Not alot for 32p A bit of a Rag really. (North-West Evening Mail)

Member Name: rosiesmum

Product:	North-West Evening Mail
Date:	01/04/01 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Able to keep up with local news

Disadvantages: very expensive for what they provide

The North West Evening Mail is printed in Barrow in Furness In Cumbria.
It is a daily paper, Monday to Saturday and costs 32p

I personally think it is very expensive for what you get in it, and it is mostly advertising.

Something that particularly irritates me just lately is in the classified section, a huge quarter page ad offering people an advert to say that they have passed their driving test all for a princely cost of ten pounds. Now who on earth wants to pay out a tenner to let everyone know that they have passed their driving test?

The front page is the normal ‘Big Headlines’ as all papers, not very much happens in Barrow in Furness it is a nice quiet town, so I suppose they must have to scratch around to get a good headline.

Page two, we have Births, Deaths, Memoriams, Engagements and General Thankyou's. This covers about half the page so the rest is normally filled up with adverts for funeral Directors and florists etc.

Pages three to five they try to fill up with local news, how farmer Giles won first prize with his marrow etc at the church fete when it has been a quiet day. These pages are normally better reading on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, we get to hear about ‘The youth that urinated outside the town hall whilst inebriated’ and all the antics from the nightclub brawls.

Page six covers National and International news so this isn’t too hard to organise, they just copy it from the big National Papers.

Page seven covers Court appearances these I must admit sometimes are quite amusing.
Oh and they also print on this page about once a month who has been granted a divorce, there is usually a huge list, I have never known a paper do this before.

Pages eight and nine, adverts again but they do slot in the weather forecast, and duty late night chemist.

Page ten, my favourite, the opinion page, I like reading the letters people write
in, and they do a good view point here daily on all sorts of issues from Royalty to Foot and Mouth. A journalist goes around the town and asks so many people their opinion on a subject and photos them, I haven’t actually been stopped as yet, my luck it will be when I am having a bad hair day.

Pages eleven to thirteen adverts again with the odd interview from a local school if they have had a sports day or something.

Page fourteen, Memories Time, quite interesting really it shows old photographs of our area before shopping malls were built. And some good old school photos for people to look back on.
I particularly like the ‘Do you Remember when…’ section here.
It gives you local events from twenty-five years ago up to seventy-five years ago.

Pages fifteen and sixteen more adverts and the odd local story, but mostly adverts.

Pages seventeen to twenty six in general cover, Nightlife in Barrow, Where to go at the weekend etc, Car boots in the area, What’s showing at the local cinema, and of course what is on the television this takes up two pages by the way.

Pages twenty-seven and twenty eight more adverts and a huge one again from the mail itself offering to print birthday wishes for you’re nearest and dearest with a photo for eighteen pounds.

Pages twenty-nine to thirty four, Classified Section.
First we get the miscellaneous sales; I quite like looking through this you can pick up the odd bargain. Then the Wanted Section, one day someone will advertise for something that I actually own and want rid of so I always read that.
Property to Let Section, Home Improvements, all the general adverts again, and a huge half page advert asking you to advertise your car for sale at a really good bargain, four nights at twenty one pounds.
Recruitment, this is never very big, not a lot of vacancies in the Barrow in Furness area at present.

Pages thirty-five to fo
rty, the back page.
All Sport, it never changes, mind you Barrow does have a good football and rugby team.

My opinion in general of the North West Evening Mail is that it is second rate compared to other local papers in the country.
They certainly get the adverts every day from local businesses so they must be making an enormous profit.
32p is a lot to pay for this rag, they should be providing the readers with some interesting reads, a few more features like the memories page would improve the quality.

A few less gaudy adverts from them advertising their own paper would improve things, they obviously struggle to fill the pages every day. Maybe they do not have very many decent journalists to write interesting features.

Summary: