Lu-Hai Liang

On the 13th of January, I visited the offices of the Independent. I was in London for a week. I met the editors of the foreign section, in person, for the first time. I’d been writing for them in Beijing.

They introduced me to their colleagues, bought me lunch, and kindly explained their daily schedule. I was given a tour of their offices. I even had a sit down meeting with the editor of the Independent, Amol Rajan, with whom I took a selfie.

Thirty days later, the owner of the Independent announced that the newspaper was to close.

These two events are unrelated. But seem to be in a series of events in my career where I felt I had seen a new dawn, that I was on the cusp of something — catching one of those all important “breaks” that you hear about.

Alas, it was just the latest in a line of false dawns. A catalogue of failure.

I’ve written before about how success in journalism can be illusory. How being published in a big newspaper, with your byline, can seem fantastic. But the glory quickly fades. And the financial compensation is paltry.

But you do it anyway.

The closure of a newspaper is always sad news and brings with it dozens of newly unemployed journalists. The Independent is and has been for some time the smallest of the national titles in the UK. But it punched above its weight, carrying big hitter writers and was renowned for its bold and agenda-setting front page splashes.

But you can only look to the future and consider where your next piece might be published.