Independent reporting since 2026
World · The long read
A decade after the factories closed, a dozen mid-sized towns bet everything on housing, transit and daylight. The results are beginning to show.
Illustration commissioned for this story. Photographs are credited where they appear.
Technology · Analysis
The libraries underneath the modern web were written by volunteers and are one burnout away from being unpatched. The industry has known this for a decade.
Culture · Restitution
The restitution took eleven years, four governments and one very stubborn archivist working nights.
Business · Markets
Cranes ordered at the peak are arriving into a market that no longer needs them, and the bill is now due.
Opinion · Comment
Every road we widen fills within a year, and every time we act surprised. The traffic is not weather. It is a decision, taken repeatedly.
Business · Energy
Four winters in, the lights have not gone out once. The engineers are relieved. The economists are still arguing about who pays for the calm days.
Technology · Explainer
A single header, added by a security team on a Tuesday, can take the typography off a newspaper's front page. An explainer for people who do not write code.
Culture · Profile
No stage lights, no printed programme, no applause until the end. A hundred musicians have spent three years unlearning the concert hall.
The Z Magazine theme draws the paper — the dateline, the masthead, the lead slot, the river of latest news and the most-read rail. It does not write it. Every story above this line is a post published in this CMS, newest first: file a story and it leads the front page.
Everything below the line is ordinary page content, edited in the CMS. Open Content → Pages and change this block; open Appearance and change the accent colour, the masthead line or the breaking-news strip.
Three things worth knowing before you file your first story.
The row under the masthead is the Primary menu. Add a section in Appearance → Menus and it appears on every page.
A story carries a Section and a Kicker. They set the coloured label above the headline, on the front page and on the article.
Every image area is drawn in CSS, so the paper looks finished from the first day — before a single picture has been commissioned.
