A popular paper

[tharun]

This is addressed to people in the US,

This is mainly because you poor americans are lacking a POPULAR popular paper just yet. I was thinking it would be good to launch a new daily newspaper. Some of the key features would be:

-Poorly written sensationalist leaders and main stories, mainly aimed at adults with a 'reading age' of less than 12. They would be insanely biased, though most readers wouldn't notice because it will be aimed at stupid people.

- A regular feature on page 3, which would be a topless photo of a girl every single day. The average age would be 18. We'd get a few 16 yr olds, a few 21 yr olds, but in general keep it to teenagers. School uniforms once a week or so would be good.

- We'd make the articles blatantly right wing whilst claiming to be somewhat supporting the working man. We have to cover all bases you know. We could run features about the incoming disaster posed by more indian/african/eastern european immigration. I think this would appeal to what I like to call the 'racist class'

- What might work well would be a "count down until she's 16 feature" where we post half naked pictures of 15yr olds until her birthday, then feature her topless whenl she turns 16. This would encourage people to buy the newspaper each day.

-I think the main focus of the newspaper, apart from topless teenagers, should be moralising and celebrity gossip. I think this is particularly important. We could celebrate celebrity every day, feature pictures of them undressed or almost undressed and say how hot they are. We could also have big exposes of the DISGUSTING things celebrities do and criticize them unmercilessly. Especially when celebrities dare to have sex, that NEEDS to be exposed to everyone, and should make the front page about 2 or 3 times a week. But we definitely need lots of topless teenagers too.

So, would this go down well in the US?

Oh yeah, this is a pretty good description of The Sun, the most popular newspaper in the United Kingdom (so all those people who thought Britain was cultured can.. well.. be disallusioned =) ) It sells about 3.5million copies a day (equivalent of about 14million a day in the US). Its about time you yanks got a nice blue-collar newspaper with topless teenagers every day of the week! I hope the wonderful Rupert Murdoch blesses you all with a similar newspaper. (though I suspect one or two moral and christian groups might have a problem with this)

Oh if you want to check The Sun out, you can find it online at www.thesun.co.uk . Of course, we also have daily newspapers which aren't so interested in quality journalism, yet still outsell the 'broadsheet' quality newspapers. Ones you might like to check out are www.dailystar.co.uk (the star, a 'step down' from 'The Sun') and www.dailysport.co.uk ( the sport, a 'step down' from the daily star)

-tharun

PS. No these are not topshelf publications, these are the most popular newspapers in the country delivered to approximately 6 million homes around the country every day, which a 5 year can buy if he so wishes =)

[Malacasta]

Did you make this up, or do they really do this?

What might work well would be a "count down until she's 16 feature" where we post half naked pictures of 15yr olds until her birthday, then feature her topless whenl she turns 16. This would encourage people to buy the newspaper each day.

[Kraxe]

The Sun really did this.

However, far worse is their recent piece where their editor, Rebekah Wade, allowed a article to run denouncing a recent art exhibition where an artist had pictures of her five year old daughter in the nude on display. This part of the exhibition has since been closed.

The Sun in it's wisdom decided to 'educate' their readership, by printing a picture from the exhibition alongside a picture they claim they got from a child pornography website. The tag line ran -

'One of these pictures is from a trendy art exhibition, the other is from a child porn site. CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE?'

Understandably, and thankfully, there was an unprecedented number of complaints in relation to this. She ran an editorial the next day to defend her decision.

'Many readers were shocked by the child porn picture that we printed yesterday. That was our intention. The vile exploitation of innocent children IS shocking. The Sun makes on apologies for its actions.'

Just the downloading of this picture, let alone reprinting it in some three million copies of a newspaper, is an offence. It's probably an offence to buy the paper if it contains this picture. In her defence she would probably say she'd downloaded it for research purposes. Just what Pete Townsend said when he was caught with child porn.

Back then, Wade ran an editorial after he was practically let off insisting that he should have received much harsher punishment. To quote Ms Wade 'every person who views child pornography - even if only once - creates a market for the evil peddlers of such filth.'

Thanks to the Rebekah Wade and the Sun, every reader of that paper has now viewed child pornography - at least once.

As ms Wade says, the vile exploitation of children is shocking. I only hope ms Wade is arrested and charged and that her and the newspaper are severely punished as soon as possible.

[Azyael]

This is a -newspaper-?

As I was looking over the website, I felt like I had accidently crossed over to playboy.com.