I’ve been in central London quite a lot lately (as well as generally all over the place for weeks, which is why I’ve not been doing much in the way of blogging lately), so I’ve been delighted to be reacquainted with the horrors of the Evening Standard display boards.
Last Friday I couldn’t move for being SHOUTED AT by their signs about Ken Livingstone’s all-expenses-paid trip – sorry, junket – to China for the Olympics. On visiting their web site I find I correctly predicted the author of the piece, Ken’s creepy stalker Andrew Gilligan, but also I was quite pleased to see a good half or more of the comments were quite sensibly pointing out that the Chinese government’s use of its money isn’t really of any concern to Londoners, and asking when Gilligan was going to start the long-awaited scrutiny of Boris he promised us before the election. Nice work.
Anyway, after making such a big deal out of a story of next-to-no relevance to Londoners, I approached the Evening Standard stall at my railway station with interest this evening to see what they had to say today following Tim Parker’s surprise resignation.
Oh no, what a shame! For some completely unrelated reason, today the Standard decided there wasn’t room for any political news, or any other usual blue-bordered headline, on their boards. Instead, both boards trumpeted Team GB’s achievements at the Olympics.
My further checks revealed that the front page of both the Standard and its sister ‘newspaper’, London Lite, also splashed with the Olympics. Understandable, really – the man heralded as the central, essential brains behind Boris’s figurehead Mayoralty suddenly walking out is hardly as important to a London local newspaper as some sports results from China – or indeed the fact that a bloke who used to be Mayor has gone to watch said sports.
And they called The Londoner biased?
Tags: bias · Evening Standard · media5 Comments
5 responses so far ↓
You might like this Evening Standard headline generator - http://thesurrealist.co.uk/standard.php
I had seen that site a while ago, but it’s always nice to revisit it for a laugh
No sign of KEN as one of the images though, so it’s most unrealistic. I’m sure KEN must be one of the most used words on those boards over the past 12 months.
I looked at the ES, and the Parker resignation story has the most column inches by far, and is the first editorial. This would normally mean that it would be the front page story as well, and also be on the bill-boards. It has however been kept inside the paper and kept off the billboards.
It was the front page story in the early editions, I was surprised (and very pleased) to see that. It was only the later editions that switched to the Olympics story.
Geoff: I was passing the Standard-seller at about 16.30, so in plenty of time before their business peaked for the day. I don’t imagine nearly as many people would have seen it earlier in the day.
Perhaps they put it on the front based on the observations Guano makes, i.e. it was clearly the day’s lead story so normal procedure suggested they should do so, but then Veronica and her cat gave them a talking-to and insisted it was replaced in subsequent editions