On Saturday morning, while my daughter bounced with one of her best friends for his birthday, I was polishing off the latest paying subscriber edition of this newsletter in the café above the trampoline park. I opened a new tab, to look up a link, and the latest headline on
MediaGazer referenced Lyra McKee, a friend who was editor of that site, among her many other talents.
I presumed she’d won an award, or something, and checked back when I’d sorted the link.
This is a one-off version of the newsletter to pay tribute to Lyra. There’s some tributes from mutual friends, and others. There’s some of the best of her writing.
Lyra’s death has cast a pall over the weekend of so many of us. She was someone from an unconventional journalism background, that seized the opportunities that digital offered, networked like a whirlwind, and did incredible journalism. That we lost her in such a way is an incredible tragedy.
RIP Lyra.