The Herald on Sunday

The Herald on Sunday

6/3/22 - TSAR WARS The invasion of Ukraine has taken place the previous week, and we had splashed with a simple but effective concept - 'SLAVA UKRAINI' as the headline and a famous quote from JFK from the dawn of the Cold War (We shall pay any price, bear any burden ...). This gained significant traction online - going viral in Ukraine itself with tens of thousands of retweets, likes and follow-ons across global social media. It was also the only Scottish newspaper title featured on the Andrew Marr show, as well as Scotland's premier current affairs programme The Sunday Show. However, it is the following week's front page that we are entering - another edition where domestic news took a back seat due to the war in Europe. Although maintaining relevancy to our audience with two great exclusives featured in the panel and an intriguing Big Read feature puff, the majority of the page was taken up by our artwork which strived to convey the sense of alarm over Russian nuclear sabre-rattling that weekend, with the bomb concept projecting the urgency of the situation. It was conceived as a 'catch-all' to present the wealth of news, op-eds and expert analysis we had covering the situation that weekend. Again, it went viral online and was also the only Scottish title featured on the Andrew Marr Show that Sunday. 8.5.22 - BROKEN BRITAIN Again, a simple but effective approach was adopted as a catch-all concept for the UK local elections, which illustrated the strength of independence movements across the UK. This front page went viral online with a number of experienced and well-known UK journalists also commenting on its stark effectiveness, which was intended to convey the story immediately in the news stands before the headline or standfirst was read. Again, we decided not to dedicate the entire front page to election coverage, carrying two great Scottish exclusives in the panel and a thought-provoking Big Read on Scottish history of slavery in our top banner. 18.9.22 - THE GREAT DIVIDE In a weekend where other Sunday titles carried front pages utilising simple but effective images of Queen Elizabeth following her passing, we - after much deliberation on the tone - consciously decided to stand out by dramatically juxtaposing the return of Prince Andrew to uniform at his mother's funeral (and the inherent sense of privilege and entitlement many felt was apparent) with a disturbing child poverty report that was also released that week. We also deliberately added our exclusive interview with electorial expert Sir John Curtice as a tie-in with insight to both main stories - with many Scottish voters (and some of our readers) viewing independence as a solution to social issues such as child poverty and also tackling unelected hierarchies of societal power. It went viral online and was discussed in-depth on national TV and radio.