Heartland

prompted by one or two recent discussions i'd be interested to know which, if any, newspapers my fellow heartlanders regularly peruse. either in the old-fashioned printed wood pulp method or via this new-fangled information-super-web-net thingie.

apologies to those unfortunate enough to reside outside of the uk. do feel free to vote though if you happen to have any experience at all of uk papers.

None of the above. I read Dagens Nyheter (Todays News)

Cape Argus and Cape Times. Mainly www.iol.co.za

My boss buys the Sun and the Express for the office every day. Extreme to both titles.

On the odd occasion I buy a paper I take the Guardian, but most of my "news" input comes from Private Eye (print) or the BBC (TV and web).

I don't do tabloids. I don't do broadsheets (unless I'm after extra room on the tube in the morning) so it's usually the Express. Can't handle anything too highbrow on the train at 0730 in the morning and the only other alternative would be the evil, racist, nazi owned Mail. So that's a no-no.

... Het Nieuwsblad ...

If I did it would be the Independent, as I read it at my parents when I'm there. I have occasionally bought the Sunday edition, but rarely had time to read it. I usually rely on the evening news and Today/ PM to keep me abreast of what's with the world. Oh, and more recently, you fine people, of course.

I've never been a newspaper-reader, but I used to get the Evening Standard to pass the time on the hour-long train ride home from work. It's primarily soft news without being dead trashy, as I remember. Not sure of the politics, though (I usually skip those sections).

Most of the times I read De Standaard online, and look at the VRT news on telly or online.
For all gossip, hearsays and half-truths I refer to the HL forum...


IZ.

The Evening Standard is also owned by Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail) with the Rothermere family at the helm.

"Founded in 1896 by two brothers, Alfred and Harold Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe and hereditary Viscount Rothermere), the Daily Mail soon became an establishment paper ready to take on erring government officials, no matter how senior. It gloried in the Empire and the monarchy but increasingly found little time for the poor and disadvantaged.

In recent years the Mail has created a fantasy world of its own. Its inhabitants are exclusively white, rich, employed, home-owning and contented. They have children within marriage, abide by family values (most Victorian) and respect the royals. But this cosy utopia is under constant threat by undesirables - gays, the unemployed, ‘scroungers’ of state benefits, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, multiculturalists, teachers who fail to discipline, modern artists, ... Hardly a day goes by without one or other of this group being lectured to or roundly abused. Stories about ‘floods’ of illegal immigrants and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers entering Britain have become an obsession.

The Mail peddles a lethal brew of patriotism, xenophobia and hypocritical moralising. Readers are treated to episodes of the Empire days, warned that British values are under threat while resident pundits lament the widespread moral decay in their midst. The Daily Mail together with two other rightwing dailies, Daily Telegraph and the Sun virtually dictate political debate in Britain and can intimidate politicians into going for tougher policies than their natural instincts would favour. These papers have fuelled prejudices, dulled people’s sensitivities to suffering of the less fortunate and generally injected a hardness and meanness into British public life.

Said the Daily Express (the Mail’s competitor):

“For decades the Daily Mail has piously preached about patriotism and family values but what of the aristocrats behind it?� The first owner was an avid supporter of Hitler, his grandson kept a mistress in Paris for 15 years and drove his wife to drink. The current Lord Rothermere has an illegitimate child.

Michael Grade, head of Pinewood Studios and formerly of TV Channel 4 said: “The Daily Mail has had its way too long. It is the voice of Little England.�

Stephen Fry (writer & actor) said: “It typifies everything that is most shameful about this country in terms of its xenophobia...�.

Sir Richard Branson (transport & tourism) said: “The one paper that most people find pretty loathsome is the Daily Mail.�

source(s) for that jb? not that i'm about to start defending the mail but i'm intrigued as to where you found such a stream of invective. and i have trouble taking seriously anyone who cites the express to back-up their condemnation of the mail

RicheyJames wrote:i have trouble taking seriously anyone who cites the express to back-up their condemnation of the mail

Indeed. The Express' proprietor Richard Desmond is hardly the most "squeaky clean" of press barons...

And here I just thought the Standard had a good magazine insert on Thursday...

And it only cost 15p two days out of the week...

I'm not a nazi, I swear!

Fair comment RJ.

I found it here.

http://www.goacom.com/overseas-digest/M ... arons.html

as the Rothermere name had escaped me. The author of the site doesn't appear to have a good word to say about any media baron (Richard Desmond takes a hammering as well) but the Mail rant closely echoed my own personal opinions. I do find it thoroughly objectionable.

As long as you are talking about The Standard, and not De Standaard, I'm ok with everything

IZ.

CorpPunk wrote:And here I just thought the Standard had a good magazine insert on Thursday...

Fridays? The weekend mag? No insert on Thursdays now.

CorpPunk wrote:And it only cost 15p two days out of the week...

Nope. Times are hard at Associated so it's now 40p every day.

See? Cross the pond and all those memories of good old blighty become just that, memories.

Johnny Boy wrote:

CorpPunk wrote:And here I just thought the Standard had a good magazine insert on Thursday...

Fridays? The weekend mag? No insert on Thursdays now.

CorpPunk wrote:And it only cost 15p two days out of the week...

Nope. Times are hard at Associated so it's now 40p every day.

See? Cross the pond and all those memories of good old blighty become just that, memories.

Meeemorieees... Yeah, it was about three years ago now. Which should demonstrate how NOT devoted I am to that allegedly fascist rag anyway. Humph.

Of course, I may have just made the whole damn thing up. Can't really tell anymore, these days.

Dear Deidre from the Sun kicks ass but apart from that I don't read any newspapers.

RicheyJames wrote:and i have trouble taking seriously anyone who cites the express to back-up their condemnation of the mail

Ditto. And give me a Daily Mail reader over a Spanish floating voter anyday.

BBC online more than owt else....

Paddy.

On Weekends - Saturdays "Mirror" - with decent free TV Guide and Wales On Sunday

During the week - BBC News Online and Local TV News

I also buy two Local Papers - The Barry and District and The Penarth Times - just to keep an eye on "Crime Rates" and other "News"

I read the Lincolnshire Echo - it's good to keep abreast of who's shoved a trolley in the Witham, who's sat in a bath of custard or shaved their hair off fer charridee and how many letters Max Nottingham has written into the Editor.

And I need to make sure my mates aren't dropping dead, breeding or getting hitched without me knowing about it!!

Read the Guardian because my parents always had it, I grew up with it and I can now rifle through it in 20 minutes knowing I've read everything I'd care about and missed nothing important. Familiarity is _so_ important.

Have an abiding contempt for Mail, Express and Star: politically ill-conceived and (in the latter two cases) very badly put together.

Sneaking admiration: Sun and Telegraph. Don't like their politics, but the Sun is a superbly constructed newspaper in terms of lay-out, style and consistency. It really sucks you in, and has provided a huge majority of the headlines that people still quote years later. I'd rather they didn't do the job that they do, but credit to them for doing it well.

The Telegraph is what the Mail should be - a coherently argued right-wing title. More "small-c" conservative, I suppose, but able to engage its readers in some sort of debate about its beliefs. I tend to prefer its comment pages to the Guardian's: it's a bit less smug at the moment.

Standard: horrid. Doesn't know whether it's a national or a regional paper and fails to be either. Suffers from being a paper for London which doesn't actually know or like the city very much. Commuter fodder, and all but unreadable. People who read this deserve to have Ken Livingstone ban them from driving a car ever again.

Should also mention that I work for a local evening paper. We should be better than we are, IMHO, but we prefer to embark on pointless campaigns. For example we are anti-speeding cameras (because people should be allowed to break the law as long as they only do it a little bit) and currently we're clamping down on "dangerous" parking outside schools. Impressively every parent we've spoken to at local primary schools thinks it's dangerous for their kids at closing time. Once they've driven to the school gates to collect Kylie and Brett, that is ...

On the plus side, we are fairly thorough and we are at least willing to challenge the authorities wherever possible. I've read, and worked for, much worse.

Mon - Fri: The Irish Times
Tues: The Independent (for the law report)
Sat: The Irish Times & The Guardian
Sun: The Observer & The Sunday Tribune.
Read Dutch papers online