Penmanship

Nick Feik is the editor of The Monthly. Since its inception in 2005, The Monthly has been one of the few Australian publications to strongly invest in longform journalism. Each month, the magazine publishes a handful of essays from some of Australia's best writers and critics, which regularly run in excess of 5,000 words apiece. Because of this dedication to funding and promoting serious journalism that concerns the nation's culture and politics, The Monthly has built a large and devoted base of subscribers and readers. Nick Feik has been in the editor's chair since April 2014, after joining the magazine's publisher, Schwartz Media, several years earlier to establish online projects which included daily email newsletters and building a home for longform video. I met with Nick at the Schwartz Media office in Melbourne in late July, shortly after he and his team had sent the August issue off to be printed. Our conversation touches on the origins of a cover story that Nick wrote about the effects that tech giant