Felix Pope
Felix Pope is a freelance reporter whose music coverage focuses on newsworthy episodes in the lives and careers of major artists, treating concerts and artist stories as hard news rather than lifestyle colour. His work for The Telegraph sits within a wider portfolio of news, long reads and dispatches across multiple magazines and newspapers, which keeps his music reporting grounded in broader cultural and political currents. In music pieces he concentrates on specific incidents and well-defined narratives, giving clear, factual accounts that are easy to lift into briefings or timelines.
Music news rooted in live events
Pope’s work on music for The Telegraph includes straight news reporting from concerts, where the live event itself is the story.
In his coverage of Rod Stewart pausing a concert to use an oxygen mask on stage, he treats the interruption, the singer’s health, and the reaction in the venue as the key facts, building the article around verifiable detail rather than commentary or fan discourse. He writes in a concise, reportorial style, focusing on what happened, when, and how, which makes his pieces useful as reference points when a live incident becomes part of an artist’s ongoing narrative.
His choice of subject matter shows an interest in veteran performers and the practical realities of touring, from stamina and health to the logistics of keeping a show going under pressure.
Artist stories and screen portrayals
Beyond on-stage news, Pope also covers artists through their personal stories and how those stories are retold in other media. In a piece about a music legend correcting director Sam Mendes over details of his relationship with his wife Maureen, he focuses on the accuracy of biographical storytelling and the tension between lived experience and creative adaptation. The angle emphasises how musicians manage their own narratives when film-makers and dramatists take an interest in their lives, and how small factual disputes can illuminate the dynamics between artists and the people depicting them.
His writing in this mode is still anchored in specific exchanges and quotes, staying close to documented interactions rather than speculative interpretation.
Reporting across magazines and international outlets
Pope’s music reporting for The Telegraph is one strand of a wider freelance practice that includes news, long reads and dispatches for outlets such as the New Statesman, UnHerd, Prospect and Haaretz. He presents himself consistently as a freelance reporter, publishing across these titles since 2023, which signals a working style built around clear, self-contained pieces that can sit in different editorial environments. The mix of UK-based and international publications suggests familiarity with writing for readers who expect firmly sourced stories and who may come to music coverage from political or cultural sections rather than specialist music press.
That background shapes his music writing: he treats artists as public figures within larger cultural and media ecosystems, and he favours formats - news reports and dispatch-style features - that turn individual incidents into part of a wider story.
Across his body of work, the distinguishing feature is an insistence on treating music as a field of concrete events and contested narratives rather than as lifestyle coverage. Concert interruptions, disputes over how relationships are portrayed on screen, and other definable moments become the backbone of his reporting, which he structures around verifiable detail and direct quotations. For communications teams working with established artists, his pieces function as precise summaries of what has already entered the public record, especially when health, biography or representation in film and television are at stake.
4 more music journalists.
Abigail Kellett
Abigail Kellett is a news reporter at the Halifax Courier who stands out for visually led coverage that shows how culture, nightlife and local life play out on the ground. She documents gigs, festivals and major live shows at venues such as The Piece Hall through curated photo sets that capture atmosphere, crowd and setting as much as performers, and she uses extensive image galleries to tap reader nostalgia for nights out in Halifax town centre. Her beat spans arts, entertainment, going out, heritage, books and literary events, along with community life, people stories, local challenges, milestones, transport, regeneration, lifestyle and food. She reports through photographs, checklist-style features, reader-driven lists and roundups of most-read stories, turning announcements, programmes, author events, festivals, shop lists and everyday characters into stories about place, shared memory and how people spend their time.
Adam Lyon
Adam Lyon is a digital audience and content editor whose news beat sits at the intersection of Ayrshire’s cultural life, business environment and public affairs. He works for the Ayr Advertiser and as Digital Audience & Content Editor for Newsquest in the west of Scotland across multiple weekly titles. He covers Ayrshire news with a strong thread of music and local culture alongside business, courts and public affairs. He reports on music when it has a clear community or national hook, treating songs as news events rather than reviews. His business work explains how local firms and retail policy shape town centres. His court coverage uses round-ups of sheriff court cases to show patterns and outcomes. He also fronts video previews and is active in a football supporters trust community.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose work links big-name gigs, new venues and cultural flashpoints to everyday fan culture and inclusion. He covers music, nightlife and the wider cultural scene for the Manchester Evening News, focusing on how concerts, openings and immersive events land with real people and communities. His beat spans live music, arenas and stadiums, new restaurant and bar openings, food reviews, exhibitions, street art and nightlife infrastructure, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ audiences and neighbourhoods. He reports on venue ambitions and problems, cultural institutions and equality issues, and franchise-led experiences, using straightforward, on-the-ground reporting and clear description. Drawing on a background in community reporting, he looks for underrepresented perspectives and uses social media, analytics and local sourcing to find stories where culture, identity and place meet.
Alex Rigotti
Alex Rigotti is a freelance music and culture editor and journalist who joins fast-turnaround music news with detailed reporting on artists, fandom and politics. They report breaking stories and live music updates for NME and Paste Magazine, covering pop, rock, club music, underground scenes and cultural debates around art and identity. Their live-music beat includes setlists, tours, festival appearances, cancellations, ticketing, venues and onstage collaborations. They previously served as a contributing editor for NME’s Radar section, supporting coverage of emerging artists and new scenes. Rigotti also writes features on rap lyrics and criminalisation, Eurovision and politics, queer feminist bodybuilding, astrotherapy and contemporary art. Their reporting is direct and specific, using clear quotes, concrete details and artists’ own words to explain what happened and how music fits into wider cultural and industry trends.