The Standard is an enigma. It is, arguably, a key part of London society and culture, partly because of it's omnipresence across London anytime from about 2pm onwards. For as long as I can remember, it has always been around, and you'd be hard pressed to find any common Londoner who isn't aware of it.
Recently, though, the Standard has come under fire from various areas. The rise and rise of the free papers such as the Metro, London Lite and the sadly now-defunct London Paper, matched with the greater presence of freepaper distributors at about five locations around each and every Tube station in the central London area has unfortunatley combined with the wider decreasing readership for most, if not all, established newspapers and magazines. If you combine this with the almost Daily Mail-esque tabloid/broadsheet hybrid style and conservative sensationalist repotage, the fact that the Standard was bought for literally just £1 (yeah, you read that correctly) because it loses a couple of million on a regular basis, and the fact that most young people prefer to read things either online or from the freepapers, and things don't look too rosy for the paper.
In light of this, and the impending launch of the Standard as a free paper from the 12th October, I think it's time to take a closer look at the Standard, and so on my way back to Maidstone today I picked up today's issue. Let's see what we get...
The first thing that hit me after digesting today's issue was how the Standard has fallen into a vacuous hole in regards to its design. The first half of the paper looks very, very similar to the Mail and this is easier to understand once you realise that the reportage and political and social bias is actually very similar to that of the Mail, except with less emphasis on anti-immigration, which isn't hard to understand, what with London being composed of a large portion of ethnic minorities. Instead, the Standard concentrates on other, slightly less hard-hitting conservative staples, such as the expenses scandal, the lack of 'common sesnse' and the perceived rise of 'bureaucracy', and negative, depressing stories that all mass media news outlets report as some sort of damming incitement on the downward spiral the entire human race is apparently caught in; but, like the Mail, the Standard twists the stories to reflect badly either on Labour or generally create a feeling of conservatism in the reader. The second half of the paper, basically the Sport section, is designed completely differently. It is more akin to the Guardian in its style, with a Sans-Serif font and a lot of sidebars here and there with public opinion and bitesize quotes, comment, and opinion. The whole section is heavy on opinion columns, which is an increasing trend in sport sections. I will write more on this later as I'm still formulating ideas, but the increasing 'democratisation' of the sport world (and particularly football) through blogging and pirate feeds of live football has meant that this blogging style is more apparent in newspapers, for twofold reason: firstly, that the totalisation of reporting of things that have actually happened (i.e.: the facts) is so covered by websites and television means that opinion is the only 'new' thing to report, and that secondly, newspapers are trying to latch on to making the public feel as if 'public opinion' is a large part of their publication as the rise of what has been called 'Web 2.0' continues unabated.
As a newspaper, the Standard is resorting to tactics that you can see if you open practically any large newspaper, which roughly translates to 'soft' news being much more present. By 'soft' news I am referring to any of the following: music, film, opera, or dance reviews, lighthearted human stories that concentrate on the 'ahhhhhh' factor, lifestyle pieces, or comment pieces that read as lifestyle, but are actually referring to a current news event - in the case of today's issue, it was on the postal strike and its associated problems. For example, the major news that a socialist party has won a snap election in Greece, a story which is interesting in itself once you consider that a rise in conservatism is the current trend for most European countries (see: the UK, Germany's recent election) was almost a quarter of a page on page 14, whereas an article slightly mocking this year's Turner Prize nominees (an annual staple of the conservative media - mock modern art as it is 'indicative of the topsy-turvy world of the liberal arts' (that' not a direct quote)) was the main article on page 3.
There's not really much to say. The Standard is exactly the same as the other major newspapers, except that it can take one last gamble that, if you ask me at least, is a long way off for all the national papers - turn into a freepaper. Ironically enough, it is precisely because of the increased competition from the original freepapers that means the Standard has an opportunity to turn a new leaf and engage with a new group of readers that have previously ignored the paper - both young, cash-strapped students, and cash-strapped minorities who work for little money across the city. This can be, and I think probably is, being watched by the major newspapers as an experiment for established news sources. I'm interested in what will happen, and you should be too - this could change the way we think of newspapers not just in London, but across the UK, and if it affects the imperialist UK enough, the ripples could be felt worldwide.
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