i Editor's Letter: Here's to the hardest-working team on Fleet Street

I don’t know where I would be without the i team. Yesterday I was grateful, not for the first time, to production guru, Rhodri Jones, for spotting a moment of brain-frozen madness of mine when I wrote “Hamilton raring to go after switch to McLaren” in a front-page puff. It should have read “Mercedes”, but one so associates Lewis H with McLaren that it’s an understandable mistake. Well, that’s my excuse. If you have a copy with the error, keep it – it could be worth 25p on eBay!

Many of you, especially newer converts, ask what i’s relationship with The Independent is. So I thought I’d explain how we work together. We are interdependent. We all work for both titles (and the website, the apps…) even if we don’t all work on both titles (most do). A few work on the Evening Standard too. Staff at i Towers form the hardest-working team on Fleet Street. Some come in early and work on The Indy, some do split shifts on The Indy and i, and others work just on i. This is done on a rota basis, so nearly all of us work on both at some stage. We choose from any and all of The Indy’s content: from Kim Sengupta’s brave foreign reporting to Hamish McRae’s economic wisdom and the hilarious Deborah Ross and Mark Steel.

We swap home and foreign news editors on a rota basis and share features, sports and comment editors among others. The absolutely crucial production staff also alternate between the titles. As does the design, including the boisterous Geordie Nick and the unflappable Gordon. It is possibly harder to explain than it is to do, but I wouldn’t try telling Rhodri that at 10.30pm tonight!