Until June last year, I’d been a regular reader and big fan of The Independent. I found it a challenging and innovative newspaper. I switched to The Guardian after an attempt was made to amend a piece of government legislation (The RIP act to enable certain bodies outside of law-enforcement to access online information) by the back door. The Independent didn’t cover it at all, and I ditched it.
Until then, I’d been a long time reader. Back in 1997, on my return from Germany, I enjoyed it’s redesign and stunning use of photography on the front pages a true challenge to the established formats of broadsheets newspapers.
At the time, I read that the Independent had considered turning itself into a tabloid format. I didn’t think much of it then, but as time passed I always felt it was something of a missed opportunity. In London, on the tube, reading a broadsheet can be a challenge (unless you’ve mastered the art).
So, I was surprised to hear on the radio on Friday afternoon that the Independent was actually planning on launching a tabloid edition. Tuesday saw this version of the newspaper launched inside the M25, and despite my frustration at the papers oversights on certain civil liberties issues - something the Guardian does very well - I’m planning on giving the paper another try, at least for a few weeks. A quality tabloid is sadly missing. Tabloid is pretty much accepted as synonymous for ‘down market, right wing and populist’ in Britain, and if the Independent succeeds on a wider scale, it’d be superb. I very much doubt readers would desert The Sun and Mirror in droves, but readers of the Guardian (such as myself), Telegraph and Times may reconsider on the basis of convenience.
I picked up a copy yesterday, and on the whole found it everything I had hoped it to be. My girlfriend didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t stapled, like The Metro - which is a fair comment.
Similarly, the ‘review’ section isn’t separate. It’s bolted in the middle. It’d be nice to still have two sections to the paper. And why the review section comes before Business and Sport, I don’t know. Sport on the back pages, agreed. But the rest smacks of convenience of formatting (understandable with a dual format, presumably).
Other than those minor gripes, it’s the lack of gripes that’s the amazing thing. It’s more convenient, certainly (although my train was packed to capacity yesterday morning, meaning no paper reading was going to happen: tabloid or not). It reads the same. I just hope they can keep up the good work, and roll it out to other areas.
Will they ditch the broadsheet format altogether? It’d be a shame to see it go. But more for nostalgic reasons than anything else. The paper has financial woes, so if this doesn’t succeed in increasing their circulation things will be getting desperate. I was puzzled by the lack of prominence to advertising I sometimes get in a tabloid. I suppose that will only increase as things are settled.
It’ll be interesting to see how other broadsheets react. I can’t imagine the Guardian doing this. Their tabloid section is invariably huge as it is, so to do the whole thing as a tabloid will result in a brick. I imagine it’ll be a ‘wait and see’ approach. But it’s certainly different, and I wish them luck. I’ll be revisiting this subject in a few weeks time.
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