The News Portsmouth

I buy The News daily for no other reason than that it is the local paper for Portsmouth and its surrounding area. That aside, the News is not bad as newspapers go. Obviously, being a "local rag" the emphasis is on local news stories, but you get a fair smattering of national and international news for your 30p. A colourful masthead above various featured contents introduce the paper. The front page usually carries headlines on big local issues, (eg the Millenium tower fiasco)or local human interest (For instance, the edition Saturday 30 June features a front page headline about a premature baby that was born not breathing ...

The News is the local daily paper for the Portsmouth area. It is not the best place to read about matters of national interest, but a good source of information for people living or staying in the area. The paper carries a very good recruitment section in its Thursday and Saturday editions and comprehensive listings of local events, such as car boot sales, on a Friday. It also carries personal ads (Saturday), a property section (Wednesday) and a large motoring section, with loads of well organised ads for cars for sale (Friday). The classifieds are a good place to look for or sell second hand items, but the same ads often appear in consecutive editions and you ...

For local news, you want a local paper. The News however, cannot quite define the line between important national news, local news and street gossip. On Tuesday we had news that a local lad has almost completed his naval training at a local establishment in Fareham. Considering Portsmouth, Gosport and Fareham are the ancestral home to Britain’s navy, is this really news worthy? Or the story of the elderly gent still delivering newspapers at 87 years. The themed sections are just as bad, with computer games "reviews" that simply state when the game is due to be launched and the theme, where is the content? To top it all, the comments ...