The lady who organises the delivery of newspapers to our village, has stopped doing so, and we no longer have a daily newspaper. Perhaps this is a simple example of the decline in rural services; when we arrived here there was a milkman and a post office cum village shop, both sadly long gone. For years we have taken The Times, a habit both Tracy and I took up at our separate Universities when they ran a half price for students promotion. Newspapers are there less to provide news than comment today since we get our news from radio, tv and internet so I have enjoyed reading columnists Simon Jenkins, William Rees-Mogg, Mathew Parris, Michael Gove (now a Conservative front bencher), Danny Finkelstein, and even on occasions Mary-Anne Siegart and Mick Hume. Tracy particularly likes Parliamentary sketchwriter Anne Treneman, Caitlin Moran, has a passion for the crossword and Sudoku and so has continued to buy The Times most days.
By contrast I have become a newspaper flirt with a different title each time I go to the newsagents. I have often been told I should read The Telegraph more often (not bad advice while I was coming up in front of selection committees) and another piece of advice was to read the paper of political opponents to better understand and therefore oppose their arguments. So I often buy The Independent or The Guardian and now I come to think of it read both for a while when they were being given away free at the gym. At work the Daily Mirror is often left in the canteen as is The Sun which I will often glance through and not just for the obvious reason. I paid particular attention to The Sun in the run up to the 2005 election when with their strong line on illegal traveller encampments and the asylum seekers, I felt sure that they would come out and support us as we got closer to election day. Of course they didn’t in the end, no doubt because the right contacts hadn’t been established at the highest level, and we were left to rue their decision. What that showed was that, despite the new and more immediate media, The Press still has a big influence and it important that we continue to work closely with them if we want to get our message across in the terms we want. In the meantime, I wonder which paper i will go for tomorrow…….
By contrast I have become a newspaper flirt with a different title each time I go to the newsagents. I have often been told I should read The Telegraph more often (not bad advice while I was coming up in front of selection committees) and another piece of advice was to read the paper of political opponents to better understand and therefore oppose their arguments. So I often buy The Independent or The Guardian and now I come to think of it read both for a while when they were being given away free at the gym. At work the Daily Mirror is often left in the canteen as is The Sun which I will often glance through and not just for the obvious reason. I paid particular attention to The Sun in the run up to the 2005 election when with their strong line on illegal traveller encampments and the asylum seekers, I felt sure that they would come out and support us as we got closer to election day. Of course they didn’t in the end, no doubt because the right contacts hadn’t been established at the highest level, and we were left to rue their decision. What that showed was that, despite the new and more immediate media, The Press still has a big influence and it important that we continue to work closely with them if we want to get our message across in the terms we want. In the meantime, I wonder which paper i will go for tomorrow…….
