From May 2020–October 2023, I was the editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine. The magazine was known for its high quality writing and defence of universal liberal humanist values. The publication attracted three-quarters of a million readers per year. It was a pleasure and a privilege to be at the helm.

However, the financial challenges of running an independent magazine almost singlehandedly, and without any regular funding except from small-scale Patreon donations, were enormous. When I took on the magazine, it was making a loss. While I was able to increase Areo’s revenue during my tenure, it was not sufficient to make it a going business concern and, after almost three years, I reluctantly made the decision to cease publication. The archived articles are still available on the live WordPress site here. You can find more praise for Areo and a description of the magazine’s core values below.

“Areo Magazine is the place to go for unintimidated sanity in a bullying mad world.”
—Professor Richard Dawkins, FRS, eminent evolutionary biologist, Emeritus Fellow, New College Oxford.

“Areo has created an invaluable niche in the marketplace of opinion—fresh ideas not found elsewhere, sharply argued and elegantly written.”
—Professor Steven Pinker, award-winning writer, Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University

Areo was an independent digital magazine with an international readership of nearly a million, providing commentary on politics, society, science, culture and the arts. Our name was drawn from John Milton’s 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, a pioneering call for the freedom of the press.

Areo’s contributors included research scientists, award-winning writers, human rights campaigners and prominent academics, but we also accept contributions from anyone who can write clearly and persuasively on a subject of interest to our readers.

Amid an atmosphere of partisanship and hysteria, we provided a haven for calm, reasonable voices from both left and right. Our writers were unafraid to tackle controversial issues, to go against status quo orthodoxy and to toss sacred cows onto the barbecue and turn them into brisket. But they also refrained from inflammatory clickbait, personal vendettas, hyperbole and scaremongering.

We were committed to an ethos of universal liberal humanism: each individual must be judged on his or her own merits and should be awarded the rights, respect and compassion that are due to every human being—regardless of sex, gender, sexuality, skin colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion or any other fundamental aspect of identity. Ideas, however, do not intrinsically deserve respect or protection and no idea should be off limits to scrutiny. In addition, we believed that anyone can hold an equally valid opinion on any topic, regardless of his or her identity.