Paper Monitor
11:43 UK time, Monday, 14 July 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor has such a short attention span that the things that occur to say about the weekend papers have usually dispersed into the ether by the time one's Monday morning's eyeshade is in place.
But there have been such changes in the Sunday Times, with its relaunch last week, that a special effort of memory was in order.
Firstly one should perhaps say that, though one generally enjoys the weekday Times, the Sunday Times hasn't ever quite hit the mark for Paper Monitor. It's big, yes, and it has multifarious sections, natch. But it's felt a bit like a wedding buffet - lots on offer and you can see why people might be queuing up, but one would rather have a sit-down meal.
Well, the relaunch has now introduced full colour, a new typeface, new design and something of a different tone. Actually to be honest, if one did a blind test - all obvious clues as to the paper's identity removed - it would be quite hard to tell. In general, one is more likely to read the Sunday Times following this relaunch than beforehand.
Long-time readers of this column will know the special affection Paper Monitor has for those occasions when newspaper talk about themselves, usually at times of redesign. They are normally full of all sorts of guff (), but this example of small-minded minutiae is just the sort of thing Paper Monitor loves, and would gladly award kudos all round if 91Èȱ¬ policy permitted.
To whit: "Last week we invited you to tell us what you like, and what you didn't, about the new design of your paper... Some of your suggestions we have been able to act upon immediately: you will notice that we have increased the point size and added more weight to the type in fact boxes, sidebars and graphics. Some readers also expressed a preference for a larger size of body-copy type and next week we will increase it from 9.1 to 9.3pt on a slightly wider leading."
Now that's accountability.
How, then, will the paper's weekday sister (brother?) the Times respond to the reader who writes in, noting the fondness for illustrating education articles with pictures of attractive female students. Triplets, to judge by the photo the paper helpfully reprints alongside.
With GCSE and A-level season almost upon us, C. Osborne, of Hadfield, Derbyshire, requests assurances that reports will be illustrated with "spontaneous and unposed photographs of attractive girls opening envelopes, hugging effusively, jumping for joy, forming human pyramids etc, and that no exam success whatsoever is predicted for girls who are fat, spotty or plain, and certainly for no boys at all".
No response from the paper's powers-that-be as of yet, but do keep an eye out when exam results fall due.
The 
