Do UK posters (and the british in general) pay more attention to their newspapers than other anglophones?

There always seems to be plenty of fodder for comment among the GBRs of ILX in the pages of their local rags, while you rarely if ever see USA, AUS or NZL (nevermind IRL FIN NLD etc sorry folks) specifically discussing how much the wapo, nyt, tribune, lat etc are chatting up this that or the other, much less who works there and how much they suck etc.

Is this because most of our UK posters live in London, home of the tabloid, with a wide range of papers available, and work in the industry, or what?

I mean our newspapers in America are generally bad and getting much, much worse probably even as I type this; it seems to be met with a shrug. why so concerned in the isles? Jokes about US functional literacy rates welcome.

are chatting up this that or the other, much less who works there and how much they suck etc.

i'd like to point out here that the ringtone cru is as scrutinizing of the us (rap) music press as our lbzc brethren

but you're probably right about london. also it doesn't seem like any paper in the us is as ubiquitous in the uk as the guardian but i literally have no idea if that's true or not - sometimes we get into big arguments about stuff that appears in the nyt though. it seems like that's the only thing that can get americans up to brit levels of media crit

a fair few of us work in or on the fringes of the media, yeah, so it feels close. and the papers -- ok the guardian especially -- seem a bit fairly intent on talking to "us", compared with the NYT or wapo. sometimes literally in the case of the guardian, some of whose peeps post here. (like, calum writes for their blog sometimes.)

i guess also we don't have an alternative press (which the film guys at least pay attn to in the US) or s.thing like pitchfork.

xpost

we don't have a local press in anything like the same way: almost all of the juice is in london. among the key ilx demographic of idle public-sector employees in their 20s, and among leftish-liberalish people in general, yeah the guardian is pretty ubiq.

sometimes I feel like the guardian hardly writes for anyone else! srsly like I'm in london and see somebody with a copy and I read the headlines and I'm all wow that is pretty ILX for a newspaper

one key ilx conspiracy theory is that the guardian stole the idea of liking pop music from ilm.

they stole the idea of liking video games from ILE and ILG, and I think I might be frighteningly accurate when I say they started covering the NFL in 2008

among the key ilx demographic of idle public-sector employees in their 20s, and among leftish-liberalish people in general, yeah the guardian is pretty ubiq.

Is it? Seems like most people I know only buy it on Saturday for the Guide.

you can read it online these days.

we only get it on saturday for the guide, and the guide is full of shitty pandering articles written for cultural dilettantes

I suppose, can't imagine why you would want to though!

(xp)

I only really get it on Saturdays (a) to read on the bus and (b) for the TV section of The Guide 'cos it takes up less space and (amazingly) gets me less annoyed than the Radio Times.

Sometimes seems like ILXors only read to get annoyed by it

welcome to ilx

i've met irl people who get annoyed by it, but perhaps less obsessively. obviously ilx is a more appropriate place than the rl for having these kinds of discussions, though.

You would be forgiven for vastly overestimating the importance of the Guardian from reading ILX, for precisely the reasons stated above. We almost never talk the Times, for instance, which is a better-selling and more influential paper than the Graun. There are five or six papers in the UK that are bigger than the Guardian but none really talking to that demographic, if you overlook the increasingly irrelevant Independent.

But yes, overall our print media seems far more engrained in our national consciousness than in the US and possibly Australia and Canada as well. The influence of the Sun and the Daily Mail in this country is huge.
This is as much of an issue of geography as anything else - we're a small country and that affects our idea of national conversation more than anything. A nasty murder, for instance, that takes place in Scotland still resonates in Cornwall - I'm not sure that's the case from state to state in the US.

On the other hand our commercial TV news doesn't seem to have the same kind of sway as something like Fox News in the States. There's the BBC, but that is something of a special case. I get the feeling UK radio is more central to the national consciousness than the US as well - once more for geographical reasons. That ridiculous Russell Brand thread should give you a fairly decent sense of how exactly the commercial print media and the BBC relate to one another, but also how important they are in driving mood-of-the-nation type issues.

Sometimes seems like ILXors only read to get annoyed by it

"sometimes"

(Sorry, that gives the impression the Indy is bigger than the Graun, it isn't)

This all might have a bit to do w/ the fact that ILX germinated from a music board and the Guardian, for better or worse, makes more of an effort at 'pop' music coverage than any other national UK paper?

Papers are still really popular here. The sales of the Sun, Mail and Mirror added together account for a readership approaching 10% of the population on their own. Also worth noting that TV and radio news is not allowed to show political bias here so if people want their opinions and prejudices confirmed they have to go to the print media.

Does the Guardian make more of an effort at 'pop' music coverage than any other national UK paper?

back when FT/ILX started, in those dim dark pre-petridish says, i dunno if that was true. the blogification of the guardian has definitely cranked up its pop coverage.

xposts

talk radio in the US actually has a bigger impact than you'd imagine - most frequent us posters on ilx are pretty young and most radio listeners are older (stern crowd excluded). limbaugh, glen beck etc have a big following on radio tho otoh they're kind of an extension of fox news. also a few major controversies play out on the radio every year it seems like - don imus thing for instance. also, stern and limbaugh make an exorbitant amount of money. more than anyone in media who is not an actor or actress.

There is as much pop music coverage in The Sun, in its own way, as the Guardian, but of a totally different type. Maybe more on a day-to-day basis. But the Guardian is the only one with a Film & Music weekly section.

Taking 'pop' to mean non-classical or jazz, hence the scarequotes, yeah I guess it does xxxxpost

US Talk radio as the equivalent of the UK tabloid comment pages is a good comparison.

The influence of the Sun and the Daily Mail in this country is huge.

these are the tabloids right? american tabloid coverage is basically all tmz type stuff. our print tabloids are either mags that operate under the guise of truth (people/US weekly) or operate under the guise of no truth at all ("BRITNEY HAS CANCER" etc.)

nothing has the reach of tmz though

The Sun's pop coverage on a Friday is surprisingly good and wide ranging. (x-p)

The influence of the Sun and the Daily Mail in this country is huge.

I've never been that sure of this, it is more of a feedback loop, the sun and the mail tell people what they want to hear to confirm and reinforce what they already think.

I've never been that sure of this, it is more of a feedback loop, the sun and the mail tell people what they want to hear to confirm and reinforce what they already think.

― Ed, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:50 AM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ surprise! it's a post from ed that doesn't bother to hide its contempt for the lower orders.

The influence of the Sun and the Daily Mail in this country is huge

Of course, in Scotland, the Daily Record sells more than every other daily newspaper combined!

Another thing to remember is that, with the arguable exception of Time Out, the UK has no history of Village Voice/SF Weekly-style local alt.press, so any pop culture argument we take w/regards to a media viewpoint has to come from a national publication.

the more important question is why in the fuck am I still up and about while you teadrinkers are showing up to work on a tuesday morning

(ans. partially flooded apt + nothing better to do)

That reminds me, time for a cuppa

multi xpost I thought that the Scottish edition of the Sun had overtaken the Record in sales.

I've never been that sure of this, it is more of a feedback loop, the sun and the mail tell people what they want to hear to confirm and reinforce what they already think.

― Ed, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:50 AM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ surprise! it's a post from ed that doesn't bother to hide its contempt for the lower orders.

― special guest stars mark bronson, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:52 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Could apply equally to the telegraph or the guardian.

Wait, Daily Mail-reading England is lower-orders now? Anyway, you don't buy a newspaper publisher to make money, you buy it for the influence and that influence is considerable for the Sun and Mail, especially building on people's core political standpoint and driving it in the direction they want it to go.

I could perhaps throw in the Mirror as well but that's pretty supine to New Labour and hasn't really bared its teeth since Piers Morgan was sacked.

when the rest of decent, sane america wakes up and arrives at ILX-time or work or what have you I'd like to see what others think re: newspaper readering in the ex-colonies and regions further west, because seriously I feel like there's a lot of bitching that ought to be done regarding the gray lady and her rival to the south etc. oh and btw this is also a subtle hint that lzbc vs the rest of londong classist meta ass-dribble is not what I had in mind thx

for instance the NYT has given many many gallons of freebie sunday op-ed ink to such recognized winners as Rumsfeld, Chalabi and some no-name fucko who thinks Obama should and will "come around" to extraordinary rendition practices by the CIA et compadres, while the WP print edition continues to suck in basically every category, and we could care less

I think you only get to make course corrections with that influence. If the sun came out tomrrow and said we should open our borders to all and sundry I don't think it would get much traction. But, this does, fit very nicely with the minor differences in the UK political spectrum. By confirming your readers' preferences and keeping them reading you get access to the corridors of power.

for instance the NYT has given many many gallons of freebie sunday op-ed ink to such recognized winners as Rumsfeld, Chalabi and some no-name fucko who thinks Obama should and will "come around" to extraordinary rendition practices by the CIA et compadres, while the WP print edition continues to suck in basically every category, and we could care less

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 11:10 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The quality press does give space to opposing views but I think largely as a way of confirming readers' prejudices about what the other side thinks.

opposing views are available from people with a shred of credibility. of course, we seem to be having an industry-wide problem with that concept over the last decade or more.

An observation:

When my gf first moved here she was surprised by the morning TV and radio news shows reviewing the morning papers which seems the most normal thing in the world to me.

Is this because most of our UK posters live in London, home of the tabloid, with a wide range of papers available, and work in the industry, or what?

We have a wide range of papers available outside of London I just wanted to say. Also the internet.

re. opposing views: my perception is the US papers don't include voices from the far left, which the guardian regularly does. also the independent, but literally no-one reads that shit.

British Papers are not particularly regional. Scotland has its own papers, but the rest of the ones that matter are published in London and distributed throughout the country. The Western Mail and Yorkshire Post come close to the circulation of the Scottish quality dailies but don't seem to have a great deal of impact largely due to not being in London.

big print media in the states has been scared shitless by the talk radio and television personalities into eschewing most all progressive types wherever possible, to the point of egregious editorial errors; this is how you end up with theater and film critics (rich, ebert) being the only remaining writers or columnists around who have an ounce of guts, possible exception of krugman, but he should be let go soon since he's got the nobel

. oh and btw this is also a subtle hint that lzbc vs the rest of londong classist meta ass-dribble is not what I had in mind thx

I'm not sure we can have a conversation about UK attitudes to newspapers without touching on class. the paper one reads really is one of the prime class/social/political signifiers.

Also mirror what Ned & (xp) Ed were saying. All the newspapers of any cultural importance are national- not just distributed in, or written for, London. (although they do often seem London-centric to those of us in the provinces.)

does a non-dickhead living in the UK read FT?

mix of dickheads and lib/leftists who want the inside track and reckon they won't go native.

Yeah it's the centralisation that makes British print media more important. There are, what, seven or eight national dailies. In the U.S. there's only USA Today.

Bring back The Manchester Guardian!

. oh and btw this is also a subtle hint that lzbc vs the rest of londong classist meta ass-dribble is not what I had in mind thx
I'm not sure we can have a conversation about UK attitudes to newspapers without touching on class. the paper one reads really is one of the prime class/social/political signifiers.

there is a big difference between discussing class and tossing ad hominem attacks about.

xpost

I have taking to reading the FT, at the moment it brings the LOLz as the financial crisis unwinds, also Martin Wolf's explanations of macro-economic trends are fantastic.

Yeah it's the centralisation that makes British print media more important. There are, what, seven or eight national dailies. In the U.S. there's only USA Today.

― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 11:40 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Although this is changing, regional papers are dying and the NYTimes is become a de-facto national paper.

the paper one reads really is one of the prime class/social/political signifiers.

as I wish we could achieve with more regularity on US-specific threads or topics, there is a way to discuss class signifiers (or regional signifiers, generally the bigger issue in the states in our new post-racial century ha ha) without throwing classist elbows at one another. It's not easy but I'd like to think it can be done in service of a more interesting conversation

The standard of both UK and foreign news reporting in the FT is better than in any other paper in the UK. I think of the FT as socially neutral but economically right-wing, but it doesn't feel the need to bang on about it.

Or closer to the point, it knows its readership is largely right wing and doesn't pointlessly pander to it because it knows its reputation lies in it being less biased and more authoritative.

Obviously everything will change pretty quickly, not many newspapers in the either the UK or the US are going to survive in print form. And once everything migrates to the Net, the dynamic is quite different.

xpost

It's only the broadsheets and the weaker tabloids that will be hit that badly by the net. The stronger tabloids will survive like cockroaches. You can't read a website on a building site.

Assuming we have any building sites left in two years time.

or two months.

God, the FT is soooooo boring. It's entertainment pages are rubbish and I don't think it hardly even mentioned the Strictly Come Dancing SCANDAL. That's not even a newspaper in my estimation.

Had a good review of the Hackney Empire Panto.

It's only the broadsheets and the weaker tabloids that will be hit that badly by the net.

= all dailies except The Sun...

Had a good review of the Hackney Empire Panto.

Fucking London metropolitan elite.

You can't read a website on a building site.

Soon enough they'll all be gathered round the super's pocket toughpod with wireless having a larf at the PRICELESS thread

although the more expansive joke would be a gang of migrant contractors perusing the design and architecture threads or I Love Books on their own individual gadgets while they partake of tuna on rye

UK inflation falls to 4.1%
King forced to write letter of explanation

FT headline today - we haven't even got a king! They're living in a fantasy world.

Yeah I sort of see where you're going Tom, but you can't get a super pocket toughpod for 30p.

It will be interesting to see how the rise the decent mobile phone web browser will affect tabloid circulation.

30p, no but free with a 2 year contract and a dodgy cashback offer as advertised in the back of the Sun.

The stronger tabloids will survive like cockroaches. You can't read a website on a building site.

So when are they going over fulltime to publishing only in Polish?

"hey roger did you see this piece on the social networks involved in england's adoption of protestantism after bloody mary and her bishops burnt all those fellows at the stake in the fourteenth?"

"I'll take a look at it, message me, think it's time we got back to those solar collectors"

We can't afford polish builders any more, and it won't be long before hey will be able to afford british builders, which, given my experience with the poles redoing my bathroom, they richly deserve.

Best cryptic crosswords:

3. Graun
2. FT
1. Indie

rise above it

How is all of this (UK/US differences in newspaper habits) related to the big differences in nightly tv newscasts between the two countries? I.e., the fact that you can watch decent news reports on U.K. tv instead of stories about the dog that learned how to make pancakes interspersed with new insight into opera's weight gain.

THAT'S OPRAH DUMMY

Stick around, UK TV news is going the same way

"Shamed Shoesmith seen making pancakes in luxury caravan: Tom Bratby reports"

Tombot's post has reminded me of something. Britain has had a very active popular press since the arrival of printing, well 17th century at least. There is a long standing tradition of ballads and pamphlets and not a great deal of censorship. there is a direct line from John Lilburne to Page 3.

I really don't know anyone at all who watches prime time news in the US and takes it as any more than a farce. Hence the ridiculous success of The Daily Show & Colbert Report, I suppose. They really are just as serious as any of their competitors, in every regard.

Freedom John PACIFIED By Shropshire Stunners!

argh that should have been Freeborn John like Born Free as sung by Geraldine McQueen oh never mind

xxxpost to Tom I suppose that's true--I'm just wondering if the lack of a traditional dependable tv news source affects the attitude towards newspapers too

I know, I know, but seriously, I love America with all my heart, but if you sat and watched an hour of Channel 4 news, and then sat and watched an hour of whatever Katie Couric's hosted national news program is called, you'd be forgiven in thinking the collective mental age of the USA is hovering around six.

I completely agree, that's what I mean by saying I don't know anybody who takes our TV "news" seriously. Everybody I know has an education or a job or both.

C4 News isn't that much better - it's all Jon Pure Driven Snow And His 12 Disciples Pray Why Canst Thou Be As Righteous As Me O Wretched Interviewee?

Honestly, I criticize news here as much as the next guy, but until you've spent some time watching tv in the states, you really don't know what "shit news" is.

be reasonable. it's good.

xpost

not to put too fine a point on it but I absolutely believe that mainstream US journalism is making america dumber and clumsier than they would be without it. Even having to acknowledge its presence every day when I go to work feels like it damages me to some degree, it's that awful.

Jon Snow's a fucking godsend of a muckraking investigative journalist compared to the mannequins on the tube across the water.

TOM OTM

We get Fox News on Sky. My wife watches it sometimes for the lols, it's just fucking unbelievable. It is a bit like a televised Sun editorial column.

fox news exists. cnn exists. cnbc exists. msnbc exists. espn fucking exists. people are being paid good money to do this. we are all lesser for it.

(followers of ILNFL or ILBB would understand that not even the sporting press in the USA is worthy of being called anything more than mediocre (can't say for ILH but probably them too))

We get Fox News on Sky. My wife watches it sometimes for the lols, it's just fucking unbelievable. It is a bit like a televised Sun editorial column.

I'm partial to the Washington Journal of a Sunday afternoon, there's always some batshit mentalist phoning in to say Obama was born in Kenya, like ALWAYS, no matter what the subject is that's being discussed

Yeah the thing is, you don't even have to get to Fox News to get nauseous. Of course Fox News is awful--it essentially advertises itself as such. It's the 'regular' news that's the real menace--it's not ideological wingnuts that are the (main) problem, it's the relentless stupidification of the national 'conversation' that's the problem.

^^^I think I've just proved my own point throught the relentless awfulness of my own writing.

I was at an Obama rally in Ohio this summer going for a smoke and I ran into a black dude, older than me, who was also lighting up. We talked a little bit, and he got on the topic of these people on the fucking news, saying all this crap. I told him you have to realize these people are paid, they are handed real live green american dollars, to be full of shit. That's how they settle with the realtor. They're full of shit, and that's their job. He thanked me for this insight, he said I made it all clear to him finally, and he said he would pass it on, that's exactly what it is.

I'm throwing that anecdote out because it makes me seem cooler than I really am, I could have just told how I said the same thing to my gf in DC two months earlier and it was equally valid then, but you know you know

And then a little while after that we spotted an actual fox news dude, some guy with orange skin and white hair, standing there to cover the rally in his jeans, tie, tucked-in dress shirt and blue blazer.

I did some contract subbing work at the Daily Express earlier this year, and the writers there were all talking about how Boris would be bad for London and that they really hoped Ken could defy the polling, so yeah, same applies here.

so like, a london newspaper man, he goes to buy a house, right, and the broker says "what do you think about the place?" and the newspaper man says "well I think it'll be a lot better with Ken in charge!" and the broker says "does your bank know you think that?" a ha ha ha ha ha

^^^ good?

^^^ how to murder your own thread cold

dadnews

the NYTimes is become a de-facto national paper.

become

i got a good example for this, this killed me at lunch today, David Brooks talking about Malcolm Gladwell. Bullshit artist talking about a bullshit artist

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

for instance the NYT has given many many gallons of freebie sunday op-ed ink to such recognized winners as Rumsfeld, Chalabi and some no-name fucko who thinks Obama should and will "come around" to extraordinary rendition practices by the CIA et compadres, while the WP print edition continues to suck in basically every category, and we could care less

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 5:10 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

ha i like skipped that whole page and the twir section is usually a big sunday morning highlight. friedman was pretty good though.

David Brooks talking about Malcolm Gladwell

I think this seriously would kill me. I would die. My brains all over the onion rings.

haha ok I have survived and the best part is any chump can tell Brooks didn't even read the book. TENTH GRADE

Newspaper buying is a class signifier, but I'm not sure I buy people swallowing a paper's politics necessarily. Many Sun readers buy it just for its very good soccerball coverage.

Too many uses of the word "buy" above!

The Financial Times being offloaded to Nikkei:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nikkei-buys-financial-times-from-pearson-for-129-billion-2015-07-23-1091153

Sadly it's $1.29bn rather than the $129bn the URL would suggest.

It's probably the most commercially viable UK newspaper over the long term? Regardless of what happens to its print product that is.

Yep, one of the only ones that has made a subscription model really work. I haven't seen all the details but i'd guess for that price Nikkei would also have acquired the market intelligence / data side of the FT group.

They appear to have not wanted the 50% share of The Economist, and who could blame them?

love the newsy wewsies me

http://i.imgur.com/uGcFiym.jpg

smh

zing!

Dedicating more than half the front page to republishing a press release about Kanye West's records having more words in them than Bob Dylan's and the rest to their increasingly desperate STOP CORBYN campaign might make the "your quality newspaper" tag a little more difficult to swallow.

It's interesting that the sale of the FT to Nikkei rather than Axel Springer is being positioned as motivated in part by "shared values" and a commitment to editorial independence as well as the financial aspect. Also interesting to see how many BTL commentators are still panicked by selling anything to Japan.

lol they'll probably miniaturize it

and robots

Yeah, there've been at least three anti-Corbyn articles in the Graun this week. Same as New Statesman. Can't remember if the Indy's done the same. It's bizarre, but not surprising for some reason.

Seems to be three a day on the Guardian website. The Independent dedicated their front page to Labour's "suicide" when the polls indicated Corbyn was ahead.

Seems every user comment on these articles can be boiled down to 'fuck off and stop patronising us'.

Well, Independent endorsed the tories in the election didn't it? Guardian politics desk has been a bastion of Ultra-Blairism for donkey's years.