From the magazine

Our new year’s resolution

Nothing beats a calm, unhurried start to a new year. Lie-ins, leisurely lunches and long walks in the country. Take down the tree, prep the school uniforms and, I’m sorry, what? Trump has kidnapped the Venezuelan president and is threatening to take over Greenland? Happy new year everyone!

It’s hard to shake the feeling that our confusing and hectic world is becoming more discombobulating by the minute. The rules-based international order is being ripped up, insurgent political parties are in the ascendant on all sides, and AI, we’re constantly told, is on the verge of changing everything, in many cases for the worse. Glance at the headlines and it’s absolutely no surprise that when we conducted our biggest-ever reader survey last year and asked what you didn’t like about the news media landscape, the same words came up again and again: ‘polarising’, ‘negative’, ‘depressing’, ‘exhausting’, ‘overwhelming’. It makes sense that news avoidance is at an all-time high. According to the Reuters Institute’s global annual survey last year, 40 percent of all respondents sometimes or often avoid the news.

When the first issue of Delayed Gratification was published 15 years ago we spoke a lot about how a Slow Journalism movement was needed – in a similar way to the Slow Food movement – to promote a healthier, more sustainable approach to both news production and consumption. A lot has changed since 2011, when terms such as ‘doomscrolling’, deepfakes’ and ‘enshittification’ were still several years away from joining the lexicon. Our fretting back then about ‘digital wildfires’, misinformation spreading on social media, seems positively quaint compared with Grok’s grim new automated undressing tools.

We absolutely agree with you that the news can be exhausting and overwhelming, as well as having a negative impact on people’s mental wellbeing. But if you, like us, fiercely believe that well-informed citizens are an essential ingredient in a functioning democracy, sticking our heads in the sand en masse simply isn’t an option. Journalism matters, perhaps now more than ever.

That’s why our new year’s resolution is to do everything possible to ensure that Delayed Gratification is part of the solution, not part of the problem. We’re not planning to change the magazine. Instead we’ll double down on our commitment to what we already do – journalism that’s in-depth and independent, thoughtful and reflective, non-partisan and accurate. Journalism that’s written by humans, never AI, and with editorial decisions entirely uninfluenced by clicks, page views or algorithms. And while the most powerful and wealthy people on the planet might not always have our best interests at heart, we’ll always find space in DG to champion those doing amazing work to make our world a better place.

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Friday, January 16th, 2026 - Delayed Gratification magazine Extras

A slower, more reflective type of journalism”

Jam-packed with information... a counterpoint to the speedy news feeds we’ve grown accustomed to”

A leisurely (and contrary) look backwards over the previous three months”

Quality, intelligence and inspiration: the trilogy that drives the makers of Delayed Gratification”

Refreshing... parries the rush of 24-hour news with ‘slow journalism’”

A very cool magazine... It’s like if Greenland Sharks made a newspaper”

The UK’s second-best magazine” Ian Hislop Editor, Private Eye

Perhaps we could all get used to this Delayed idea...”