As this is the final edition of the newsletter for this year, it’s a good moment to thank everyone who’s helped put it together, particularly since our relaunch four months ago.
More than a year ago, we decided to radically change the direction and tone of this newsletter. I foolishly thought it would be easy: write stuff, send email, go to lunch. Er… no.
It was a lot of work, by a lot of people, over a long time – to get us to the relaunch at the beginning of September, and to get us through the everyday slog of it.
First and foremost is the team that gets this newsletter published day in, day out: Alice Autin, Lisa Maier, Emily Palomo, and Polina Geralchuck. They’ve done everything from finding quotes, to locating good stories for the “Take Note” section, to writing the occasional article themselves, to a thousand other things... Then, after a critical reality check by Stephen Northfield, they turn all our words into the email that arrives in your inbox every day – and promote it online, too.
My colleagues Jan Kooy and Birgit Schwarz have filled in for me when I was on the road. The “daily” in the “Daily Brief” would be impossible without them.
I also have to thank the people who helped transform vague concepts of “let’s do things differently” into the reality of a daily newsletter. Amy Braunschweiger has been the key strategist behind the evolution of all our newsletters at Human Rights Watch. Paul Aufiero, author of our Week in Rights newsletter, pitched in great ideas from his hands-on experience. And Les Lim came up with technical solutions that save us – no exageration – hours every day.
Of course, everything is built on a wider organization around the world: researchers documenting rights abuses, operations folks who keep all the systems running smoothly, and our funders, whose belief in us and in the mission I am forever grateful for.
But most of all, I’d like to thank you, the reader. We’ve had so many recommendations and so much complimentary feedback from you all since our relaunch four months ago, that I’ve been overwhelmed. It’s made all the work worthwhile.
So, everyone, thank you, and have a calm, peaceful, and rights-respecting end of the year. I hope that, like me, you’re able to take some time off.
See you in January!
Andrew
As always: please email me or contact me on Twitter or Mastodon with your thoughts and suggestions.