Letter from the Editor: The driving force of our campaigns is your generosity

I know some of you were annoyed by the advertisement wrapped around our front page yesterday: John Dakin (from Dunstable), Mark Albrow (Hampton), Viv Pert (London) and Alan Broadhurst (Nottingham) were among those who wrote in.

Naturally I sympathise with your position: it goes against my every instinct as Editor to put commercial promotion where a front page should be.

Of course, we don’t take such decisions lightly. Alas we depend on our advertisers to help fund the journalism that we so strongly believe in. It’s my job to make a call on how best to support that journalism, giving you more of the great writing, reporting, analysis and campaigns that we both treasure. As ever I look for your guidance on what that journalism should be, and thankfully you are very forthcoming with your feedback.

Last week, for instance, many of you bought the paperback and ebook editions of our acclaimed series A History of the Great War in 100 Moments, after this column mentioned it. That was such a pleasing thumbs up for the project masterminded by our Associate Editor, Richard Askwith, that I am leaving details of how you can get hold of it below. To those that bought, thank you; to those thinking about it, I promise you won’t regret it.

And last year, you gave the most ringing endorsement for our journalism in this newspaper’s history. Our Christmas campaign, to save the African elephant, was the most successful we’ve ever had. We raised £500,000 for Space for Giants, which does vital work to save these beautiful creatures from extinction.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of this newspaper and its sister titles, today reflects on the success of that campaign. On our website, you can see a full breakdown of the expenditure. We are grateful beyond words for the extraordinary generosity of our readers – but that’s as nothing compared with the gratitude of the team at Space for Giants.

We’re publishing that piece today because next week we launch this year’s Christmas campaign. Spurred on by our readers, we’re going to be even more ambitious than last year. We’re working together with our sister papers on a cause that’s closer to home, and no less vital: homeless veterans, those heroic patriots who serve our country, but fall into destitution after they return to civilian life. Watch this space. In the meantime, here are the details for that book, and I hope you enjoy today’s edition.

To buy a copy of ‘Moments’, just post a cheque for £8.99 made out to Independent Print Limited to: Independent Syndication, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF. Or you can buy it from Amazon, as a paperback or ebook.