Nick Hallissey on journalism, magazines and the outdoors
After completing his English degree, Nick Hallissey (1994) embarked on a journey through the writing and publishing world. From his early days at a local paper to his long tenure at Country Walking Magazine, and now as Head of Content for Bauer Outdoor, Nick's career offers an interesting look at the evolution of the media landscape.
Nick took the time to share his career experiences and his insightful perspectives on the ever-changing world of writing in the digital age.
Nick also provides valuable advice for anyone hoping to follow a similar path, drawing on the skills he honed right here at Downing.
After completing your English degree at Downing, how did you get started in the writing/publishing fields and where has your career taken you?
Luck, really. Partly self-made luck but also crazy serendipity. At 14 and 16 I did work experience at my local paper, which I followed up with unpaid extra sessions in the holidays that followed. After graduating from Downing, I went back to the office to ask for careers advice. The editor told me that the paper’s sister title had a vacancy for a junior reporter and that she was already advocating for me. I managed to get the job and counted myself very lucky. It’s a reason I am a huge believer in work experience placements.
I later moved to larger daily regionals becoming a features specialist.
In 2007 I made the jump to magazines by joining Bauer Media as the Deputy Editor of Country Walking and loved the role so much I stayed in it for 17 years.
In 2024 I became Head of Content for Bauer Outdoor, working across Country Walking, Trail, Trail Running and livefortheoutdoors.com.
You spent a large chunk of your career at Country Walking Magazine. What were your highlights of your time there?
I get to go for walks and write about them, which will never not be a highlight!
It’s nice to feel like I’m part of a lineage of outdoor writers who’ve been heroes of mine in different ways: Henry David Thoreau, Nan Shepherd, Alfred Wainwright, Rousseau, Hunter Davies, Stuart Maconie, Melissa Harrison, Simon Barnes, Robert Macfarlane.
But highlights would include walk-and-talk interviews with Jarvis Cocker, Michael Morpurgo and Caitlin Moran, and working on projects that help to emphasise that the countryside is open to everyone – to this end I’ve worked closely with groups such as Muslim Hikers and plus-size walking groups.
We also created a free walking challenge called Walk1000Miles (walk 1000 miles in 365 days) which has spawned a vast self-supporting community of over 250,000 walkers and helped many of them to overcome issues including illness, injury, bereavement and mental health crisis. In the ten years it has been running, Walk1000Miles has helped us redefine user-generated content, won multiple awards and shown how magazines can create ‘brand extensions’ to help reach new audiences.
How has the digital age changed the way you work and write? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities?
When I started in 1997, the internet and email were barely hatched, which seems incredible. The digital age (and now the AI era) has changed, and is changing, the media industry at the subatomic level. Print publishing has been in decline since more or less my first day in my first job (I don’t believe there is a connection) – and ever more steeply in the past ten years. Social media has of course changed the landscape too. Happily we have bucked that trend, partly by continually investing in our magazines but also because the specialist hobby magazine market is somewhat insulated from the pressures on other media because it’s still a product which enthusiasts like to hold and keep – a rebellion against screentime, if you will.
Gone is any sense that people seek out a website out of sheer loyalty just to see what might be on it today. Now our platforms focus on being the top hit on Google so that people are brought to our sites as the answer to any question they might ask about the specialist areas we cover. Someone wants to know what the best hiking boot is? Google shows them our content first. Top five walks in the Peak District? Same.
We have learned to balance the opportunities of AI with the knowledge that authenticity is all. We use AI to adapt our copy from print to digital and vice versa but protect our Google rankings by ensuring that our authors are identifiable, recognisable and trustworthy. Or to put it another way, human.
When you were a student, what were the most useful writing skills you gained? Do you have any advice for current students about how to improve their writing? What advice would you give to aspiring journalists and writers?
It might sound, from the above, like Downing didn’t have that much to do with how my career unfolded. But it really did. Studying English at Downing developed my analytical and editorial skills immensely. I became a critical reader, a sceptic, a questioner – but also someone who rejoices in clearly expressed thought and elegant phrasing. I learned priceless skills of making an argument, building a persuasive narrative, selling someone an idea, giving the broadest perspective, finding and quoting sources.
My best advice is think about the reader. Write for your own satisfaction – but always think who you are writing for. I’m fortunate in that I’m usually writing for an audience that already shares my basic interest, but it’s also a vast church of experience and ambition.
And be really really REALLY careful with ‘I’. Social media is awash with outdoorsy types sharing photos of themselves having a lovely time in the outdoors. But where’s the usability, the dialogue, the sense that you can do this too? For this reason, the tone of our magazines is almost literally ‘we found this and thought of you’.
Other advice, briefly…
1) Read. Develop the broadest perspective you can. Magpie the traits of writers you admire.
2) Be critical. Time and deadlines may not always allow this but try to go back over what you’ve written and consider what was good and not so good.
3) Pitch carefully. If you want to pitch an article idea to a publishing outlet, or offer your services to them, target someone specific. Learn who the commissioning editor is, mention content you’ve seen of theirs which you really liked and explain clearly why your idea will suit their brand’s style, tone and content perfectly.
4) Think multi-platform. Be ready to adapt your writing so that the same piece could be a long read or a listicle. How could your idea be used on socials? Who could it be shared with? How could it be reused?
6) Think multimedia. More or less every content creator in my company today creates video and photography alongside written content. It is ridiculously easy to learn a few basic tips that can make even iPhone photos look worthy of Times Online. In the media, nobody has ‘one job’ these days.
7) Clickmate, not clickbait. Horrible phrase coined by a colleague, but it sort of works. The world is well and truly over clickbait; they are looking for content that is clear, honest and upfront about what it’s going to deliver – and they want to know it comes from a source they can trust. Be authentic, be eye-catching, be helpful. You’re going to tell/show them something that will make them feel cleverer.
8) Do it for the love. Regrettably, what remains true since 1997 is that media rarely pays spectacularly in comparison with other industries. Sorry.
9) On the other hand, it’s also the greatest industry in the world.
10) ABC. Always. Be. Curious.
What are your key memories/takeaways from your time at Downing?
Initially feeling like I was a blagger from a northern comprehensive and that I was utterly out of my depth. Then realising that absolutely everyone believes they’re faking it to some extent. Have faith. You deserve to be there, and you just need to find your tribe.
Other memories include:
Watching the sunrise over Grantchester meadows with the friends who helped me realise the above.
The befuddlement on my parents’ faces the first time I took them to Formal Hall.
Being grateful for the kindness and support of our admissions tutor, one Mr Graham Virgo. Whatever happened to him, eh?
Playing a camp villain called Hermes LeSeedless in a student-written musical about Jack the Ripper in the Howard Building and dreaming of the day when Downing might have its own proper theatre. Imagine that!
Who is your favourite writer/author at the moment?
I’m reasonably friendly with Raynor Winn, whose extraordinary book The Salt Path is now a film that will open in late May. It’s a totemic book in the walking community, but you don’t have to love walking to be moved by it. And if you have any kind of interest in nature, wildlife and the future of Britain’s uplands, I recommend Wild Fell by Lee Schofield. But I’m also a huge fan of broadcasters/podcasters – I’ll seek out anything involving Stuart Maconie, Melissa Harrison, Matt Chorley, Dominic Sandbrook, Tom Holland and the Knepp Rewilding team.
What is your favourite book?
The Liar by Stephen Fry. Make of that what you will.
Published 27 May 2025