Bikini-clad girls from Belo Horizonte to save newspapers?

September 1, 2009

super-noticia

The FT tells us that ‘Brazilian tabloids show there’s still life in print‘, citing the commendable sales of Super Notícia, a tabloid based in Belo Horizonte which sold 293,178 copies a day in May. As the FT explains:

The labourers, cleaners, taxi drivers and maids that make up the paper’s readership lap up its zingy mix of news, gossip, football and crime. “Super created a new public that had never read a journal before,” says Lúcia Castro, editor in chief. “It is a phenomenon for the city. Everybody reads it.”

Elsewhere, the FT notes that “a new urban lower middle class has grown up in Brazil. ‘Class C’ now makes up 50 per cent of the population, or 90m Brazilians. Comparisons have been made with 19th century Britain, when the first tabloids appeared to serve the working class.”

This latter point may dissuade optimists from concluding that the Super Noticia blueprint can save the UK newspaper industry, so too the paper’s daily staple of semi-clad maidens. We can’t really see them on the front of the FT (on the Telegraph, maybe, but not the FT). Then again, perhaps we should be more libertarian. Could it be that bikini-clad women will save newspapers?

 

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Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.

London Goes AWOL

January 31, 2012
CNN

STOP PRESS:

Fed up with being stuck on the Thames in south-east England, London yesterday decided to move. In a dramatic gesture which augurs ill for the Olympics, the city upped sticks and relocated to East Anglia.

Lawyers were not consulted about the move, and the city’s precise motivation remains unclear. However, financiers fear that London’s decision is a sign that it wishes to downsize. Moreover, a source from London said: “We no longer want to be Britain’s seat of power. If the Scots can deregulate, why can’t we? East Anglia is a nice place where nothing happens. It’s time for a quiet life. Please respect our right to privacy.”

Elsewhere, Birmingham did not do anything, but Manchester was seen to be packing its bags. “There’s an opportunity for us,” said Manchester. “We can become London.”

East Anglia said: “We don’t mind. It’ll be refreshing to be associated with something other than fens and flatness.”

A cartologist at CNN, which broke the extraordinary news, was later fired.