Letter from the editor: Conspiracy theories

A few readers complained about our sparse coverage of Rory McIlroy’s magnificent US Open golf victory. “Conspiracy”, said some, linking the alleged snub to this brilliant young sportsman and my professed dislike of the sport.

As is so often the case, the truth is so much more prosaic: his win came too late for i’s deadline and, after his extraordinary blow-up at the recent Masters, who would tempt fate?

By now, hopefully, you know i would never do that anyway. But, mindful that a lot of readers are again arriving fresh to the paper, brought in by a second burst of our advertising campaign, it’s worth debunking some other conspiracy theories contained in recent reader comments.

i isn’t “anti-monarchist”, pace Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s punchy views, nor “lefty”, despite giving space to Johann Hari’s heartfelt intelligence. Nor are we a “Tory rag” because we contain Mary Ann Sieghart’s insider’s views or the elegant erudition of Dominic Lawson. We run each with pride.

We don’t devote acres to celebrity gossip nonsense, but we do cover showbiz and arts news. We don’t have a deliberate Southern bias in news or sport — have you seen our Manchester City coverage? — nor is there a deliberate age bias in our fashion pages. So, although we say sorry for our mistakes, we won’t apologise for trying to represent a provocatively broad church in a concise, quality package.

I’ve never understood those who say “I will never buy your paper again because...” of one of the above in a random edition. I enjoy being challenged by reading views with which I might disagree. We hope most of you do too.