Journalism professor Peter Cole on UK newspapers

After reading the four articles by Peter Cole about UK newspapers, I feel that I have learned a substantial amount as well as reinforcing some of the knowledge I had beforehand. Cole also discussed ideas which were new to me and I found them very interesting. Here are some of the things I found interesting about each of the four articles:

Why Middle England Gets The Mail:

• Cole mentioned the shift from printed news to online/broadcast news in recent years. I would completely agree with this and more often than not I look at the news online in the morning and won't buy a newspaper until later on in the day. I think that this shift is something which was inevitable with the technologically advancing world and newspapers need to keep up with these changes in order to stay on top of the market.
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• Cole made the point that readership of newspapers is 2-3 times larger than sales. This is something that I had never really thought about but the more I think about it the more I realise this is true. For example, a family will usually only buy one or two papers which will be read by everyone in the family, not only the people who purchased them. Similarly, newspapers are often shared in the workplace, or even left on trains which can be read by other people.
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• Newspapers do get a lot of advertising from broadcast news programmes. For example, it is very common for morning news broadcasts to show the headlines of each paper that day. This is useful because it allows consumers to make a decision on what paper they will buy on any given day. This is also why it is so important for newspapers to have a relevant, interesting story on the cover.
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• The second most popular daily newspapers is the Daily Mail. Cole suggests that the Mail 'ridicules political correctness'and focuses on similar stories every day whether they are relevant or not. I found the point about political correctness to be interesting because it made me think about how popular the Mail is in Guernsey, and this could well be because Guernsey is not a very politically correct place, so this could explain its popularity. 
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• Cole gave the examples of Princess Diana and Madeline McCann as stories that the Mail focuses on while other newspapers have moved on. I found this particularly true because I do not read the Mail very often, and rather shamefully I have to admit that I had forgotten all about Madeline McCann until Cole mentioned her.So it is true that the story is not really being publicised anywhere else other than the Mail. 
• Cole also remarked on the fact that the Mail does not appear to make effort to appeal to a younger audience. The Mail knows its audience, of which 60% are over 45 years old, and 40% are over 55 years old. The Mail features articles to appeal to its existing audience, rather than changing its style to try and appeal to a new, younger audience.
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•  Cole made the point that the Mail offers more free CDs and DVDs than any of the other daily papers, and that these are usually aimed at women or families. This is because women make up the majority of the Mail's readers and so they are more likely to keep purchasing it if they are being offered something which appeals directly to them. This synergy with the film and music industry helps to keep the Mail up to date.

 The Paradox of the Pops:

• Cole makes the point that people read tabloids for a "quick-read" about sex, stars, sport and crime. I think that this is a very valid point. I very much doubt that people clear a great amount of time to sit down and read a publication such as The Sun. It is more likely that people read The Sun when they are on their lunch break at work, or when they on the train, or even when they are standing in a queue waiting to pay for it. This is appealing to readers who do not have time to sit down and spend a long time reading lengthy articles.
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• Politicians, we are told, continually scour the tabloids because they represent what the voters think. In some ways this is true, although it could be argued that tabloid readers are often quite young (18-30) and are actually less likely to vote than the older, professional readers of broadsheets and the Mail.
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• Stories in the tabloids aim to reflect the common interests of 'ordinary' people although, as Cole points out, 'odinary' people often want stories that are shocking, but it has become increasingly difficult to shock people. This is due to many factors, but mainly because we have all heard stories that have shocked us in the past, and so far there have not been stories that have been able to shock us any more. Take for example the 7/7 bombing. This was incredibly shocking to 'ordinary' people, and stories which followed of attempted bombing which failed are not as shocking because they were not successful. The attempts became less important that the actual successes.
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• When Piers Morgan was editor of the Mirror, he decided to turn towards serious news from serious journalists. He also opted fro an anti-war approach. This was a bad move because readers of tabloid papers are often the family/friends of soldiers who are fighting the war on terror. Because of this, the Mirror lost a huge amount of popularity. This highlights the how important it is for journalists to think about their audience and write articles that are going to appeal to them and fit their ideologies.
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• Cole claims how he feels that it is wrong of people not to trust tabloid journalists. He says that tabloid journalism is one of the hardest styles of journalism to master because a journalist needs to be able to write stories that are going to interest and shock the reader, and this has become an increasingly difficult task.

Quality Street

• Cole establishes readers of the "quality" papers to be largely professional, higher class citizens.
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• He tells how Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent, changed the format of the paper in 2003 from broadsheet to tabloid style. This was a successful decision as it made the paper more accessible and appealing to readers. The Guardian and The Times also changed to this format and sales increased.
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• The Guardian became much "calmer" and with its new look and also changed the style of the news published. Serious news was always published but the new format meant that the stories needed to be compressed, which in turn meant that it became easier for the reader, giving them only the most essential information.
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• The G2 also changed to appeal to a younger audience. I think that this is a good idea because it makes the younger generation aware of the Guardian, meaning that in the future they might be more likely to be Guardian readers.
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• Cole states that most journalism students read the Guardian, although in recent years an increasing number have made a shift to reading the Independent.
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• Cole highlights that one of the successes of the Telegraph is that it features 'must read' columns from journalists such as Craig Brown. This is an advantage over papers, like the Times for example, which do not feature must read articles, and so do not offer many reasons why consumers should read the Times over any other paper - it does not feature anything to keep the reading coming back for more.

Supplementary Reading

• Cole made the point that most people usually through away the supplements that they are not going to read. I have done this before, and as Cole recognises, I have never thought about the cost of the parts I choose to throw away. I think you would be hard pushed to find anyone who reads every single supplement that comes with a Sunday paper. I think that it would be a better idea if papers were to produce supplements, and that a reader could perhaps choose three of the many choices to take with the paper. This way it would be easier to see which are the most popular supplements, as well as decreasing the amount of waste produced.
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• Reading a paper on a Sunday is somewhat a tradition in Britain, even though all other traditional Sunday activities have largely been lost over time. Cole questions why people even bother to but a paper on a Sunday, when usually papers on Saturday offer the same supplements and news.