Letter from the editor: Why The Yorkshire Post needs Yorkshire more than ever

A letter from our editor to you - our readers - during these testing times.
The offices of The Yorkshire Post - usually a hive of activity - have been left empty during the coronavirus lockdown.The offices of The Yorkshire Post - usually a hive of activity - have been left empty during the coronavirus lockdown.
The offices of The Yorkshire Post - usually a hive of activity - have been left empty during the coronavirus lockdown.

Dear reader,

First and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Taking up your time by writing to you directly in this way is not something I have done with any regularity during my four-and-a-half-year tenure. Much better, I figure, I dedicate myself to working with the team that prides itself on bringing you the best newspaper we can possibly muster, day in, day out.

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But these are not normal times. In fact, these are the most testing of times, and from the tweets and letters you have sent me in recent days, it is clear that many of you are confused about what you should and shouldn’t do to help in the war against coronavirus, and some are clearly frightened by what is happening.

So that you don’t see changes to your newspaper that add to that confusion, I do believe it is right and proper that I explain to you - with no sugar-coating - the impact that the Covid-19 lockdown is having on our ability to get any sort of paper published, let alone one that meets the exemplary standards we set ourselves.

Looking after my team

To protect my team, I ordered them out of the building last Thursday - ahead of the Prime Minister’s instruction to do so - and so for many days, now, this newspaper has been, and will be for the foreseeable future, put together by people working from all corners of the county. That brings with it its own challenges but when life as we know it is closing down so rapidly, that task becomes evermore invidious.

Looking after our advertisers

Quite understandably, many of the advertisers who give us their unflinching loyalty - for which I am sincerely grateful - are having to now cut their cloth. The unprecedented curtailments enforced on all of us means their businesses, like ours, are under pressure. Here and now I say to them: we understand. We could not be the best regional newspaper in the country - and The Yorkshire Post is just that - without you.

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When all of this is over, we will still be here to help you, your families and your businesses to be the best you can be. I cannot in good conscience end this part of my note to you without saying to JCT600 and Simon Blyth Estate Agents, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. They have both written to us this week to say they planned to continue, in full as planned, their advertising spend with us, come what may in all of this.

Not everyone can afford to do that, I know, but they decided they can and they will in order to help us get through this.

Looking after The Yorkshire Post

As those businesses who support us are having to take emergency measures to protect themselves from the financial headwinds coronavirus has created, so are we. And so I am asking you to ride this out with us.

The papers themselves are having to be assembled differently - in case our press is shut down by an infection and we have to print elsewhere - and to reduce production costs in line with what I hope is merely an advertising revenue hiatus. Our magazine will give up its costly glossy cover and some things will not be in their usual positions. It is highly likely that if sales dip and advertising revenues fall, the paper will become - temporarily - slimmer.

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It will not, however, diminish in quality. That is what sets us apart from others. I do hope you will stick with us through this turbulence. Our work has received national and international acclaim of late, winning us many new friends but we are going to need a few more on our side, that much is clear. The Yorkshire Post needs Yorkshire folk now more than perhaps it ever has.

Looking after our readers

Now to the most important stakeholder in this: you. The support you have shown me, my team and above all The Yorkshire Post in recent months has been beyond phenomenal, and so it is important to me that you know: a) how it is your support that gives me and my team the fire-power to produce the high quality, trusted, decent journalism you expect of us, and b) exactly what our commitment to you is during this, the worst public health emergency in a generation. And so:

- We will work right up until midnight every night to bring you, in print and online, the very latest news and information in a calm, measured, responsible manner. Too many are whipping up the hysteria to drive attention. We will not do that;

- We will update our website around the clock with the very latest news and information pertaining to the virus - we have already separated out a section on our website to help keep coronavirus prominent and easy to find - as well as continuing to bring you our usual mix of news, features, business, opinion, politics and the like;

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- We will seek out, on a daily basis, insightful perspectives from experts: academics, clinicians, economists and more to help you form a considered in-the-round view of the pandemic and its ramifications;

- We will continue to speak truth to power, holding national and local Governments to account. Only on Monday of this week our front page broadside given to policy makers declared: ‘Front-line medics let down’ as we shone a light on the scandal of NHS workers not having the protective equipment they need to stay fit and well as they battle to save lives;

- We will continue to highlight Yorkshire heroes; good causes, volunteers, small innovative businesses adapting to survive but also lending a hand. These are dark days and we feel duty-bound to bring some light to the shade;

- We will continue to take a lead from you in undertaking public interest journalism on issues that matter to you outside of the pandemic, doing everything we can in the meantime to protect the viability of The Yorkshire Post and our ability to get it to you.

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And so I sign off by saying thank you. Thank you for sticking by us. Every copy sold, every subscriber gained is a rock along the shoreline in our defence against these unprecedented challenges.

I know you are proud of your Yorkshire Post. I am proud to call myself editor of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper and I know that with your support and that of your friends, who may not know we need them, we will get through this.

Most importantly, take care.

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