Read all about it

05Sep12

In Britain your choice of newspaper says something about you. You might be a Guardian-reader or a Sun-reader or someone-who-takes-the-Daily-Mail-website-seriously. In some people’s eyes (usually people in marketing and communication jobs) these labels define your political views, your income, the interior decoration of your home and your attitude to the opposite sex.

Today the newspaper boy did not deliver my usual paper. The newsagent had not received any copies, so he had substituted an alternative newspaper. It was a paper that I would never buy.

I was horrified. “What on earth makes him think that I read that?” I wondered. “Do I look like a [wrong paper]-reader? What have I said or done that has given him that opinion? Is it because of where we live? Do the neighbours read this?”

Then I read it. The paper wasn’t much different from my usual one. Mostly banal stories and augmented news agency items. The columnists were self-centric and clutching at the zeitgeist, just like the ones I usually read. There were several pages of paralympic sport with good photos. The weather forecast might not have been as good. I’ll find out tomorrow.

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