Daily Mirror [TV Advertisement]

The Mirror is, as you know a newspaper. Sort of a cross between The Sun and The Guardian?

It takes the tabloid-ness of papers like The Sun and The Star, along with the political aspects of The Guardian and churns them about to produce one of Britain’s best selling ‘Red Top’ tabloid dailies.

The most obvious difference noticed between Mirror and the other two main Red Tops is that there are no Page 3 models featured in The Mirror. Good? Bad? Well that’s up to you to decide!

I’m a Mirror buyer for a number of reasons. I like the political balance of the paper. Typically they will ‘back’ the Labour Party, (as do The Guardian) whereas the others tend to back the Conservatives. The political persuasion of a newspaper is normally down to the papers owner’s, and those of the Editor.

However that’s as far as I’ll go with politics. Ciao is not the place!!

Moving on then, The Mirror features all the main news stories of the day on the first 20 or so pages. Some stories are given more focus than others, as you’d expect.

A criticism I would make is that sometimes the front-page headline is not ‘news’ in the usual sense of the word. More often than not it will be real news, but sometimes to be fair I’d wish they’d leave the latest Big Brother nomination or who’s seeing who in the pop world to the inner pages!

Alongside the news you get certain features on certain days. Fridays are good for me as Quentin Wilson (ex Top Gear – BBC2) writes an excellent page on the motoring world. He’ll tell you about the latest cars, what he’s driving, good buys around, and various other news snippets from the world of cars.

Carol Vordermann also contributes to The Mirror on a Friday, with an Internet based double spread. Often it’s aimed at the real beginners with web basics, sites to visit, do’s and don’t and the like.

For more in-depth technology and Internet news look out for Kelly’s I, written by Matt Kelly, on a daily basis. He covers Internet news, and new technologies such as GPRS, 3G, ADSL and the like. One of my personal favourites, and is a half page in the week with a two page spread in the Saturday issue.

Tuesday’s issue always has a 6-page centrepiece aimed at the female reader. It’s called M, and features fashion, beauty, clothes and other features aimed at women. M is also produced as a full colour magazine and comes free with the Saturday issue.

On a daily basis you’ll find usual pages such as a 2-page TV guide, Letters page, advice, entertainment news (The 3 am girls – or 3 Absolute Mingers as Chris Moyles calls them!!)

Advert content is typical for a paper of this calibre, so there are plenty of them (keeps the cost down) but not too many that it spoils your lunchtime read. You’ll see adverts scattered throughout, maybe 1 or 2 per page, some small, some big. There’s always a page or two of loan and car finance adverts towards the back.

If you follow sport the Mirror will serve you well. I do not follow any sport in any great depth so I cannot comment too much on the quality or accuracy of the news here, but suffice to say there are normally around 9 pages of sport. Sports that feature highly are, as you’d expect, football, rugby, golf, cricket, horseracing and motor sports.

If you are a cheapskate and want a decent and free TV guide then you could buy Saturday’s Mirror. Given away is the Look magazine, not glossy but printed on stronger quality paper than the newspaper itself. It serves me well as a TV guide, with 4 pages per day, highlights, film info (main channels) and features. There are always plenty of programme descriptions, so it’s not just a case of programme X is on at Time 123. Not all digital channels are listed, just the main ones. Yeah I know digital platforms have their own software based programme guides but it’s nice to have a ‘traditional’ accompaniment I think!

The paper also comes out on a Sunday and is more of the same, except that it’s thicker with a typical Sunday type glossy magazine. More features, interviews, clothes, puzzles, etc. I rarely purchase Sunday’s edition so I’ll not dig too deep, suffice to say that along with the day’s news in detail it has many scandal type stories – News of the World style. The type of story that has drug dealers, dodgy bootleggers, fallen MP’s and others running scared!!

Prices – Currently – Monday – Friday is 32p, a little more for Saturday’s, and 60p on a Sunday.

Produced by Mirror Group Newspapers.

Available – Duh! Everywhere!

You either buy it or don’t as most folk have their choice of paper and stick to it, much like one does with soft drinks, tea, supermarkets, well most things really! We don’t like to change do we??