On Pragmaticus: Year One Reflections 

Rhys Binet & Cianan Sheekey 

15/07/25

Opinion

A year on since the establishment of Pragmaticus, a website born from an evening of port drinking in Binet’s bedroom, its current form has evolved significantly when compared to the initial idea in our tipsy minds. Our experience as first-year university students, as well as the chaos of politics since Pragmaticus’ founding on July 13th of last year (the same day as the attempted assassination of President Trump), has taught us a great deal about creating and managing a student-led website. Despite facing drawbacks due to our lack of experience, our dedication has ultimately led Prag to become an active supporter of student journalism, primarily due to the frequent involvement of our contributors. Henceforth, the interactions made and knowledge gained from running this website have been worthwhile. 

During the post-A-Level exam season, summer was a ticking time bomb leading up to the 2024 General Election. Political discourse was rife, The Rest is Politics began to gain true popularity, and Nigel Farage was back in the game – we wanted a way to be an active distributor of voices, especially to those our age, tired of engaging with the same old arguments from the same old commentators. After completing our Politics A-Levels, we were entirely immersed in debate, case studies, and the course itself, using current and past events as the basis for our exams. We even created a revision session after sixth form hours as we found the subject gruelling, but equally rewarding. With that in mind, we remained entirely invested in the subject even after the exams, and a general election provided great synergy for our ever-growing engagement with the field.

Here’s where Prag comes in, as an active participant in contemporary political debate (in its own, intimate way). We sought to convey our thoughts through articles, feeling confident in our ability to offer more nuanced perspectives on current colloquies. Once we created our first articles, however, we realised that we could offer the publication to a broader collection of like-minded individuals. We swiftly considered the likelihood of others' desire to get involved. The offerings of others, and the potential for Prag to become not just an online publication, but a platform for anyone with fresh ideas, excited us. 

By that time, we had begun our first year of university, with the underwhelming grace of freshers. Due to the time constraints of higher education, we found it challenging at times to juggle the creation/editing of articles, the broader management of Prag, and the adjustment to the new status quo of our lives in wholly new places. However, we began to attract a large number of contributors for the first time, which greatly aided our management and website formatting. This got Prag truly up and running with expanded opportunities, and therefore, we had to formalise the website. We wanted to create a platform for like-minded people to establish their name, present their thoughts, and we could only do that through a more professional, transparent, and clear website. In line with that, we had to address our URL and ensure we topped Google searches to improve readability. 

Whilst the Editorial Director was in a cafe in Bloomsbury, reading Aristotle for his studies, and finding signal difficult to come by, the Managing Editor turned to someone with far more apt technical capabilities, a courteous university colleague, who put down the phone with his mother to assist, and with that Pragmaticus.org was born through the mumbled communication of numerous failed phone calls. This ability to appear as the first search result on the internet has made Pragmaticus more accessible than ever, enabling our contributors to share their work with a larger audience than ever before. No longer only accessible by a jarringly long link, Pragmaticus truly began its readership ascendancy, and the steady rise in Prag’s page visitors has not halted since (aside from the occasional periods of article lulls).

With the increasing size of our platform, contributors are far more willing to get involved. Instead of the usual cohort, who mention they’ll write something, pen a paragraph, and never revisit their work, more dedicated prospects have found their way to our website, able to push their voice. We had set a standard of striving for Prag to continually improve, leading to the decision to redesign our format. Previously, it was too bulky and lacked a proper structure to elicit engagement. We made the website far more concise and professional, adding author pages, and more easily accessible information about the publication, while improving its aesthetic appeal. All done while on a FaceTime call, with the Editorial Director enjoying a bench near Gordon Square.