The Guardian Is Commissioning Black Stories Globally

The Guardian Is Commissioning Black Stories Globally

Launched by The Guardian in October 2024, The Long Wave is a weekly newsletter dedicated to exploring Black life and culture globally. It is primarily written by columnist Nesrine Malik and was originally edited by Jason Okundaye.

The Long Wave is the result of an internal editorial push that’s been building since 2020. That shift was driven by both newsroom pressure and audience demand after the global fallout from the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests. UK readers—particularly in London—were calling out the gap between the scale of Black British life and how rarely it was covered with depth or consistency.

The Long Wave is tied directly to The Scott Trust’s long-term “Legacies of Enslavement” program and broader newsroom reforms around race, audience growth, and trust. That initiative wasn’t symbolic—it came with funding, editorial mandates, and a requirement to expand how Black stories are commissioned and distributed globally.

This came after 2020, when The Guardian publicly acknowledged gaps in how it covered Black communities and committed to structural change—hiring, commissioning, and new editorial products. The Long Wave is one of the outputs of that commitment, built to retain and grow Black readership across the UK and diaspora—not just respond to news spikes.

It emerged within The Guardian’s opinion section as part of expanding Black-led commentary—multiple writers contributing rather than one editor building a vertical brand. It functioned more like a testing ground for recurring Black perspectives than a fully branded editorial product. That’s why it scaled into something more structured like The Long Wave.

Why Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye specifically:

  • Nesrine Malik brings institutional credibility inside The Guardian—award-winning columnist, already shaping opinion coverage, and based in London with a global lens.

  • Jason Okundaye sits closer to emerging Black British culture—Assistant Opinion Editor, with work spanning Black British history, queer culture, and politics.

Contacts + where they actually are:

What to take from this structurally:

  • The Black View = internal testing ground (multiple writers, no single owner)

  • The Long Wave = funded product with named editorial leadership

  • Entry point = Guardian opinion + newsletter reply loop, not a separate pitch inbox

If you’re trying to land here, the closest door isn’t “pitch the newsletter.” It’s:
 write something that could sit in Guardian Opinion, then make it clear it belongs in the same conversation The Long Wave is already building.

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