A message from our Political Editor, Sam McBirde - A change to how the News Letter covers politics.

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Subscribe              Oct 8, 2020           Dear reader, Thank you for your time. I want to inform you of a change to how the News Letter reports politics. It has been my privilege to cover political developments for the News Letter for more than a decade. In what has been a period of frequent political turmoil, my colleagues and I have sought to understand what is happening around us and then explain it to our readers honestly and accurately. In that time, our digital audience has consistently grown even as paper sales have declined - a trend familiar to almost every newspaper in the western world over recent years as consumer habits change from the tradition of a morning stroll to the newsagent to a morning scroll through news delivered via a phone. Now my editor has asked me to make a subtle but significant shift in how our political coverage is delivered to you. Recognising that since the start of the pandemic there has been an explosion in the number of readers paying to read our articles online, my work will increasingly be appearing on the website even before it arrives on newsstands in the newspaper. We will seek to update the website at breakfast time, lunch time, and tea time - as well as throughout the day as stories break. We will be putting particular emphasis into our online political coverage and investing in this area because my colleagues' analysis of the articles which subscribers are reading points to their engagement with political stories - whether on the RHI scandal, Sinn Féin's flagrant disregard for public health advice at Bobby Storey's funeral, the PSNI's enforcement of law which simply did not exist, a senior civil servant meant to be making Stormont less secretive actually presiding over the wrongful suppression of potentially embarrassing material, or scores of other stories unique to the News Letter. This newspaper has given me remarkable freedom to pursue stories which are in the public interest, without fear or favour, and reporting that to the people who ultimately pay our wages - you, our readers.  We can only do that journalism with your support - whether you are a reader who buys a copy of the paper or who subscribes to our website. I want to sincerely thank you for your support for our journalism - especially to those who have subscribed online in recent months. It is the huge increase in digital paying subscribers which has meant that the News Letter has not lost any of our journalists since the start of this crisis, even as many other newspapers have been shedding staff. The News Letter has been reporting on politics since 1737 and I can assure you that the essence of what we do - informing you of political developments, especially those which are not being reported by larger media outlets, regardless of who it offends, and explaining complex concepts or legislation simply - is not going to change. But you will now be able to get your news faster on our website if you wish, or slower and in the traditional form which holds such fondness for myself and so many of my colleagues. Thank you and best wishes for the difficult winter which lies ahead of us all, Sam Want total access to all of our online content? You can subscribe to our website, newsletter.co.uk for just £1 a month for 3 months - and it couldn't be easier. Signing up will get you faster-loading articles, fewer adverts and access to exclusive content and events when we run them. To learn more, visit our Subscriptions page here.           Sam McBride: Stormont's bungling search for a Sir Humphrey, at the worst possible time           It would be an exaggeration to say that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is facing its greatest test.                 Sam McBride: Five things we learned at the Stormont Assembly this week (but you probably missed)   Blunders, bafflement, a vast TV audience and a glimpse of Sinn Féin's pragmatism – our political editor Sam McBride examines five developments at the Northern Ireland Assembly this week which you probably haven't seen reported.           Ian Paisley, the 'personal friend' he hasn't seen for seven years and the £4,000 hotel bill he didn't have to pay   Ian Paisley consistently said that his holiday resort accommodation was paid for by a somewhat mysterious "long-standing personal friend" and that was why it did not need to be declared with the parliamentary authorities.           Michelle O'Neill refuses to answer News Letter question on her damaged credibility   Michelle O'Neill remained silent when asked by the News Letter why the public should listen to her latest instructions on pandemic restrictions when she so openly breached her own Executive's advice.           Sir Patrick Coghlin was paid £648k to chair RHI Inquiry – but junior barrister got far more   Sir Patrick Coghlin was paid more than £1,000 a day to chair the RHI Inquiry, the News Letter can reveal – but his earnings were superseded by those of one of the inquiry's junior barristers.           After less than a week defying PM, DUP minister U-turns to allow officials to work on Irish Sea border checks   Just days after angering Boris Johnson's government and causing a crisis in the Executive by ordering his civil servants to halt work on implementing an Irish Sea trade border, DUP minister Edwin Poots has recanted and is allowing his officials to proceed with the work.           Sam McBride: Ulster unionism is at risk of presenting itself as being for sale to the highest bidder   Increasingly, unionism is flirting with a danger about which some thoughtful members of all the unionist parties have either publicly or privately expressed alarm.           Sam McBride: Sinn Féin thought Covid would hasten Irish unity, but increasingly it is exposing the party   It was clear that in the early weeks of the pandemic, Sinn Féin saw this crisis not just as a human disaster, but as a political opportunity.                 View more news

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