Richard Walker doesn’t do weary willingly. The 59-year-old, who has combined editing Scotland’s new daily the National with performing the same role at the Sunday Herald since the autumn, is renowned amongst staff for being boundlessly energetic – if not always equally strategic. But office legend has it that Walker fell asleep at his keyboard last month, such were the demands of juggling the two jobs, coupled with the effects of a winter virus.

Sitting – admirably upright – in his office on a grey Glasgow morning, he describes the past three months as gruelling. “It is difficult in terms of physical effort. Because [the National’s launch] was so quick, I had time to do the dummies and get the people on board but I didn’t have time to think how I was going to get a day off.”

Scotland’s first pro-independence daily title was received with giddy and grateful enthusiasm by yes supporters when it launched at the end of November, selling out its initial 60,000 print run despite appealing to a movement that partly defined itself through its rejection of the mainstream media.

Following this initial surge, sales averaged 30,000 across the first month, then dipped over the festive period to around 17,000 - a figure Newsquest, parent company of the paper’s publisher, the Herald and Times Group, based its original forecasts around. “The launch exceeded expectations, so I’m happy with where we are,” says Walker.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Herald – the only Scottish newspaper to declare its support for independence during the referendum campaign – stood at a weekly average of just over 30,000 by the end of 2014, up 31% over the course of the year, while both titles are hoping for a sales fillip in the runup to May’s general election. Earlier this month, the Sunday Herald was named newspaper of the year in Newsquest’s national awards, with Walker himself carrying off editor of the year.

During a referendum campaign when the pro-union bias of the mainstream press was a constant and bitter complaint of independence supporters, the Sunday Herald’s declaration for yes had huge symbolic force. Walker is convinced there is an ongoing appetite for a yes-leaning product, but what that product should look like in day-to-day practice is taking longer to establish.

“The difference is that the Sunday Herald started as a newspaper and came to embrace the idea of independence, whereas the National was set up specifically as a newspaper of independence. We exist to be an alternative. I understand how you might report the Smith commission in a way that’s different to, say, the Daily Record. But when there was the bin lorry crash in Glasgow, that’s nothing to do with independence, it’s a huge story and we need to cover it, so how do we do that?”

On the day after the accident that left six dead after an out of control council refuse truck ploughed through Christmas shoppers in Glasgow’s George Square, the National’s splash avoided more dramatic imagery from the scene. “We had a reflective front page, and the response to it did encourage me to think that there’s a demand for doing all stories a bit differently. But we’re still feeling our way.”

More ticklish a question than sales is how an explicitly pro-independence stance impacts on editorial judgments. “We come from a position of supporting independence in the same way that other newspapers, the Guardian included, will come to a subject with a point of view,” says Walker carefully. “It’s far from unheard-of for newspapers to campaign. I suppose the difference is that the point of view we’re campaigning for is such an all-encompassing thing that there’s a danger it then subverts your journalism.”

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But this is also a point of view embedded within government – first minister Nicola Sturgeon and other leading SNP figures tweeted photographs of themselves with the National’s first edition, and there were inevitable accusations of it being a “McPravda”. “We can and will be critical of the SNP,” Walker insists, listing a series of recent National stories that have done just that. “But it’s different in a way because journalists want to be holding the establishment to account and in Scotland today the question is ‘who is the establishment?’ The SNP is dedicated to radical change of the British constitution, so it is a radical party. The National is a radical paper that supports that.”

But what about the practical politics: surely even the presumption of SNP-alignment makes it harder for reporters to sustain contacts with other parties? Several senior political journalists on the Sunday Herald are known to have been uncomfortable with the paper’s stance on independence. Walker admits he has not had any meetings with Scottish Labour since the election of its new leader Jim Murphy. Are they still picking up the phone? “I’m certainly not getting love [from Labour], but I can’t detect an attitude of downright non-cooperation. The lines of communication are open.”

Internal research shows many National readers have not been in the habit of buying a newspaper previously: one of Walker’s most immediate challenges is building loyalty in a cohort not used to committing to a print product. “I don’t think that means you have to educate them on how to interact with a newspaper. Some of them are very disillusioned with mainstream media so they’re looking for us to provide an alternative. What that actually means is something that we’re discovering together.” He points to reader feedback on everything from celebrity content to the gender politics of certain stock images. The readership encompasses a very broad range of people, he adds, noting that independence itself was supported by a wide demographic.

One early criticism of the National was that while aiming to cater for yes voters it offered no presence online, where the majority of independence supporters sourced and discussed their news during the referendum campaign. Walker says that a website will be up and running by the end of February, with some fairly fundamental issues still to be settled.

“There’s a question mark over whether we charge – personally, I’m always worried about giving away journalism for nothing and like any other business we need money to pay people. We already have a news website with the Herald Scotland and there seems little point in replicating that, so it needs to be a different kind of beast.” Current plans are coalescing around a forum to nurture “mature, adult discussion” about the independence movement.

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The recent appointment of an assistant editor will allow Walker some scope for longer-term planning, he hopes, although exhaustion is by no means a unique experience across the Herald Group. The results of a recent stress survey across Newsquest were “grim”, according the NUJ Scotland, with particular concerns about unrealistic expectations put on reporters expected to fulfil accelerating internet and print demands.

It’s easy to see why Walker is so beloved by those who work with him. When asked about the experience of launching a new print title in a market that argues against it, he exclaims: “I know! It’s nuts!

“It was clearly prompted by a political community and a hunger for some form of media that takes that view, but there’s something about a newspaper that you can buy and hold that gave people a sense of excitement.”

Is buying a copy of the National the equivalent of wearing a yes badge now? “I suppose it is,” he says cheerfully. “Is that a bad thing? I can’t see it as a bad thing.”

Curriculum vitae

Age 59

Education St Michael’s Academy, Kilwinning; Napier College, Edinburgh

Career 1990 Spectrum magazine production editor, Scotland on Sunday 1995 deputy features editor, the Daily Record 2005 editor, Sunday Herald 2014 editor, the National