I see this week's Newbury Weekly news had more junk to burden West Berkshire's recycling services; pages of garbage on what children want for Christmas...and this is news because?

What a complete waste of time. If I buy a newspaper, I expect it to print news, not whimsical tut.

GET IT RIGHT NWN.

You must be aware that local newspapers are closing in their droves. With the publication of this sort of material, I'm not surprised.

Err... They ARE getting it right! Attempting to appeal to people who don't presently buy NWN. Going back to 1960s style certainly won't appeal to many these days. If we are honest, the market for a paid paper press is declining very rapidly.

This will probably make the plant and editorial staff loosing their jobs after Christmas feel so much better. If you can do a better job, open your own news paper and see if you fair better!

This is part of my point. Since moving to the more downmarket tabloid format, I cannot help but notice that the content has also taken a sharp nosedive down to a pretty low-brow level. Back when this was a broadsheet, we had none of this pointless stuff like pages of prom events, school class supplements or daft stuff on what people want for Christmas...I bet the circulation rates were much higher too.

Yes, circulation rates for all newspapers were much higher; it's the social factors that have changed. You must have noticed the number of retail outlets on the High Street has declined; exactly the same reason. The consequences of nearly everyone on-line. To be frank, you can see the remaining customer base, they are the ones who go by bus.

Little doubt the humble local paper will go the way of the written letter , the cheque book and even cash . My reasoning to the NWN's alleged dumbing down in content is simple economics in that a glorified advertising rag is cheaper to produce than one employing countless hacks . Of course the argument will be where will the reporters of the future learn their trade ? Like plumbers , probably Poland .

Please don’t buy it; I’ll buy two to make up for it!

Can't see what's wrong with it. My sisters kids loved seeing their school pictures so she's kept it for them for when they are older. I think it's a good idea.

The bit you are referring to was a self contained section which you could easily have removed without affecting the rest of the paper.


I suspect that this free, addition to the NWN resulted in more copies being sold.

Bah Humbug.

If it broadens the appeal and sells more copies then go for it.

Maybe the dissenters should adopt the popular stance and stand at the outlet , read it from cover to cover, before throwing it back on the pile and walking away . I thought one bloke was going to punch me when I remonstrated with him ; the shop , though in agreement with me in principle , considered it a small price to pay to get a potential customer through the door .

It's just not news though is it? Why should the population of West Berks want to know what Kevin from Hungerford wants for Christmas?

If the Newbury Weekly News wants to publish stuff like this, perhaps it could be done on the website only so those who want to see it can look at it there rather than having it pushed on us in the pages of the newspaper which should cover news stories and not the whims and wishes of people we do not know. I don't want to pay money for that.

Doubtful as they don't speak English there so no point.

Au contraire; the point I was making is that it of supreme indifference at best to many readers and is also pointless and annoying.

Do we want local children to be that narcissistic to believe the rest of us want to know what they want each December? I don't think so.

Dread to think our children would grow up expecting our local paper should only publish that which we approve.

Sorry I see yours as a miserable complaint.

You seem to imagine the purpose of NWN is to provide you with local news. Sorry, it isn't, the reason it's there is to provide the proprietors with a living. Nothing wrong with that, it's called capitalisim. So, when they see their sales declining, as good business people, they do something about it - that means trying to attract more custom. They seem to be doing that, because unlike many other regional titles they haven't ceased publication.

As for news, in reality, what 'news' doesn't get reported? Ironically, they've even increased the letters space recently. What else do you want?

Least the NWN is Newbury based . Lot of "local" rags are published miles from their demographic audience . Anyway what is wrong with Kevin of Hungerford expressing a wish to have an inflatable elephant for xmas ? Certainly more appropriate than the endless whinging of the brexit remainders who seem to monopolise the letters page .

The NWN prints a lot more local news that it ever could in the 'good old days' when everything had to fit into 8 or 16 pages. Today it is so much bigger that it can carry the trivia that sells it - as well as the news.

If you don'twant to pay for it read the online version. I have to do that anyway since I moved away but still have an interest in what people are moaning about.

Local newspapers seriously need to raise their game if they are to survive the next decade. The way they need to do it is by going upmarket ad appealing to the ABC1 demographic. They need to offer something unique that cannot be found online and resist the temptation to go downmarket and plebeian.

The Newbury Weekly News must make it its New Year's Resolution to abandon cheap content: Endless photo pages on school proms, new school classes, what children want for Christmas etc. I'd rather see more letters (although no more anti-Brexit ranters please).

We also used to have a TV guide that was suddenly stopped with no apology or explanation. This needs to return.

Ironic this; I hate to admit it, but I always thought the TV guide in NWN was simply pandering to down market tastes. Pretty pointless as they come with the national Daily and Sunday national titles anyway.

TV guides in any paper are pretty pointless now we have so many channels available.

Agreed, but very useful when the kids had rabbits.

???????
One would have thought they had increased relevance with 101 channels of mush , though I agree that a guide in a weekly publication would be a little pointless .

Does anyone actually watch tv live anymore? I can’t remember the last time I did. It’s all on catchup or Netflix. Perhaps Blake would be happier if on St Gabriel’s and Horris Hill were covered and St Joe’s can “go whistle”.

yes.

Yes, and what little TV we watch are the two traditional ones. Virgin subscription a bit of a waste really. As for NWN, I was thinking of complaining about the sports pages; never seen the attraction of football.

TV Guides in papers only show a few of the channels - the guide on my TV shows them all - I never look at the TV pages of the paper.