The Independent

Recently, Tony Blair had the effrontery to carp at what he described as “the fusion of comment and news” by British newspapers, in effect accusing them playing free and easy with the truth. This was pretty rich, coming from someone that had done so much to elevate spin and news manipulation to their present eminence in British politics. Reflecting, though, on the antics of some of the popular press, particularly those that have bent over backwards ...
...in what he said, despite the identity of the person saying it. Then he singled out The Independent for particular attack, and at once it became obvious that this was yet another exercise in tendentious Blairite axe-grinding.

For The Independent has been stalwart not only in upholding a factual approach to news reporting, but in holding Blair’s government to account, especially for its blundering excesses in Iraq and for its destruction ... more

Recently, Tony Blair had the effrontery to carp at what he described as “the fusion of comment and news” by British newspapers, in effect accusing them playing free and easy with the truth. This was pretty rich, coming from someone that had done so much to elevate spin and news manipulation to their present eminence in British politics. Reflecting, though, on the antics of some of the popular press, particularly those that have bent over backwards to support him, one felt that there might be a germ of something in what he said, despite the identity of the person saying it. Then he singled out The Independent for particular attack, and at once it became obvious that this was yet another exercise in tendentious Blairite axe-grinding.

For The Independent has been stalwart not only in upholding a factual approach to news reporting, but in holding Blair’s government to account, especially for its blundering excesses in Iraq and for its destruction of civil rights at home on the pretext of the “war on terror”. It has been stalwart also in its readiness to publish opinions, from its columnists and correspondents, that diverge from its editorial line. The very opposite approach, in fact, to that with which Blair tried to tar it. All of which makes me feel that it’s time to update this review.

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Somewhere I once read that people switch their daily newspaper rather less often in their lives than they switch their bank, which in turn is less often than they switch their marriage partner.

Given that one can change one's newspaper at the drop of a word to the newsagent, whilst changing the other two involves a bit more rigmarole, that is a remarkable finding. Mind you, I can't remember where I read it. It may have been in the pages of a newspaper, which might reflect on its validity. On the whole, though, I would be more inclined to believe it if I read it in The Independent, to which I switched about two years ago, than if I read it in any other newspaper. Not that that's saying much, of course.

Prior to the switch I had been a regular reader of The Times for something like fifty years. This compares - for the record - with thirty-five years with the same bank and thirty-seven with the same wife, so I still stand a chance of conforming to the norm. Why did I read The Times? For no better reason, really, than because it was the newspaper with which I had grown up. No, I wasn't always - or even often - at ease with its politics, still less with its ownership, but it had comprehensive news, business and sports coverage, some readable columnists, a layout I knew my way around and a suitably - sometimes excessively - challenging crossword.

When The Independent was launched in 1990 I read the occasional issue with interest and saw much in the paper that appealed, but insufficiently to overcome the inertia that had set in over all those years. Until the 2005 General Election. At election times I always tend to read more than one newspaper, for balance, and I soon noticed that The Independent was much more in tune with my views on current questions of importance to me, like civil liberties, the environment and the occupation of Iraq, than was The Times.

The Guardian was also an option, but there is something a bit too old-leftie/public-sector-oriented about The Guardian to suit my taste.

You don't - or shouldn't - read a newspaper simply to agree with it, or even to have it agree with you. But some degree of agreement doesn't half help. So, post Election, I switched to The Independent and have not regretted that decision since.

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First, some background facts.

The Independent is a "compact" (the euphemism for "tabloid" used at the quality end of the market) newspaper published in the UK by Independent News and Media Limited. It is not, however, quite as "independent" as it was when it was launched, having been subsequently acquired by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent newspaper group. It is still, though, independent in the sense of supporting no particular political party or agenda.

The Independent appears daily, six days a week; in keeping with industry practice, I am regarding The Independent on Sunday as a separate title. Cover price, Monday-Friday, is 70p. This makes it 5p more expensive than its two main rivals. The Saturday cover price is £1.40, again a touch higher than the competition.

Average circulation per issue was 245,466 in May this year (source: Audit Bureau of Circulations), making it the lowest-circulation national, some 33% behind The Guardian.

Average readership per issue among adults in the most recent period was 741,000 (source: National Readership Survey), fewer readers than for any other national except The Financial Times. For comparison, ten times as many people read The Sun each day than read The Independent.

Clearly, my new choice of daily reading is not shared by many others, but I like it anyway. Why?

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Let's start, as I always do with a newspaper, at the back. In doing so, let us also try to make sense of the structure of the paper, since this does not emerge clearly from a casual glance. In fact, the main paper is in two sections, one called “Extra” folded inside the other, plus additional supplements Inside the inner Extra, but it’s often possible to read right through without clearly distinguishing them. Most issues of The Independent run to between 64 and 84 pages in the main paper, plus 16-24 for Extra, plus more again for the daily supplements and specials. Anyway, taking the main paper from the back forwards: -

** Main Paper **

* Sport *

The final 12-24 pages of the main paper are devoted to sport. Saturdays and Mondays see the highest sports paginations, as one might expect. All sports are given coverage, but the emphasis is naturally on the most popular, which suits me since I am essentially a football and cricket fan, with only a passing interest in the rest. Reporting tends to be focussed on the games themselves, with clear factual reporting of matches and relatively little off-pitch speculation and scandal-mongering. This again, suits me, as I have long since wearied of the effort some media devote to prying into players' private lives and twisting any manager's comment into a confrontational casus belli. The one element of The Independent’s sports coverage I don’t much like is James Lawton, apparently regarded as the paper’s star sports columnist, though one whose writing I have never found very entertaining or enlightening.

* Business *

Moving forward, we next reach the business news, which usually occupies about 10 pages. As with most newspapers, the coverage is more financial than about business in the broader sense, since financial markets move daily and are easy to comment on, whilst broader business trends are harder to identify and interpret. This used to irritate me when I was actively engaged in business. Now I'm not, so it doesn't. As a source of daily financial info The Independent seems to me at least as good as any daily except The Financial Times, and how many of us laymen need the FT's depth of coverage?

* Obituaries *

As long as people keep dying, these are likely to go on filling a page or two. I doubt that anyone selects a paper on the basis of its obituaries. I am reminded, though, that The Independent did succumb to popular hysteria a year or so ago over the death of George Best, even leading the front page with the news, and disappointed me by doing so. A talented player with a tendency to self-destruct, his was perhaps a salutary story. But a media world in which his death is regarded as the day's most important news is one that has lost its sense of proportion. Sorry.

* Editorial and Opinion *

The core of the newspaper, usually occupying just six pages. The first of them is filled with three 'leader' articles on topical subjects, plus a cartoon. The regular cartoonist, Dave Brown, draws well enough but, in my view, lacks subtlety in his humour. The 'leaders' tend to be of a similar standard - clearly written and argued, but nothing extraordinary. They do, though, unlike those in The Times, have the merit of taking a polemic line with which I often agree - libertarian, sceptical of authority, environmentally conscious - thereby exposing me to less danger of apoplexy when reading them.

The Independent maintains a sizeable roster of columnists, on whom I shall not comment comprehensively. There are, to be honest, few I make a special point of reading regularly, as I did for instance with Matthew Parris in The Times.

Johann Hari writes engagingly enough on a range of topics, as do Matthew Norman, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I am not much impressed, however, by the two main political commenters, Bruce Anderson and Steve Richards; neither seems to me to have anything very special to say, nor any very special way of saying it. Dominic Lawson as often as not I disagree with, though he can be readable enough. Adrian Hamilton, despite having been a friend of mine at university, talks sense on foreign affairs. On a lighter note, Mark Steel and Miles Kington can both be offbeat and highly entertaining.

The remainder of this section is filled with Reader's Letters, opinion pieces by guest writers on their particular hobby-horses, and a page devoted to a “big issue” (for example, from the last two days “Could an independent candidate win the US presidency?” and “Why are so many foreigners buying into English football?” presented by a staff writer with a summary of the main points on each side of the argument.

* World *

Next in the back-to-front running order, anything up to a dozen pages, covering international news that hasn't found its way into the top stories in the opening pages.

Fewer international stories in total than may be found in one or two other papers, perhaps, but those that do find their way in are usually well-chosen. Moreover, the section is studded with features as well as news stories, very often features written on environmental topics or from an environmental viewpoint. Today, for example, straddling the centre spread of the main paper is a feature about the likely upsurge in sales of cheap cars in India and the effect that will have on carbon emissions in that country.

As we shall see later when we come to the front page, The Independent gives more attention to environmental questions than any other British national newspaper, and has done for many years, not just because the topic has recently become trendy. Even if there were no other reasons for buying it - and there are - for me at least this would be sufficient.

* Europe *

This usually comprises a couple of pages of Europe-specific items not elsewhere covered in the World section. Okay, but it would be fair to say that depth of European coverage is not the paper's greatest asset.

* Home *

Much more extensive - usually upwards of twenty pages, and enlivened with features on an eclectic range of topics scattered among the news stories. On the personality front, there is a "Five Minute Interview" with someone in the news, and an upmarket celeb gossip column called "Pandora", neither of which does much for me. I do, though, enjoy the daily sharp, sardonic political sketch by Simon Carr.

* News *

News stories are generally assigned to the Home or World sections, but occasionally up to four pages from the inside front cover onwards may be devoted to particularly salient stories if these arise, irrespective of category, often leading out of the front page headline.

Where the front page is concerned, The Independent has adopted a bold approach all of its own, in that it leads the paper with issues quite as often as with news, and that the relevant issue takes up the whole front page. Of course, the issues are often ones exemplified by a current news item. For example, today the front page is devoted to the British government’s blocking of an EU charter on fundamental rights, and questioning its doing so. An excellent posture, in my view, and typical of the paper. It frequently leads the paper with reports from Iraq or with items about the environment.

You don't - or shouldn't - read a newspaper simply to agree with its front page. But it doesn't half help.

** Extra **

The light relief (and occasionally heavy relief) bit in the middle that encompasses:

- General features, on an eclectic medley of topics so various that I hesitate to try to summarise them, even by example, but the arts, both highbrow and popular, sociological, political and environmental subjects are all covered, sometimes in the form of interviews or biographies.

- Regular sub-sections, usually appearing on a regular day or days each week. On Science and Technology, for example, on Fashion and Style, on the Arts (including Reviews), and on Health. These again are professionally presented, though one is unlikely to read them unless interested in the subject. I generally read the Arts bit, except when it consists of Tracey Emin writing about herself. Plus a (to me) rather meaningless cartoon strip called As If, by Sally Ann Lasson.

- Regular columns. These include “The Green Goddess” Julia Stephenson on the environmental lifestyle; fashion, health, and food and drink features by various writers ; and "Sleeping Around" an autobiographical account of the topic by Catherine Townsend, which I found great fun at first but which I have to say is becoming slightly repetitive. How many ways are there in which to sleep around, after all? (Please don't feel obliged to answer this question.)

- Some regular mini-features, e.g. an odd assortment of Top Tens, such as the top ten in Men's Knitwear, Gadgets to buy this month, or Cycling Gear. Also under this general heading I'd include Virginia Ironside's Dilemmas, which is an interesting take on the Agony Aunt concept, whereby the pertinent problem is outlined one week and then responded to the next - not just by Virginia herself but by readers who have written in during the week.

- TV and Radio. The round-up of the previous night, usually amusingly written up by Thomas Sutcliffe, and the night's preview. As for the listings themselves, I can detect no sign of these being better or worse in The Independent than in other papers. One seems to have much the same stuff flung at one over the airwaves whatever one reads.

- Weather. Ditto.

- Games and puzzles. The main cryptic crossword is slightly less difficult than that in The Times, which is a relief; the 'concise' crossword is even more simplistic. The Sudoku (three puzzles daily, ranging from elementary to advanced) are okay, but rather samey - or maybe all sudokus are rather samey, and this is only just beginning to dawn on me.

* Extras *

Such is are the two main sections, but every day there are added extras, sometimes welcome, sometimes less so.

Monday brings the Media supplement, which is substantial (usually 20 pages, with very few ads - for some reason The Guardian seems to own this classified market) and interesting. The media are always at their most motivated when discussing the media. The supplements then head downhill through the middle of the week with Motoring (Tuesday), Property (Wednesday) and Education (Thursday), my copies of which go all for recycling unread. Things perk up again on Friday with the Arts and Book Review, which also covers Music, Theatre and Film. Lots of good reading to be had there.

As with most newspapers, Saturday is the big day for added extras, including: a Magazine with all the usual lifestyle stuff of such magazines, eminently dispensable in my opinion; a Travel Section, eminently enjoyable; a Money section, eminently unexceptional; and The Information, their round-up of the forthcoming week's TV, Radio and other entertainment, eminently useful. Plus the sixteen-square Saturday Sudoku keeps me occupied for at least an hour each weekend. It has, perhaps, less additional weight of newsprint on a Saturday than its main competitors - but with The Times I always found it annoying to be throwing so much paper out unread.

Apart from those regular supplements, The Independent is strong on occasional extras. Many have been concerned with the environment. The two parts each of 'Your Planet and How You Can Save it' and of 'Disappearing World' are still among the reading matter available to visitors to the loo at my house! There have also been poster-sized environmental maps. Other extras, informed and informative even to someone who takes a close interest in the matter, have dealt with Iraq. Superb stuff, which I don't believe we would have had from any other British newspaper.

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So, two years since the big switch, was it all worthwhile and, more specifically, worth the extra 5p a day?

Looking at the detailed description and analysis above, it's hard to justify in simple value-for-money terms. To be honest, I don't think The Independent is a great daily newspaper. It's very good, but not great; but then, I don't think any of its rivals is great either. In fact, the more I see of the rivals these days, the less I think of them. And when I see The Times, I wonder how I managed to stomach it for so long.

It's readable and well put together, and now I am accustomed to it, quite as easy as The Times to find my way around. I am glad of its non-partisan independence of attitude, and I am glad I am no longer contributing to the Murdoch coffers every morning.

Above all, though, I am glad I am supporting a newspaper that hates what the current British government is doing in Iraq and in its destruction of our rights as citizens, hates what we are all doing to the delicate natural balance of the world we live in, and which is not afraid to say so.

And if it’s managed to rile Tony Blair, so much the better. As a splendid article about Blair by John Gray in today’s issue of The Independent says: “It’s not so much that Blair is economical with the truth as that he lacks the normal understanding of it. For him, truth is whatever serves the cause.” I am thankful that there is still a newspaper around with the guts, insight and eloquence to say such things.

© torr, first published in its original version, December 2005

Apart from the printed paper, an online version can be found at www.independent.co.uk. 

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