Anybody walking into a London newsagent this weekend could be forgiven for thinking that the newspapers have been replaced by party political posters. Fleet Street’s lack of balance is staggering.
The klaxon has been sounding for years. British newspaper sales are currently falling at a rate of more than 8 percent annually. In fact, the now defunct News of the World sold more copies 25 years agothan the 10 nationally distributed London-based Sunday titles can muster together today.
Take the Guardian for example. Staffed by a group of hacks who've chosen to follow Oscar Wilde's advice on self-worship, it’s obsessed with its own importance. However, its circulation figures are somewhat more sobering. The pompous bastion of liberalism sells 176,000 copies per edition. By contrast, Hello! magazine shifts 276,000.
Proprietors and editors almost universally attribute the collapse of their industry to the rise of the internet. This is much too simplistic. In reality, standards have slipped dramatically in recent years, accelerating the decline. Editorial content is being ripped to shreds by bean counters, creating a vicious circle. With less pagination and staff to generate palatable copy, sales fall even faster leaving less cash to arrest the downward spiral. Facts are no longer sacred and views trump news.
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