Posts Tagged ‘ journalism ’

Danny Smith: Backstabbers Guide to Wolverhampton

Danny Smith: Backstabbers Guide to Wolverhampton

In the slow news week between Christmas and New Years the BBC decided that it would be newsworthy to point out how shit Wolverhampton was. My first reaction was ‘have these people never been to Coventry?’ I mean our sister site, Wolverhampton: it doesn’t suck dog shit from the treads of a zombie’s hush puppies probably wont mind me saying that Wolvo is a bland wasteland of chain shops, a middlingly terrible football team with England’s most soulless and dispiriting ground and only a decent sized music venue to redeem it. But compared to the seventh ring of concrete hell that is Coventry, Wolverhampton is a mythical Shangri-La where lemonade runs from the taps and tramps vomit rainbows. Its also not the first time Lonely Planet has had a pop at Wolverhampton or the Midlands in general. It seems we are the Lonely Planet’s go-to guys if they need quick bit of publicity. A bit like the Express resorting to anything Diana related when their figures dip, but instead of placing us on an impossible plinth, they piss all over our chips, our arms, and our hair. Transit Trio, Wolverhampton, 1980., originally uploaded by Lady Wulfrun. These polls are...

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Business before pleasure? The Post relaunches

The journalism blogosphere (a place where the word dinosaur is used more than any palaeontology convention) is awash with news of the Birmingham Post’s (and it’s owner Trinity Mirror’s) relaunch plans. In short (apart from changes in the production process, which aren’t unique to any newspaper these days — more cross platform working, job losses unfortunately) there were three big threads: going tabloid (in size rather than attitude) dropping the Saturday edition “focusing on business news” While I might say I would prefer the Post to go Berliner in size (a la the Guardian) that would require a big investment, whereas the tabloid size is well established. Papers and magazines have been reducing in size for a few years, without any noticeable drop in quality, so I’m sure that will pan out okay. Not publishing on Saturdays is really en extension of the decision to focus in on business readers. If the sales (2,000 lower of a Sat – 20% lower according to the Press Gazette) on Saturdays don’t produce enough profit as it is then a business focused paper on a weekend would struggle more. Both of these things are related to people consuming news online a lot...

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