This week’s Behind the Headlines comes from Editor Laura Webster. To receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every week for free, click here.
I'm wrapping up for Christmas today - for the first year since I started at The National I've somehow been able to blag my way into having Christmas Eve and Boxing Day off, meaning I can spend time doing much-needed relaxing with my loved ones. I hope everyone reading this gets plenty time with their family and friends in the coming days, too.
I want to take the time to wish our team a very Merry Christmas too. Our wonderful reporters, production staff, columnists and contributors who work so hard week in and week out - with minimal resources when compared to many other national newspapers!
READ MORE: BBC under fire for 'sycophantic' Boxing Day King Charles documentary
The National gets a tough time; from wild conspiracies about our funding to people sending videos of the day's edition being set on fire, to ministers effectively bullying our staff at Westminster events. But our staff never let it get them down, and their determination to tell interesting stories wins out.
This week saw a great example of how our team are undeterred by the negativity, and only ever allow it to motivate them. With endless news about the PPE Medpro scandal and more suggestions that Michelle Mone's team had been making legal threats to various publications, our Westminster reporter Hamish Morrison and I decided we should open up about the legal messages we received from the beloved Baroness earlier this year.
Our particular legal disagreement with Mone's office was pretty unique, in that it wasn't anything to do with PPE at all. It was about a claim she made in a 2013 Hello Magazine video interview, showcasing her plush new home in Glasgow's Park Circus. The businesswoman said that Albert Einstein had lived in her house. Albert Einstein never lived in Glasgow.
Yes, he visited the city once. But there is no evidence anywhere that he stayed in her home, never mind lived in it. So we contacted her team to ask about the claim, thus beginning a back-and-forth with multiple suggestions that we would be sued for defamation.
READ MORE: Behind the Headlines: I care about being a fair journalist – not an impartial one
It just shows how happy Mone is to stop certain stories getting out, even ones of ultimately little consequence.
Hamish and I filmed a short video explaining the incident on Monday. The response was unbelievable. It's had nearly two million views on Twitter, and 200k on TikTok. It's been shared widely across different social media platforms, with friends of friends of friends getting in touch to say they'd seen it on some WhatsApp group or Reddit thread. Our mums were most impressed that it earned retweets from Jeremy Vine and Carol Vorderman. We often see high levels of social media engagement but this was a whole new level, and we're thrilled that we got to tell an important story in an entertaining way.
READ MORE: Michelle Mone Einstein claim video goes viral - reaction
I'm also thrilled that the world got to see Hamish's dry delivery - the edits in the clip were from when I was shaking the phone too much from trying not to laugh. Particularly at the part where he states simply: "Albert Einstein never lived in Glasgow."
No matter what gets thrown our team's way, we continue to rise above it and more often than not, we find ways to laugh about it in time too.
I'll be back in time for the final Behind the Headlines of the year next week, where we'll do a bit more a recap over The National's highlights of the year, and some of my insider reflection from a wild year in Scottish politics. Speak soon!
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