News Letter readers explain why they buy the paper religiously

The times they are a changing, more so now than ever.

But it’s refreshing to learn that some people still religiously buy their favourite newspaper.

While online subscriptions have grown during the Covid pandemic some readers have stayed true to the printed News Letter.

Andrew Hardy from Dungannon is one of them.

The 77-year-old said: “I pick it up in my local shop, I use my coupons. I like to read the paper from cover to cover.

“I start at the back and work my way to the front. I love my sport. I’m a Linfield supporter but I live in Dungannon so I go to watch the Swifts as well. It’s terrible not having the football to go to.

“I like the puzzles and the letters. I like reading what Jim Allister has to say, he speaks his mind. He knows what he’s talking about. Ruth Dudley Edwards is very good too.”

Margaret Buchanan from Dungiven reckons she’s been getting the News Letter for more than 60 years.

The 87-year-old said: “My parents always bought it. It seemed the natural thing for me to do. My nephew delivers it. I use the coupons to get it.

“After reading what’s on the front page I’d turn to the Morning View and then the letters. I love the columnists – Ruth Dudley Edwards, Alex Kane. I like Sam McBride too.

“I do the puzzles too. I’d read some of the sport. My grandchildren like their sport so it gives us something to talk about.”

Margaret, a widow since 1985, comes from a farming background: “I buy it every day but I know a lot of farmers would only buy the News Letter on Saturday

“When you see the Peacock and 1737 at the top of the paper that catches your eye straight away. You know how long its been going for. It makes you think, you get the different point of view.”

Former history teacher Annette Kerr from Cloughmills said: “The News Letter has been coming into the house for maybe 40 years. My father before that always read the News Letter.

“My father had four children. When each of us would go to visit him he’d have something cut out of the News Letter for us to read.

“To me it’s very important to have newspapers in the home, encouraging the reading of news. There’s so many homes would never see a paper. It’s very sad that.”

Of her favourite writers she said: “I really like Ben Lowry and Sam McBride. I think they are very insightful, they do their homework, they write very good articles, I really enjoy them.

“Over the past few months people have tried to get at them, especially Ben Lowry, and they’ve been proved wrong because they do their homework, they are telling you the facts.

“I like Sandra Chapman on a Saturday, for the female point of view. I like Ruth Dudley Edwards. What she writes is well worth reading.

“My own wish would be that you had a page or half a page of world news. Not huge big long articles but two or three inches of a columns dealing with what’s happening in different countries around the world. For example the Russian protests or what’s happening in Myanmar, I don’t think it’s been mentioned at all.”

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