Good to be free?
Gordon Brown has revealed he is a big fan of the Metro and has encouraged his cabinet colleagues to read it every day. So reports today’s, er, Metro anyway.
But the freesheet has become Britain’s fourth-largest national daily newspaper with a readership of around 3.5million every day, so as it approaches its 10th anniversary it certainly has some momentum behind it. But should it really be the daily newspaper of choice for the Government? Are these short news summaries with little or no analysis really the way forward for the industry?
I am a partial fan. Metro is a cut above the afternoon freesheets, with their seemingly never-ending stories about Alfie Allen and football players on the lash, but it is easy to rely on it as your daily news source. It is undoubtedly easy to read and contains a good mix of UK and World news but 10 years ago one would see the whole spectrum of newspapers on the tube - now it is just a wall of Metros.
So in that context it is perhaps commendable for politicians to read it so they get a sense of what everyone else is reading but I do feel that it offers a very ‘news in brief’ view of the world. Politicians of course will get their news from a variety of other sources but how many of your average Metro readers could say the same? I’d certainly be interested in any research on the amount of people that only read a morning freesheet…
But all told, the Metro is a pretty decent newspaper with good writing and reasonable content - what do you think?
Tags: Gordon Brown, Media, Metro
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Comments (3)
February 9th, 2009 at 6:57 am Posted by Annabel
One thing that I always notice about any of the free papers (in particular the afternoon freesheets) is that they all cover the same story in the same way - would be nice to see some variety of angle in there! Otherwise what sets one apart from the other? Anyone else noticed a difference between them?
February 9th, 2009 at 11:21 am Posted by Nick Osborne
Labour is going all out to try and understand what the average joe voter (sorry to go all Sarah Palin on you there) is all about. You can bet they are paying as much attention to the Sun, Daily Star, Mirror and the other tabloids as they are to the Metro. If the majority of the nation read these papers - put the readership together and I think they’ll all have the lion’s share of the nation - the Government would be making a mistake not to pay attention to them.
February 10th, 2009 at 3:31 am Posted by Hugh McKinney
Many politicians, especially Ministers, are used to digesting their press reading in carefully selected clips and cuttings drawn either from their Department or their own staff, so it should be no surprise that they are take to summaries well.
However, the Metro, like all the freesheets, lacks the opinion columns that help to make inform people’s thoughts and decisions.
Lack of these insights makes the papers too one-dimensional for many people’s liking who still prefer a well rounded debate with considered judgement to help inform their views.
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