Trusted journalism is worth paying for: From Golfgate to mother and baby homes, we'll keep setting the agenda

The 'Irish Examiner'  broke the Golfgate story. Picture: Harry Burton

Dear reader, 

It has been a year since Irish Examiner staff sat side-by-side, listening to the news that we had all feared: Covid-19 had reached our island and nothing would be the same again.

We left our offices in Cork and Dublin, thinking we might not be together in the same building for several months. None of us – not least the new editor, two months in the job – anticipated that we'd still be working in our homes a year later.

These are extraordinary times. Our staff have had to learn entirely new ways of working. We have had to adapt and cope - like all our readers - to difficult personal circumstances while supporting each other remotely. New people have joined our team, without having ever met us in the flesh.

The pandemic forced us to change everything we do. A quick conversation held in the newsroom is transformed into a dozen phone calls remotely. Video conferencing has become a near-constant in our lives, followed by phone calls, emails, texts, online messaging and more video calls.

A single news story can be touched, or edited, by many people sitting within different teams. From fact-checking to design, from print to online, there’s no such thing as simple when you’re working from home.

Remote working cannot ever make up for the creative process and the buzz of a newsroom. But despite the challenges, we have been more ambitious and achieved more than I could have possibly hoped.

From producing our first newspaper entirely remotely this time a year ago, we have produced a year’s worth. We’ve invested in our digital platforms, launched a new website, apps, podcasts, digital events, a GAA streaming partnership, newsletters, digital storytelling and much more.

Thousands of readers now get their newspaper delivered straight to their door via our home delivery network.

We have set the agenda on local and national issues, from Golfgate to mother and baby homes, from unrivaled sports coverage to local courts. Our reporters have chased, harried and kept asking questions and pushing for answers, keeping motivated at a time when motivation was hard.

While we’ve been restricted to our homes, readers have turned to us online and traffic to our website and apps have soared. This is partly down to Covid-19 and the insatiable appetite for news in the pandemic, but readers are increasingly coming to us for a different view, an alternate voice on the day’s events.

Next week we will launch our online subscription service. For the readers who regularly come to us from Cork, Ireland and around the world, it will mean paying for and supporting our journalism and getting access to our writers throughout the week, morning to night.

Good journalism is worth paying for, and paid-for journalism is vital for us to keep tackling the subjects that we do. Digital growth won’t come at the expense of print, but those reading us online will be in the know, first.

We will continue to ask questions at a time when you need answers more than ever. And when the world returns to something resembling normality, we'll be with you every step of the way.

Our work is far from finished. We want to do more. We want to do it better. We are doing more investigative work. We are tackling difficult subjects. If you like what you read and subscribe, you'll find a growing community waiting for you at the Irish Examiner.

We will endeavour to keep you informed, inspired and entertained and to help you know what’s really happening.

Thank you for your continued support and take care.

Tom Fitzpatrick