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Paper Monitor

11:00 UK time, Tuesday, 25 November 2008

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN FOR ME??? That's what Paper Monitor really wants to know today. Thank heavens then that all the papers are falling over each other to answer exactly that question.

So what imaginative ways do they find to promote their "what it means for you" guides to the casual newsstand browser? And - crucially in these tough times - who offers the MOST COVERAGE?

"What it means for you" (Times 20-page guide)
"WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU" (Daily Telegraph's "19 pages of brilliant analysis")
"Inside: What it means for you" (Independent's 16-page pull-out)
"What it means for you" (Guardian, prolix as ever, offers a "special 12-page section with the best analysis of the pre-budget report including our special at-a-glance guide to how it will hit your pocket")

The Daily Mail offers 15 pages, but for reasons unknown fails to badge that coverage as "what it means for you". This is very, very out of step with prevailing practice.

(Disclaimer: Naturally, ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website also offered an article entitled "What it means to you". Yesterday.)

The Sun's headline says it all really - "UP TO ARREARS" - proving that the job of a 20-page special pull-out can be done in just three words.

This does make Paper Monitor wonder though... is there any way the physical weight of publications can be indicative of wider trends?

This is worth further thought. Forget Natch, Porridge, Formulas et al (thanks Rick P, Your Letters, Monday). Perhaps this is the dawn of something new. Let's call it Paperweight. Anyone with an accurate pair of scales is invited to weigh a publication of their choice and let's see if we can't draw some conclusions.
photo_gq_203.jpg
Here's something to kick it off. The frankly ridiculous GQ 20th anniversary special which has nearly 600 pages comes in at 1.7kg or 3lbs 13oz. It is pictured on Paper Monitor's scales. (All those gender speculators out there should rest assured there is a bumper copy of Glamour just out of shot.) By comparison, a 1978 edition of Radio Times, with Ian Botham, Sharron Davies and Daley Thompson on the cover comes in at just 188g or 6ozs.

(Wondering why that old Radio Times was to hand? It's amazing what you find when you start saving money under the carpet in the airing cupboard.)

So submissions for Paperweight are welcome in the usual way (for the uninitiated, there's a comments button at the foot of this entry).

And there's one futher thing to say.

The Times reports today that Australians who have for so long enriched the cultural life of the United Kingdom are deciding to go home. But there is one rather large elephant in the room. Read these sentences from the paper's leader article and see if you can guess which massively influential Australian isn't mentioned. (Clue: he's now American.)

"It is no longer true, if it ever were, that the Australian migrant to Britain is a West London barworker whose only cultural contribution is a strange habit of posting statements as questions... [T]he cultural contribution of the expatriates - Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries, Nick Cave, Peter Porter - means that it is silly and patronising to say the Australians had to come here to sample the culture they lacked at home. And that is without even mentioning Rolf Harris. Or the Minogue sisters, for that matter."

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    That wouldn't be Rupert Murdoch, would it?

  • Comment number 2.

    Taxi for Racer?

  • Comment number 3.

    The weight of the online version of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is surely due to the 1s rather than the 0s in the underlying code.

  • Comment number 4.

    Is that the pointy toe of a woman's shoe in the bottom left of the GQ photo?

  • Comment number 5.

    One question, PM, why do you say that GQ weighs 3lbs 13oz when it clearly says 3lbs 12oz on the scales. Does PM need some more glasses?

  • Comment number 6.

    Spotter's badge for amysm82, although I think it might actually be the pressed crease of a trouser leg rather than a shoe (bit too narrow).

    However, as a pair of men's shoes invariably stick out from under the trouser leg when viewed in this way, I would agree that your ultimate conclusion is sound: Photograph Monitor is female.

  • Comment number 7.

    It would be very useful to have an equivalent to paperweight for electronic publications. This would allow both the producers and purchasers of the paper version to see precisely how much of the paper version most people read online. If people persistently read far under the weight online, publishers perhaps would trim their paper copies (and price tags) accordingly.

    Apologies for the awful alliteration.

  • Comment number 8.

    If you look really carefully, I think you'll find that the point is merely a shadow and the "foot" is actually a spoke of a swivel chair. PM has clearly been very careful with this photo.

  • Comment number 9.

    Are we sure it's not a small blackbird??

  • Comment number 10.

    Kitchen scales, kitchen flooring - clearly a female photographer...

  • Comment number 11.

    But it's not a real kitchen: Someone has left their headphones in there (top-left corner). If it was a real kitchen, it would have had to be tidied to appear in a photograph: anything from wiping the surface down to removing a month's worth of washing up. One of the first things to go would be the electrical headphones.

    That or it's an electric toothbrush, which would imply bathroom. Also an area commonly tiled, and scales turn up in there, too.

  • Comment number 12.

    here's something you can try - weighing GQ without adverts.

  • Comment number 13.

    I assume the one ounce difference between the article's stated GQ weight and the photographic evidence is due to Kate Moss having been removed.

  • Comment number 14.

    Thanks, everyone. Specifically:
    EvoRacer: Yes, it would.
    DannyDannyC: Be nice, now.
    Candace9839: What's 9839 in binary?
    amysym82: Maybe.
    madcaesar: You can't see the tiny three-quarters symbol. It's just rounding up.
    redbyname: Maybe.
    Teaandbikkies: Time for a cup of tea.
    DaveySwavey: Naturellement
    teazeldad: In a kitchen? Ready for the pie perhaps.
    Judgepix: Men have kitchen scales too. Or access to them. Think again.
    Teakandbikkies 2: Men leave stuff around, true. But lots of women have men. So inconclusive.
    Blythy_vxr: Ripping idea. Quite lidderally.
    Unitedabroad: Piers is still there though.

  • Comment number 15.

    A man would have taken the scales into another room to photograph them (always supposing he knew where to find them) and that flooring was definitely chosen by a woman: men don't 'get' the terracotta tile effect laminate thing :)

  • Comment number 16.

    "Candace9839: What's 9839 in binary?"

    10011001101111.....

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