Keeping the conversation going

The Tablet’s Chief Executive explains how the funds raised by last year’s Readers’ Appeal are helping to keep a unique voice heard in spite of the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic

I have just heard the clank of the letterbox as the latest issue of The Tablet arrives at my house. Everything stops. No Zooming or Skyping or phoning or emailing. Just a cup of tea and a look through its pages.

These days I look at my Tablet differently. Not just because I am working from home like so many other people, but because I am seeing The Tablet with a new set of eyes. I am bursting with satisfaction and pride knowing that in spite of the challenges every week I along with nearly 100,000 other discerning readers will hold The Tablet in their hands or read it on their iPad or smartphone and enjoy the same rich diet of news and features and reviews which we have all come to expect. I know from your many letters and calls that The Tablet has been a vital lifeline and comfort throughout this time of isolation and loss.

I view The Tablet with immense joy each week as I think of the journalists collating reports from around the world from their kitchen tables or garden sheds; the writers and designers working at their computers with very small children at their heals, balancing family life with work life; and the marketeers who work from makeshift desks in their homes and then venture across London to go to the office to check the post and sort out mailings to subscribers and parishes who have missed copies. Editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing and finance: every part of our operation has been transformed over a matter of weeks but, to you, our readers – the occasional delayed delivery aside – I hope it all looks reassuringly the same.

There have been one or two hair-raising moments but we have adapted well to the coronavirus crisis – and this has been in good part thanks to your generosity. Thanks to the development fund we were able to upgrade our digital platform so that it serves our readers across the globe more efficiently. We have built new, long-term relationships with schools, institutions and organisations, organising outreach events and exhibitions in partnership with them. We have continued to develop our unique archive so that teachers and researchers in the developing world are now using The Tablet in classrooms and libraries. We have widened our range of international correspondents and we have been able to recruit a very talented intern who is learning his trade under the watchful eye of our experienced team of journalists.

It’s been a time of innovation, not just of survival: we have launched a new weekly newsletter from the digital editor, we have relaunched the wine club and the book club and established a new Tablet Friends programme. We want to continue all of this work and to add to it with our focus over the next year being on reaching the young: the Tablet readers of today and tomorrow. So although we are a little bruised by our covid experience we are certainly not battered. We are more determined than ever to be a beacon of hope to all our readers, and to keep the Tablet conversation going amongst our valued communities wherever they may be.

Next week the editor, Brendan Walsh, will say more about The Tablet’s distinct voice and explain how you can help to ensure that it continues to be heard. We hope that you will be able to donate as generously to the Readers’ Appeal as you did last year. The next time you hear the clank of the letterbox or the ping of the inbox and your Tablet appears, please remember the talented team whose life’s work is to keep that Tablet conversation going. God bless you all.