Interview: Toby Skinner

Journalist Toby Skinner initially traded sports writing in the UK for adventure in China because he was simply "tired of interviewing footballers". Since the jump he has written and edited for several esteemed titles, among them, the (defunct) news mag NVR in Shanghai and Time Out Beijing. He now holds the reins as Editor at the English Time Out Shanghai, launched in January.

How did Time Out Shanghai materialize?
We'd been talking about it for a long time and I'd sort of been angling that I wanted to do it. Expo was the push that we needed to persuade them [bosses] that now was the time to start things here.

What's the Shanghai magazine market like? As strong as you'd hoped?
It's definitely tough now, especially at the start of the year is not a great time, particularly in China, with Chinese New Year. We decided we needed a presence ahead of the Expo, so the first couple of months we've worked on putting a great team together, and hoping things pick up sales wise...Obviously it dropped off a lot last year, and I think...people are still being quite careful at the moment.

How much crossover is there between your mag and the Chinese Time Out Shanghai?
Our readership is very different, and the content is very different. For example, the Chinese magazine has a car section, and they have a lot of car advertisers. The market's different in a lot of ways. They're appealing to people who live in a certain wage bracket. It's actually quite rare that we'd review the same gigs, the same bars, the same clubs.



How does Time Out differentiate itself?
We come from an international brand, so we have London, looking over our shoulders, basically assessing us on quality, and actually analyzing the magazine quite a lot, in terms of design, in terms of content, saying: "Are you giving your readers enough? Are you giving them real insider information?" So we really get scrutinized by international editors. They are judging us on the same terms as they judge Time Out London. "This interview could be sharper." "This review could be sharper." We get analyzed and we analyze ourselves a lot.

What's it like being part of such a big international brand?
They're pretty precious about their brand, they're about the reader, and it has this very distinct brand identity. I think it's a great brand. It's about local knowledge and actually getting out and exploring. It's non-commercial, independent, and bent towards more alternative and interesting things to do in the city. It always has a clear of idea of what it's trying to do. So if you read Time Out, you know what you're getting. You know you're going to get good insider information.



How do you see that translating into content?
I don't think we try to say we have 100% original ideas all the time -- we certainly do not -- although, a lot of the time, the best ideas are the simplest. We got a lot of flak for doing our "I Love Shanghai" issue. People were saying it's be done a million times, and sure, you know, it's been done a number of times, but if you actually look at the amount of research that went into that feature, I think anyone could read it and find something new in it, and I think that's what we're actually about.

Can you give an example?
Coming up, our next feature is "Go West", which is Shanghai west of the French Concession. I don't want to say too much but basically what we're doing is a lot of stuff which will make you think "oh wow, I had no idea," kind of cultural things -- eating recommendations, drinking recommendations...It's just a really good kind of feature because if you read it, hopefully, it will inspire people to do something different from what they normally do.



We're very local-focused. If you look at the music section, we'll always have a local band, and we have local artists, while still covering some big stuff. What we don't want to be is an expat magazine, that's kind of by expats, for expats, about expats.

We want to give the sense that we live in a city of 18 million people, and there's lots of really good stuff kicking around. There are a lot of great places that get written about all the time, which is fine, but we want to try and help people realize what a great city this is. It is. Shanghai kind of gets a hard time, on a lot of fronts, for being, excessively polished, full of Eurotrash and whatever, and it is, if you're being lazy about it.



How important is a bilingual team then?
We do have a mixed team. We have interns checking in on the Chinese newspapers etc. It is massively important to have people who understand local culture. But the big prerequisite is being good journalists. We use trained journalists. When they go out and do a story you can see the quality they bring to it.

What specific skills come with training? Was it your decision to bring new hires from the UK?
It was my decision...Journalism is a skill. It's not as simple as people think. I think people think that journalism is something you can kind of, just drop into. You just have to be able to write, have a good grasp of English, blah blah blah. Actually, it's a lot harder than that.

I think the main thing you get with a trained journalist is rigour. You get people who understand the research that goes into doing a piece properly. I did the same course. It teaches you about asking the right questions. It teaches you what's required to make a piece interesting and to fill in the gaps for the reader. I think trained journalists more often structure their stories better. I think you can see it in the magazine. With all our stuff, I tell people "read it and judge it for yourself." I don't want to sound preachy.



What's the biggest challenge to doing journalism in Shanghai?
China's always had a funny relationship with the media, so it's taking a long time for quality to be the main thing, and especially when the market is such that all the magazines are free. I think what can be frustrating is that people are very sort of...casual readers. They just pick it up, and they chuck it out, and they really don't take a huge amount of time reading, you know? Whereas if you buy something it's different. You get a different kind of reader, the sort who's going to read every page. We'd like people to give the magazine a proper read.

What's the Time Out style, or voice?
We try to keep everything short and sharp. We try not to refer to ourselves too much because we think the magazine is about the reader and the city, so we try to be an entertaining voice, but we're not the story...It's about little tweaking of style so it feels like a magazine. What I don't want is for it to feel like a hodge-podge of articles. There's a sort of TimeOut voice, and I think it's important that people feel that they're in safe hands when they read it, that they feel what they're reading is authoritative. That's why we don't have much "me", "I", we do use the royal we, but it's Time Out telling you stuff, rather than like, Toby Skinner telling you stuff.

When will the Shanghai mag be available online?
That's a good question. We're really not sure. With the Expo coming, they [governing bodies] are not giving out new licenses.



What do you find rewarding about being in an entertainment magazine?
The great thing about running an entertainment magazine in Shanghai is that the readers are all around...The other really rewarding thing is seeing people do stuff because they've read it in the magazine. It's really cool hearing that we've focused on some really random little thing and people have gone out and done it. We sometimes champion the little guy...more than big people really. We hope to help them out in ways. That comes back to being close to the reader and the community and stuff.

What future developments can you tell us about?
We want to do more small-scale events. We did a charity appeal last month. We want to be a community magazine, actually interacting with the community, putting things on for people that are good, so they can get more out of the magazine, it's more than just something to read. We've raised a fair bit of money for this migrant women's charity in Pudong, which people liked. We want to do more of that stuff.

Where can people pick up a copy?
Anywhere you go with the aim of drinking a lot of coffee, you should see us.