The day has come

Dear Londoners — today is the day we've been working towards since we started! The day we open the gates and warmly welcome you to become our very first members.

As a thank you to those of you who join up now, we're offering a 20% early-bird discount, making a membership cost just £7.16 per month for the first six months, or you can lock in £5.93 per month if you pay for the year (an absolute steal). You will get lots of members-only newsletters, will be able to comment under our stories and come to our events, and will heroically go down in history as the founding patrons of London's new quality newspaper. (If you're not already logged in to our site, sign in before you take out your subscription).

It's been almost three months since we published our first story: Andrew's investigation into the Labour MP Jas Athwal and the substandard children's home operating in one of his properties, a piece that had been read by the prime minister by lunchtime and prompted further coverage in Private Eye.

That was a phenomenal start to life for The Londoner, and since then, we've been supplementing our core of hard-hitting investigative journalism with stories that help you to get to know the city you live in: meeting the people who clean dust from the Tube tracks while we sleep; learning about the made-up history of London's "oldest" pubs; digging into the fires that are poisoning a community on the edge of the city. We've published 21 different writers already, bringing you a mix of big-name journalists and fresh voices who offer new ways of looking at London.

It's been such a joy to do this kind of work, and to feel like we are starting to fill the gaps that have been left by the collapse of local journalism in London. The fact that 7,000 of you have already joined our mailing list shows there is a great appetite to know more about the capital and tell the stories that aren't getting covered elsewhere. Many thanks to everyone who has spread the word so far and told friends about what we're doing.

As you know, our approach is very much quality rather than quantity. Instead of trying to cover everything in a superficial level of detail, we believe in only sending you stories that are worth your time, stories that we’ve invested time and care in making.

The reason we can take this approach is because of our business model: we are going to be funded by you, our readers, and therefore we can prioritise what you really want (thoughtfulness, insight, great writing) rather than what feeds the beast of online advertising (sensationalism and inane updates about celebrities).

That's why we'd love you to become a member. If you're the kind of person who believes in this brand of journalism, and you think that London needs it, then please join up now. (If you're not already logged in to our site, sign in before you take out your subscription).

We will be sending out our first members-only story tomorrow, and another one on Friday. Every week, we'll send you at least two members-only editions, and in doing so, we'll make sure that our paying members are the most informed Londoners around.

Our journalism is going to give you insights into how things really work in London – we've got a data piece coming up about why London nurseries cost so much and a deep dive into why so many pubs are getting shut down. We're going to publish long reads about notorious unsolved murders and highlight innovative ideas that are improving local neighbourhoods. We're working on stories about a London company supplying weapons for the Ukrainian frontline and the mystery of a disappearing orchestra.

As a member, you'll get all those stories in your inbox and we hope that reading them will bring you joy, hope, clarity and a real sense of getting to know the city better through the eyes of our reporters and the people we interview.

Starting The Londoner is a gamble for all of us – it's always a risk when you're starting a new publication and you're going up against the news companies that have controlled media in London for hundreds of years and the Big Tech platforms that monopolise the internet. But we've been delighted by the response from you, our early readers.

Today is about turning a fledgling project into a proper revenue-earning news organisation that can take on big stories, assemble a strong community, build towards financial sustainability and give this city the kind of coverage it deserves.