Extra Extra! British People Read More Than Americans!

I picked up a copy of The Independent for the first time a couple days ago at a nearby convenience store in order to have a first glance at a UK newspaper. There are many aspects of the British media that I find very interesting and different in comparison to newspapers such as The New York Times in the United States. But before I get a head of myself, let’s talk about The Independent.

The daily newspaper was lunched on October 7, 1986, exactly 4 years before I was born. Other than it being the best day ever, it was also during a great change in British publication. The Wapping Dispute was a strike that occurred against Rubert Murdoch’s company, News International, by the National Union of Journalist because of a stall in negotiations. News International, which owns The Times, decided to move its printing plant to the British province of Wapping and alter the job conditions for journalist working under Murdoch’s newspapers. Angered by the poor offer, the NUJ went on strike in protest. However, the strike ended in failure as 6,000 employees were fired. This led two former employees to challenge The Times and other politically affiliated national newspapers, ergo The Independent was born.

Now that I’ve given you a brief history of how the newspaper started, let’s look at some of the basic characteristic of British newspapers. From what I can tell during my first week in London is that there seems to be many more readers here. You see people reading the news while waiting for the Tube, at a restaurant and at public parks. I decided to check the amount of circulation in the UK. It was astonishing to find out the circulation is much higher than the United States. This seems to be ridiculous when you consider the populations of both countries. Another interesting fact is that the newspapers here all tend to have a political bias. The Guardian is considered more left wing while The Times is moderately right.  The Independent is recently seen as leaning a little more to the left, but traditionally is considered a non-affiliated media outlet.

From what I observed so far, I think this bias in newspapers attracts people to read the news. People want to read what they like and I feel as if the media outlets give it to them, especially the tabloids. One final thought, I heard from someone on this trip that people know where you stand politically just by noticing the newspaper held in your hand. Now that’s something.