17 June 2025

Meet the winner of FIPP’s Best New Media Business journalism prize

Some of the most important individuals in the fight to secure a bright future for the media industry are not in newsrooms, but in classrooms. Around the world, journalism students are preparing to step into a profession that will rapidly change beneath their feet, with factors like AI integration and changes in consumer behaviour demanding new recruits have a wide skill set and think outside the box.

To help prepare the next generation of journalists, FIPP has teamed up with Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture for an annual award handed out to the student who comes up with the best project to create a new media business from scratch.

This year’s winner is Sophie Colson who pitched the idea for Bookish – A multi-media lifestyle and review magazine brand that engages the large #BookTok crowd in a slow-journalism way. We caught up with Colson to talk us through her winning entry, discuss her ambitions as a journalist and reveal how her generation feels about the media industry.

What was your reaction when you found out you were the winner?

My first reaction was surprise. Then excitement. I’d put so much time and energy into my enterprise project that receiving this recognition for my work was such a rewarding feeling. I’m glad to know all that hard work paid off!

Could you tell us a bit more about Bookish and how you came up with the idea for the brand?

Bookish is a passion project before anything else. I’ve always loved reading but stereotypes around what readers should act like makes it hard to build a community in real life. Reading is a solitary activity, but that doesn’t mean readers are solitary people. I wanted to create a community that brought book lovers away from social media and allowed them to meet and enjoy their hobby in a more tangible way. Bookish gives ideas and inspiration for people to host parties, attend events, find book-themed day trips and activities they can do, all while focusing around the popular stories readers know and love. I developed the idea when chatting with friends about how disappointing it was that there didn’t seem to be anything similar in print format. A real shame, given that book lovers are generally print-focused people.

Where does your own love for books come from?

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love reading. I’ve been lucky enough to spend my life surrounded by friends and family who love reading also. They’ve lent me books, borrowed mine, trusted my recommendations, and generally just provided a really positive social environment tied to reading. Growing up, my friends and I practically had our own library service, and it’s this sociable, friendly environment that Bookish aims to recreate.

As part of your project, you mention cutting through the “confusion of social media”. How important is it to younger generations to have access to authentic, trusted content?

Social media is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, its ability to bring people with similar passions together is unparalleled and I think that’s something a lot of people take for granted when they’re discussing the pros and cons of the digital age. But the reliance on getting your news from a resource that has no fact checking, where people can argue in the comments, and where each post on your feed can dispute the “fact” that came before it, it’s tricky not to feel burdened when you open one of those apps. On top of this, you have algorithms that tailor what you see based on the things you’ve previously interacted with, and you end up in an echo chamber of voices that sound exactly like yours. Authentic, reliable content is so unbelievably necessary to break through this noise and get people critically thinking about topics, so they can hear and learn about experiences that differ from their own.

What does the rise of the #BookTok movement say about the enduring popularity of books?

I think originally #BookTok made visible a community of readers who already existed. During the pandemic, reading boomed as people’s free time suddenly increased which is when #BookTok and Bookstagram really took off and started to influence more people to read. I think #BookTok, particularly among younger generations, is a way of embracing trends like slow living and anti-hustle culture, and unapologetically making the time to enjoy yourself in such a way that doesn’t demand high productivity.

On top of this, books offer a deeper portrayal of a story, more so than TV shows, video games or movies could ever manage. When reading, you’re in the shoes of the protagonist, you see what they think and you feel what they feel, which is particularly desired when every other form of media has you watching another person from the outside. Reading is unique because of this and lets you fully immerse yourself in a way other content has yet to manage.

Why is slow journalism so appealing to Gen Z and Gen Alpha?

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have had knowledge at their fingertips their entire lives. It’s always been easy for us to quickly google any question and find a summary or short sentence to satisfy that curiosity without going any further. AI has only made this easier. Slow journalism, however, allows people to consume deeply rather than consume quickly, and truly gain a greater understanding of a subject. Broad but brief coverage of subjects, at least to me, assumes a lack of passion. Depth and detail shows someone is passionate and knowledgeable about their topic, therefore not only creating trust and authenticity, but also creating a narrative tone that can’t be replicated by AI or by internet summaries.

Where do print magazines fit into the lives of younger generations who are digital natives?

Print magazines help us to slow down. Where social media and the internet are full of noise, printis singular, focused and uniform. Digital content is consumed in short bursts, three minutesscrolling while waiting for the train, four more while standing in the Starbucks queue… somethingthat is inherently difficult to pull off with print!

On top of this, while digital news is approached with scepticism and fast paced consumption, print allows readers to ponder and linger on individual pages and stories. This in itself, and perhaps inadvertently, makes the content feel more trustworthy, because there’s no hurry to it and therefore no feeling of ‘accept what we say at face value and move on’. Of course, that’s not to say that digital news doesn’t have its place in the world, but simply that print lets people dive into their interests fully and intentionally step away from their devices.

What made you decide to study journalism?

I’m the sort of person who couldn’t ever pick one hobby or interest. Everything from history, languages, books, video games, art, home design, cooking, travel, gardening… I couldn’t choose a single area that I liked more than any of the others! When I was around 15, I asked myself, instead of picking one of these fields and trying to make a career out of it, how can I explore a career in them all? Journalism was the answer.

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What are your hopes for the future of the media industry? What do you think the major challenges are that young journalists face these days?

My hope is that trust in the media will grow again, and that media companies will prove themselves trustworthy. Given that so much information is free these days, it’s tricky for the media industry to balance paying the bills with making news reliable and accessible for everyone. A mighty challenge definitely, but one that has been successful in the past, and hopefully will be successful again. I think one of the major challenges for young journalists to break into the industry is that we’ve yet to have the opportunity to prove ourselves reliable. In an industry that’s already struggling with reliability, it’s definitely tough to get companies to take that leap of faith and let you join their team.

What are the skills and traits young journalists need in 2025 to prepare themselves for a fast-evolving media landscape?

Resilience and adaptability are the biggest traits needed by far, but I also think they’re some of the traits we’ve had ingrained in us since we were young. We grew up in a digital world, and we know these landscapes like the back of our hand. As they evolve, we get to evolve with them, far easier and more smoothly than perhaps older generations will be able to, since we’ve been doing it all our lives. The digital landscape in 2008 was not the same as it was in 2013, 2018 or 2025. Beyond this, it’s really all about being shrewd with questionable media online, putting together as many ideas as you can for future content, and being relentless in your pursuit of getting into the industry.