This is an excerpt from The National's indyref anniversary book 10 Years of A Changed Scotland. You can buy the full book online here or by clicking the banner above.

THE Twitter monitor installed in the newsroom was gathering force. The clicks grew constant, each one marking a new like on the social media site embracing that week’s Sunday Herald front page. The monitor found it hard to keep up with the avalanche. I can’t remember exactly what the final total was. It was very high.

A newsroom can be one of the most ­exciting places to be when a story is breaking, but that night was one of my most memorable. The night we revealed the Sunday Herald was supporting a vote for independence in the ­upcoming ­referendum. The Saturday night we ­posted the front page which would hit the newsstands the following morning. The night we announced: The Sunday Herald says Yes.

It was one of our most popular front pages, and one of the most derided. In an intense binary debate, choosing a side ­attracts criticism as well as support. But in the months and years which followed, I have never regretted pinning the newspaper’s colours so firmly to its masthead.

After all, there was no shortage of newspapers which were saying no. Even in May 2014, it was clear the scale of the overwhelming media opposition to a vote for independence in the referendum that was due to take place in September. Most newspapers had not yet formally ­declared their position in the debate, but it was ­obvious which way most were leaning. Even the minority of newspapers who were not opposed to independence claimed to be neutral.

Not one newspaper had lined up alongside the Yes movement and none looked likely to do so. When the Sunday Herald said Yes, it was the first newspaper in Scotland and in the UK to take a stance. When the last referendum vote was cast, it was still the only newspaper to have taken that position.

Media opinion in Scotland’s ­previous constitutional debates had been more diverse. In the second devolution ­referendum in 1997, there was solid ­support among the press for a Yes vote supporting the ­creation of a Scottish ­Parliament and a further Yes vote for ­giving that parliament tax varying ­powers, probably because support for ­devolution was not split along political party lines. Only independence provokes such ­overwhelming opposition from the news media.

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In truth, the Sunday Herald’s ­breaking of the ranks had been a long time ­coming. It was a relatively new arrival on the ­media scene, launching in 1999 under the inspirational leadership of founding editor Andrew Jaspan.

In its earliest days, the executive team considered supporting independence ­before deciding the timing was wrong. I was certainly among those who ­believed it was better to establish the new ­newspaper on its substantial ­journalistic credentials rather than its support for ­independence.

The early days of the Sunday ­Herald ­coincided with the early days of ­devolution. The reconstituted Scottish Parliament was still feeling its way. The new Scotland was still emerging. The priority was defining the direction and values that would shape that country and that parliament.

Things were very different in 2014. The SNP had become the dominant force in Scottish politics, forming their first, minority, government in 2007 and an unprecedented majority government in 2011. An independence referendum had been called. It seemed more than a ­little odd that amid such a seismic change and growth in support for independence, our media was still so resolutely and ­uniformly opposed to it.

There was a scattering of excellent ­columnists who embraced independence but no title supported it. Compare that with the situation in Catalonia, for example, where independence has widespread media support on television and radio as well as in print. In Scotland, the media consensus is mostly against ­independence or stays on the fence. That was the case in 2014 and remains the case today.

As editor of the Sunday Herald in 2014, it fell to me to steer the newspaper through choppy constitutional waters.

Opinion within the newspaper had for some years been moving towards ­independence.

Our main columnists, Ian Bell and Iain Macwhirter, were either in favour or at the very least open to the idea. Several senior executives were of similar mind. It seemed to me that the Yes movement had the energy and fresh ideas on which to build Scotland’s future. The prospect of Scotland going through the constitutional debate without at least one title in the Yes camp seemed ­undemocratic.

Seeing the battery of pro-Better ­Together headlines on the newsstands only served to solidify that impression. Something had to change.

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But there were important steps to take before bringing the Sunday Herald out for Yes. Editors may like to think they are in charge of their own papers, but that is not always the case. I have worked on newspapers where the editorial line was laid down from on high. That was not true of the Herald and Times, owned then as it still is by Newsquest.

My managing director confirmed that the decision on what line to take on ­independence was mine, although he not unreasonably stressed that the ­consequences of that decision – for good or ill – would also be for me to shoulder. It seemed a fair enough deal to me.

I was asked to canvass opinion of other department heads – including ­advertising and circulation – on the likely impact of the decision. I cannot be entirely sure what would have happened if I had been advised that supporting Yes would be a disaster. Would I have been able to press ahead regardless? In the event, no such challenge presented itself. Predictions of catastrophe were thin on the ground and the way was clear for action … almost.

If I was going to support ­independence I wanted to take the staff with me. Many supported independence, some did not. Others had not expressed an ­opinion. Managing journalists most closely ­resembles herding cats. I wanted as close as possible to a united front. Senior ­figures were invited to a meeting to ­discuss the move and express their thoughts.

The principle of impartiality is an ­important aspect of journalism and not one to be abandoned lightly. If you are campaigning for a political outcome, can your readers trust the truth of your ­journalism? How can they be sure you are not twisting the facts to suit your desired outcome?

Journalists who openly support ­independence are required to grapple with these issues while those who ­openly oppose it are not. It’s an inexplicable contradiction.

The notion of impartiality in the constitutional debate had already been abandoned by many newspapers without comment or complaint. The Sunday Herald would not be so lucky and the same is true of The National, which I launched after the referendum result.

Only a few weeks prior to the ­penning of this piece, Douglas Fraser, BBC ­Scotland’s business and economy ­editor, described The National’s coverage as “propaganda”. I can’t remember a ­similar charge being made against the Daily ­Telegraph or the Daily Mail or the ­Scotsman, or ­indeed any of the many newspapers which ­openly supported the Better Together line. BBC Scotland has since admitted the word “propaganda” should not have been used to describe The National’s coverage, although it has resisted requests for an apology, for ­reasons it obviously feels no responsibility to explain.

The issues of impartiality and bias were discussed at that meeting of ­Sunday ­Herald section heads in 2014. One ­question in particular sticks in my mind. If some story emerged of some scandal involving a pro-independence politician, would we cover it in the normal matter or ignore it for fear of hurting the Yes ­campaign? It was a good question for an editor to grapple with. At the time, there seemed little chance of such a story ­emerging. It was enough to reserve the right to come up with the definitive answer when and if such a scandal happened. It’s probably lucky that we were not equipped with a functioning crystal ball.

Our editorial policy dictated that our news coverage would remain balanced. At no point did we deny Better Together the right of reply or the opportunity to comment on our stories. That it did not always choose to do so was its decision rather than the Sunday Herald’s. I asked many times for an opinion piece making the positive case for the Union, if for no other reason than to move the debate ­forward. Better Together would not ­supply one.

After taking the decision to bring the Sunday Herald out for Yes, the next big question was how to do so. There were two key aspects of the ­independence ­announcement issue which had to ­carefully managed: The front page and the paper’s editorial. Both of these were crucial to the impact we wanted to make. The issue had to capture the spirit of the Yes movement. It had to be intelligent, ­aspirational and inspirational.

For the front page, we sought the help of Alasdair Gray, artist and pro-independence author of Lanark and Poor Things – now adapted in an Oscar-winning film. We had collaborated with Gray before and so we knew of his idiosyncratic way of working.

He first came into the Sunday Herald office before the referendum was called to write a piece on the origins of the phrase “work as if you are in the early days of a better nation”. We assigned a reporter to type out the author’s words as Gray could not work a computer. As deadline approached, the reporter feared the piece made little sense without Gray’s extraordinary editing skills. Within an hour, he had instructed a cut-and-paste reorganisation of the whole piece. It was brilliant.

So, we knew that asking him to design the Sunday Herald says Yes front page was going to be frightening but would end well. And so it proved. Gray delivered what seemed like a random collection of unrelated images. On closer ­investigation, it was obvious how they would work ­together. With Sunday Herald graphic designer Damian Shields’s help, we ­published the front cover that sent ­Twitter crazy.

The independence editorial was ­another collaboration. It was not enough to simply explain that the Sunday Herald had decided to take the step of supporting independence. There was something about the summer of 2014 that reflected a changed Scotland. The referendum had galvanised thousands to think deeply about their country’s future.

It had s­tarted slowly but spread to the streets so that by midsummer you were aware of it everywhere: Passionate debates about currency, Europe, pensions, the ­monarchy and more in pubs, cafes and even bus stops; crowds engaged with the issues at public events. Crowds thronged Buchanan Street and George Square to show their support for independence and toasted the future at the Yes Bar.

Better Together figures have tried to ­depict those days as bitter and divisive. They were not. They were electric.

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And so the Sunday Herald says Yes editorial had a lot of work to do, and a lot of the newspaper’s best writers contributed. It emerged from draft after draft as it passed from writer to writer. Points were sharpened, different themes explored and expanded, phrases packed with emotion.

To this day, it’s one of the pieces I am most proud of publishing. It had a power which still hits home: “The proposition is this: We believe independence will offer Scotland an historic opportunity to choose the kind of country that might allow its people to prosper. Decisions affecting our lives will be made on our doorstep by the people who live here. By us. A vote for independence says that a small country is not helpless in a big, troubling world.”

The headline stated: “The prize for Yes is a better country. It is as simple as that.”

I hope it caught the spirit of the Yes movement. I hope it reflected the ­optimism, the hope, the enthusiasm, the joy. It is a spirit that survived the crushing disappointment of the referendum result. It is a spirit that did not fade, but picked itself up and promised the campaign would continue. It is a spirit that saw membership of independence-supporting parties soar and pro-independence arguments continue to be made within and beyond government.

It inspired the creation of The National, a newspaper which has ever since provided a Yes voice in the mainstream media, created jobs in a difficult media landscape, attracted subscriptions and a wide online readership. And, of course, creates pro-independence front pages which stand out against a wall of Unionist scaremongering on newsstands every morning all over the country.

It is a spirit that is battered and bruised by infighting and splits, by the never-ending Operation Branchform and the ­imposition of a cruel austerity, most ­recently by a Labour Party north and south of the Border who vowed they would never do so and broke that ­promise as soon as they took power on false ­pretences.

There is much to do to make support for independence irresistible and unstoppable. Read our lips: This is a spirit which will one day reach its goal.

This is an excerpt from The National's indyref anniversary book 10 Years of A Changed Scotland. You can buy the full book online here.