Thank you.

Dear subscribers/readers/friends,

I wanted to drop you a little note to say a big THANK YOU from the heart.

It’s now been a little over three months since I started this newsletter and I’ve been touched by your response. I know that letting someone into your email inbox is very different to liking them on social media so I appreciate you being part of this community.

This is my first newsletter to many of you. My last post on Bunga vs Boris led to hundreds more subscriptions (funny how a post about sex parties can do that! ;) ) The initial hundreds of subscribers have become thousands, and you come from everywhere: Mainly the UK, Italy and the rest of Europe but also from the Middle East, Africa (especially from Nigeria) and as far away as Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

The newsletter is expanding so for now I’ll keep the articles, comments and archive free. These are tough economic times, especially for many of the young and/or aspiring journalists among you just starting out, and I appreciate your interest and the word-of-mouth recommendations that I know you’ve shared.

But to the many of you who are paid subscribers I want to say an extra special thank you. Leaving a secure TV job wasn’t easy and your support means the world to me.

A paid subscriber perk (more coming) is that you can always email me directly with comments or suggestions of topics you’d like me to focus on. It’s a direct line between us. Please use it whenever you want.

Looking forward, I’ll use the summer weeks (assuming it’s a bit slower news-wise, which these days is a big assumption) to focus on the barriers that foreign / non-native English speakers face when working in mainstream journalism, and how that affects diversity of thought in newsrooms, so please do share this substack with anyone you think would fit that brief.

I’ll finish with a phrase I never thought I’d write:

Stay safe from the heat if you’re in London.

Chat soon,

Barbara x