donald Trump.)