Dear Reader,
I have just done something a bit odd - sat down on a sofa and read through a broadsheet newspaper. The paper itself is The Telegraph, and the reason was that Telegraph Media Group have unwisely floated a graduate trainee scheme, meaning their servers will shortly crash under the weight of thousands of knackered would-be hacks like myself.
Being familiar but not much, I decided to buy one and properly go through it. The first thing is the size: the broadsheet format was first abandoned by The Guardian, then The Times, but the Telegraph hangs on, among the illustrious company of the Financial Times and the Sunday Times: the aspirational newspapers. What exactly is it about disappearing behind 4 sq ft of newsprint that marks one out as upwardly mobile?
The news agenda is dominated by politics and business. The front page has 4 stories about politics, offset by a 'quirky piece' about women being better with gadgets than men, and with a big picture of the Duchess of Cornwall with her hair blowing in the wind. A Guardian pundit branded this 'misogynist' on TV last night, but she is surely missing the point: the Telegraph is not poking fun at Camilla, the picture is merely meant to be 'jolly', which is a word meaning a quaint, old-fashioned form of 'fun': indeed, the Duchess smiles broadly at the camera as her locks blow around, like some belle of a British seaside town in a jaunty 30's photograph.
Anyway, passing to the inside: 1~16 News, 18~19 'News Digest', 20~23 World News, 24 Puzzles, 25~30 Comments and Features, 31 Technology, 33~34 'Music on Thursday', 35 Arts, 36 Court and Social, 37 Obits, 38~39 TV& Radio, 40 Weather and Crossword. Plus a 10 page business supplement, featuring the 'Alex' cartoon that is such an insitution it spawned it's own West End play last year (put on, appropriately, in a theatre that coexists with a member's club ). Sounds a bit thin? Don't forget that the pages are double size. The sports supplement has slipped into the demotic, and comes in at 20 pages in Berliner format - I'm told the cricket writing is excellent. Well, it would be. Also, note that the Telegraph has not permitted it's lighter content to break free and form a seperate supplement (i.e. times2, G2). Oh no. The lighter stuff is kept firmly within the parental folds.
Part of the pleasure of reading through any newspaper is guessing, from the editorial content, news priorities and adverts, who exactly the typical reader is. The adverts are as much of a clue here as anywhere: 2 full-page adverts for mid-market around-the-world cruises are an indicator of retirees, as are adverts for stairlifts and cardigans. The state-of-the-nation address of the articles and editorial content would suggest an audience of decision makers, but the paper is stuffed with adverts for cut-price presents: our imagined retired Whitehall official disappears, and is replaced with a man living anywhere from the more comfortable to the more precarious parts of the middle class, perhaps ekeing out the pension to cover those petty luxuries - nice wine, a broadsheet subscription - into his dotage. The letters page shows locations mostly in the Home Counties.
The comment section provides the key to understanding the serious bent of the news agenda: two pieces, by Benedict Brogan and Edmund Conway respectively, talk about 'the state of the nation' - the first an upbeat piece about how the Olympics will lift the mood of the nation, and the second a righteous rejoinder to all those who might dare say that the UK manufacturing sector is dead. The first ends with Brogan seeing " in those five rings a potent motor for the job of national reconstruction that must now preoccupy us." The second ends with a more jocular version of jingo "... it is quite possible to envisage a bright future for Britain. Stranger things have happened: why, much as we hate to admit it, we have even won the occasional sporting tournament."
So there we have it. The Telegraph standing with sword in hand, provoking concern about the state of the nation, and swearing to protect it as well. On behalf of a nostalgic group of people who may have had very little to do with affairs of state in their working lives, but hang onto the 'national interest' as their specialist topic, especially seeing as their wife is the one who has mastered the TV digibox and microwave. I had forgotten to mention that their PR material boasts about a digital service providing expats, so it is likely that a lot of these nation-builders now live abroad.
Odd? Yes, actually - my preferred news providers go more for human interest - The Times ran a page 3 piece on the collapse of the Dubai housing market today. The BBC covers Jedward. It is not until you read the Telegraph that you realise how much of what is news is not covered by a seemingly catch-all phrase like 'the national interest'. To wax Wildean: the national interest no longer interests the nation.
A mention of the Telegraph would not be complete without a mention of Simon Heffer, its assistant editor, who, along with John Humphrys and Lynne Truss, forms a triumvirate of pedantry that has elected itself joint defender of the English language. I sit on the fence as far as language goes: I wince at misspellings but recognise that language is just a system for transmitting meaning. And language can transmit meaning without observing most of the rules that Mr Heffer so splenetically defends in his style notes, which I love reading to indulge my closet pedant. The phrase "We are still embarassing ourselves with homophones" cuts so many ways. I feel that Heffer is too good a character not to appear soon in my other life (see also here).
I have painted too cruel a picture of the Telegraph and it's readers - I think it was a slow news day, and tomorrow's front page (appeared half an hour ago - see right) - suggests something more upbeat, perhaps indeed deserving 'digital publisher of the year'.
Reading a newspaper is itself beginning to feel quaint, and that has coloured my interpretation. This is the same week, after all, that I have figured out how to embed links into blog posts, finally mastered the basics in a digital video editing suite, and am currently configuring an RSS newsfeed site to cater to my news whims. All this so I can finish an even more unwieldy blogpost explaining my idea of how the media landscape will change in the next 5 years. Let's hope I finish it soon ... it's what this nation needs, after all.
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