The National: This is how we launched a new daily newspaper in just two weeks

You think of everything you need to make it work. Recruit staff. Work out a budget. Produce a dummy. Complete a design. Hire columnists. Organise a production timeline. Oh … and get a lot of stories. Every day.

What do you do when someone asks you to launch a daily newspaper from scratch in a couple of weeks? If you’re smart, you run a mile.

READ MORE: Revealed: Your favourite National front cover of all time

When then Herald and Times managing director Tim Blott asked me to start The National 1000 issues ago I could barely believe it when I heard myself saying yes.

There were times during the short set-up period of The National when I wished I had let my head rule my heart and turned down the job. I would have avoided what was probably the scariest experience of my professional life. I would still have been sleeping at night.

After all, I already had a job. Editing the Sunday Herald kept me pretty busy, even if it allowed me the odd evening to see friends and family. Staying in that role and starting The National was a daunting prospect.

But sometimes a challenge is just too intriguing to pass up on.

The Sunday Herald’s declaration of support for Scottish independence in 2014, just months before the independence referendum, had certainly shown there were a significant number of potential readers for an independence-supporting daily newspaper.

The Sunday circulation grew significantly after its Yes announcement. It overtook its main indigenous rival Scotland on Sunday for the first time. Perhaps surprisingly, many of those new readers continued to support the Sunday Herald even after the Yes campaign failed to win the day in the vote.

The Sunday Herald’s circulation for its first issue after the 55-45 vote in favour of staying in the UK was an astonishing 111 per cent higher than the same week the previous year.

It was the only Scottish newspaper to support independence, which I still think was strange in a country which in the course of the long campaign became electrified by the constitutional debate and which witnessed a strong growth in support for the Yes argument.

We thought then that those who believed that Scotland would flourish best outside the UK deserved at least one newspaper which shared that dream and gave significant space to the arguments which stressed the positive aspects of independence rather than the increasingly preposterous scare stories of the Better Together side.

The Sunday Herald had, of course, more than its fair share of critics of its stance. So does The National. But it’s interesting to reflect what message the absence of any independence-supporting newspapers would send about the relevance and diversity of the modern Scottish press.

That a media which had proudly argued and campaigned for devolution – even when support for a Scottish parliament was low and getting lower – would include not a single mainstream media voice in favour of constitutional change backed by almost half the country; it’s hard to see that as a healthy situation.

Although the Sunday Herald’s decision was not taken for cynical business reasons – whatever some of its critics claim – the level of support it received clearly pointed to the need for a daily equivalent.

Tim Blott and I frequently discussed the likely success of such a newspaper and the logistics of creating it but, in all honesty, I considered the prospects of this project going ahead as likely as The Smiths getting back together.

So when Newsquest gave the green light I was so surprised that my brain stopped working properly. I can think of no other explanation for why I agreed and soon found myself making a long series of phone calls to young journalists persuading them to come on board the new project.

Luckily almost all of the journalists on my list of potential reporters signed up.

A series of meetings with prominent figures within the Yes movement led to a full and varied roster of columnists.

Some were members of the SNP and went on to represent constituencies at Westminster and Holyrood. It was important to me that that the party which had delivered the referendum and which was by far the most powerful political proponent of independence was properly represented within our pages.

But the Yes movement was wider than the SNP and if The National was to reflect the true nature of that movement we needed to have voices from outwith the confines of that party.

Some of those voices have proved controversial with many readers,but from our earliest days that has been the point. The Yes movement is by its nature broad. We discuss and debate. When we don’t agree we seek ways to accommodate different views. That is our strength, not our weakness.

Our critics, of course, portray us alternately as mindless supporters of a single view, or a split movement on the verge of implosion. The truth is that there are many ways of re- inventing a country and it is a healthy movement and a healthy newspaper that explores as many of those ways as possible.

The National’s aim from before day one has been to encompass different ideas and opinions within the Yes movement and it’s a source of pride for me that it has continued to do so as new issues and challenges have come to the fore of the constitutional debate.

Our rapid recruitment of staff in 2014 paid off and we collected a small but dedicated team of talented and committed journalists. Some are still with us today, others have spread their wings and moved on, to be replaced by new recruits eager to join the challenge.

When our recruitment was completed we turned our attention to the design of the newspaper. Its name had been decided early on. Once the masthead had been designed, with the map of Scotland representing the letter “I”, the chances of it being changed  were slim.

A limited dummy – a mock-up of the newspaper pages produced before publication – was put together relatively quickly … far faster than during previous launches I had been involved in and much less developed.

So when we sat down to produce the first edition of The National we hadn’t had a test run and hadn’t produced even a dummy edition of the full newspaper. We sat down on that first production day literally not sure if it would be possible to produce the newspaper by its end. To be honest, sometimes that’s still the case.

However, before we even got to that position there was the small matter of telling the world that The National was about to launch.

We had managed largely to keep the plans secret. The Herald’s Politician of the Year event had been held in Edinburgh just weeks before the launch. I remember telling our columnist Lesley Riddoch of the project outside the venue. Very few journalists had heard about The National and those who had were thankfully vague about the details. We had arranged to unveil the plans at an SNP rally at the Hydro in Glasgow, just before an address by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Some critics have suggested this  decision undermined the new  paper’s independence from the SNP and reduced it to the stature of a party in-house newspaper. For my part, it seemed only sensible to break the news of a new pro-independence daily newspaper at the biggest possible gathering of independence supporters.

In any case, such moral issues were not at the forefront of my mind when I stood up to speak in front of more than 12,000 people in the massive venue. I was far more concerned with trying to stop my legs from shaking and my brain from seizing up.

I was to speak from the audience and had been asked to keep it brief and, honestly, that had been the plan.

But a warning I had been given about the addictive nature of speaking in front of thousands of supporters unfortunately proved horribly accurate. After five minutes, they pretty much had to wrestle me to the floor to get the microphone back.

When I said The National aimed to convert the pro-indy vote from 45 per cent to 55 per cent, the audience cheer was deafening. It felt great, but I wanted it louder. When I said the vote would rise to 60 per cent the noise level was actually painful. Somehow I found the strength to stop at a prediction of 70 per cent, otherwise I fear I would be talking still.

Embarrassingly long or not, the announcement had the desired effect and the story was picked up by most of the media the next day.

All that was left was to actually produce the damn thing.

We initially planned a print run of around 50,000. With all the advance publicity we increased that to 60,000, then to 70,000 and eventually to 100,000. The pressure was rising.

That first production day seemed to pass in an instant. We sat down at around 9am and didn’t lift our heads as the deadline whizzed past and we eventually went to press about 30 minutes later than planned.

Looking at that first edition today, I’m pretty pleased with the result. It’s not perfect – no newspaper is ever perfect – but I think the good points outweigh the bad. The profile spreads, introduced initially to reduce the pressure on the news story counts, worked well on their own merits. The news section wasn’t the strongest and we have certainly produced far better since. But we had enough good stories to show potential for the future.

We didn’t have that holy grail for newspaper launches – a genuine scoop that would set the agenda for that day or even week – but the front page was still pretty powerful.

The National’s front pages have gone on to become the source of some debate. Some readers dislike the bold approach of featuring one large photograph and particularly complain about our use of Photoshop to create sometimes dramatic and sometimes humourous images to underline the political points the front pages make.

Other readers love them. When I go on the road with The National Roadshow, readers often tell me how much they appreciate the thought that goes in to our front pages and beg us not to change that approach.

Love them or hate them, the front pages often grab attention on the news stands, certainly encourage  debate on social media and ultimately serve the purpose of getting The National talked about.

Looking back at some of the covers featured in our front page competition this week I think the level of creativity and imagination has been consistently high and that our successes significantly outnumber our failures. But then, I would say that.

However, reflecting on the first days of The National and on the very many days that followed, it’s not our front pages that have provided the warmest memories. Those have come from you, our readers.

I often tell people about those days when the news desk phone rings and when we answer a reader explains they have called just to thank us for existing. That’s just one sign of an incredibly warm and supportive rel- ationship. Our readers engage with us on our letters pages, online and at Yes events all over the country.

Our National Roadshows have proved to be a regular meeting place for our staff, editor and columnists, which I think is unique among newspapers.

We remain incredibly proud to give a voice to those who passionately support independence for Scotland and to share that dream and that journey with readers whose support is a constant source of strength and joy.

Today we publish your favourite National front page so far but we all – readers and journalists alike – believe that our best front page ever will be the one that reports victory for the Yes campaign in a future independence referendum.

When that day comes, The National will be proud to have played its part, but the success will be down to you.