The Great British Newspaper Experiment is something that had been brewing for a while. I was fascinated with the long history of British newspapers, how which newspaper you read says a lot about the person you are, and how they are categorised into five different categories by Wikipedia (Tabloid, Middle-market, Compact, Berliner, and Broadsheet). While awake at 3AM, I cam up with the idea and a set of rules within an hour or two.
The experiment would last exactly one week, from Monday to Sunday, and I would buy one newspaper a day. There would be no days with two or more (to give myself the time to really examine each one) and no days skipped.
All newspapers would be national newspapers, covering general news in a broad range of subjects. So stuff like the Financial Times is out (since it specializes in finance) and The Sentinel is out too (since that's regional rather than national).
The five categories listed would be my criteria here, with at least one newspaper from each being reviewed.
So there they are. Most of these were just to keep things sensible, but the 'no days skipped' bit was about me. I wanted to force myself to actually update the site on a regular basis for once, so I hoped setting that rule and then telling people about it would get me to keep myself on a stable sleeping pattern for a while. It mostly worked, which is a good sign, because that was something I needed to work on. I would also note that the 'one a day' clause was the best decision I made in this, as the latter papers made me feel exhausted by themselves, a second paper on top of that would've been ridiculous.
But back to the newspapers. Now I've had more time to think and compare, it's time to give further impressions on each newspaper.
I've never really thought much of this. I've seen it in pubs and taken a look at it a few times, but never really took it seriously. The fact that it was also the cheapest of all the newspapers in this experiment didn't help, but I was somewhat surprised. It did have a punarific headline and the journalistic standards weren't spectacular, but nor were the journalistic standards spectacularly bad when I looked at it, they didn't seem to be quite as gleeful as the Telegraph when it came to the decline of the Brown government, and the readers were actually speaking some common sense.
Conclusion: Some stuff that I liked, but it's still not a good source for actual news in my opinion.
I must admit that I can't recall ever reading The Times before this experiment. I expected something politically moderate with a dignified style, and that's pretty much what I got actually. I failed to see any major slant politically, and the opinion pieces felt less like soapboxes, more like actual discussions where the writer intended to convince people of what they believed. It was a bit staid, but not really overly long and probably made for the most relaxing read of the week. I really want to come back to this in the future, which I probably will.
Conclusion: Would buy again. This national institution struck me as inoffensive and informative, which is exactly what I need sometimes.
The Daily Mail is known to be quite a right-wing paper, and I was expecting a big attack on Labour on the day I bought it, but didn't really get it. They clearly didn't like the government, but never got stuck in as much as I was expecting. What struck me instead was the sheer negativity of the opinion pieces. I've seen The Guardian's writers tell me about bad things in their opinion pieces, but they always remember to end the piece with what we can do to fix the problem, which is something the Mail's writers seem to have forgotten about. After the article on South Africa, all of the nice feelings I'd gained from The Sun and The Times seems to evaporate, and my energy started to bleed away...
Conclusion: More informative than The Sun, but really bloody depressing. I'd suggest The Times, but that's far more expensive (90p for The Times against 50p for the Daily Mail), so that's no good. Why isn't there a liberal or moderate middle-market tabloid? Enquiring minds need to know!
Most expensive of the weekday papers at £1, I'm not sure if this is really worth it. It's differentiated itself from The Times these days by being more left-wing and taking on a more European layout, but that places it in the same category as The Guardian now, and I don't see what The Independent brings to make it better. There were some interesting stories though, and I ended up liking the opinion pieces (which had more of an adversarial feel than The Times) so I think it does at least warrant further investigation, probably alongside The Times.
Conclusion: The least clear of the lot, I don't think I quite get where The Independent is coming from right now, so it gets a second chance to impress me.
This was the counterpart to the Daily Mail really. While the Mail wasn't as adversarial as I expected, the Telegraph was far more adversarial than I expected. Being a broadsheet, I expected something more restrained, along the lines of The Times. What I got was a cheerleader for the death of the Brown government, fawning over both Tony Blair and David Cameron, and a general feel that not only did they think the new tax policy would drive people out of the country, they were practically willing to pack their bags and buy them a plane ticket if that's what it took to prove their point and bring down the government. But I actually ended up liking this in my own way, since I tend to be quite aggressive in my debating style, and wanted an opponent to take me on as directly as I would take them on. In The Daily Telegraph, I found a worthy opponent.
Conclusion: I may have to get this again, if only because I ended up enjoying taking on their arguments in my head and blasting some holes in them.
Always to be the least controversial, this was also the easiest to place, as I've always bought a copy of The Guardian on Saturday since 2007. I remember clearly when I revealed it as my newspaper of choice, I also remember my dad's faintly disgusted reaction. It felt a bit like coming out as gay, but it's who I am dammit! I still found good points in the comment section, good sense being spoken in the letters, and things I didn't know in the various supplements. All I want really.
Conclusion: Still the king of the newspapers to me, but I think The Independent and (to a lesser extent) The Times are posing credible threats to its weekend dominance.
At £2 and coming in its own plastic cover, I was dreading taking this one at the end of the week, and it nearly defeated me. But it actually wasn't as large or as esoteric as I feared (though the legendary Observer crossword doesn't seem to have been defanged since the transition from broadsheet to Berliner), which was good in terms of reviewing it, but bad in terms of justifying the high price tag. Still, the content itself was about as informative and interesting as The Guardian, though the comment section felt a bit lacking to me.
Conclusion: A very nice paper, but I think I'll stick with The Guardian's weekend edition.
This is a small sub-category looking at the various puzzles the newspapers had, and the quality of them. These rankings were actually made by my mum, and she ranked them from best to worst, the descriptions are me paraphrasing though. We'll start with the worst.
Simply far too hard, mum was only able to complete one of the sudoku puzzles, and was beaten back by the others. The broadsheet form factor also made it difficult to handle.
Also very difficult, with the 'Everyman Crossword' and 'Azed' being thought of as ridiculous. There was also a misprint in the 'Speedy Crossword', with a reference to 26 Across that should have been 25 Across (admittedly not a big mistake, but this was the most expensive newspaper in the experiment!).
Too easy this time, mum was able to complete everything in under an hour. There was also a mystifying and less forgivable misprint, with the competition sudoku referring to another sudoku puzzle on 'page two', despite no page two anywhere in the main paper or the supplements having any sudoku puzzles on them.
Overambition killed this one, with a four-page coffee break pullout being thought of as too long to complete on any weekday (and this was found in the Wednesday edition), which would be frustrating.
I didn't expect The Sun to be this high, but it is. Not many puzzles, but they were of a good difficulty level and of high enough quality.
This was the weekend edition, but seemed directly comparable to the weekday editions to me. As it stood, this had the right amount of puzzles, but the Killer tends to be of a rather steep difficulty level.
An excellent all-rounder here. It had the right amount of puzzles and the best difficulty level, being not too hard or too easy. The presence of a moderate Killer allowed it to one-up The Guardian, which seems to never feature any. Hence it gets First Place.
Not as trashy as expected, and had letters speaking actual sense for the most part.
A relaxing, informative, and mostly non-partisan read with the best puzzles. This could be a serious competitor.
This wasn't as vicious as I expected, but was more depressing.
My traditional favourite, and still holding that position right now.
I really wanted to like this, I did. The problem is that this was the most expensive weekday paper, but it wasn't as good for news as The Times, nor was it as good for opinion as The Guardian. Both The Times and The Guardian are cheaper as well, so who is this newspaper appealing to? Maybe no one if their current circulation and financial situation are any indication.
I finally figured out what to call this. If The Times and The Independent are 'compact broadsheets', then this is the opposite. The Daily Telegraph is an expanded tabloid. It's like the Daily Mail or the Daily Express, but longer and more expensive. I personally think they make a mockery of their own "BRITAIN'S BEST SELLING QUALITY DAILY" tagline, as it depends on the definition of 'quality', which is a criteria I personally don't think they meet.
Despite being 30p more than The Guardian's weekend edition, I didn't think this was any better. It actually felt like there was less content, and the puzzles can only be considered better if just about everything else feels far too easy. I don't see this replacing The Guardian as my weekend newspaper purchase.
So, this is the end of Phase 1, but not the end of the experiment. There were some newspapers I left out like the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express, which ended up being left out due to my self-imposed week long experiment period. I also another want to look at The Times, The Independent, maybe The Daily Telegraph, and possibly a first look at some others that I won't mention here. So I think another week long experiment is needed, hence I'm thinking up ideas for a Phase 2 with modified rules, which will likely happen sometime later this year. Probably in summer, once the weather improves to some extent. Until then, back to regular articles.
Previous: Day 7 (The Observer)Next: Phase 2 (Later in 2009)