Sunday Mirror (The Sunday Mirror)

Member Name: polydeuces

Product:	The Sunday Mirror
Date:	07/08/08 (14 review reads)
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The Sunday Mirror like its sister paper The Mirror published every other day has two goals firstly to inform the readership of the news and the second is to entertain. There is a question of balance here and it has to be said that entertaining part wins out. To be realistic anyone with more than a passing interest in news, current affairs and politics are not going to have the Sunday Mirror as their first choice newspaper. It does beg the question who does but we have to remember there is a huge market for newspapers nowadays (Britons buy more newspapers per head of population than any other European country).

Apart from the fact that the coverage of the 'actual' news in the Sunday Mirror is inadequate (and by actual news I do mean politics, government and current affairs) I do not like the way such news is covered. All the news that is reported is not reported as an item without comment. The paper seeks to not only inform the reader of the issue but seems to wish to determine the readers response to it.
So the Sunday Mirror should be bought if you wish to be entertained by your newspaper. Well yes and no. Again I do find the tone of writing in the Sunday Mirror to be very judgemental. It is said we in Britain seek to build up our celebrities so that we can knock them down and if we choose (or when the media choose more like) we may build them up again. This is the way with the Sunday Mirror. If an article is written to build a celebrity up the obsequious writing is teeth-rottingly sweet. If an article is putting them down the language would almost befit a multiple axe murderer even if their 'crime' is to switch partners. When you consider that so much of the Sunday Mirrors news consists of the bedding antics of the rich and famous you would think they would be glad for such goings on.

In common with many tabloids there is an apparently insatiable appetite for these newspapers to tell us the minutiae of trivia about TV personalities and even the relatives and former friends of these people. It does make you wonder how these stories are found or more likely who contacts the papers to try and get them included. There is a chilling thought that there are possibly even some stories so trivial they are rejected by the Sunday Mirror. I presume these become known as 'The Sun exclusives'.
Another facet of the Sunday Mirror is the treatment of soap story lines. I have two problems with this firstly that they treat such items as if they were real news and secondly that they are giving the plot away on many occasions. I know this is done with the tacit blessing of the TV companies to promote their programmes but this is supposed to be a newspaper.

There is extensive coverage of sport particularly in winter when the paper is most at home with 'working class' football and racing. It is less at ease with sports like golf and cricket and it simply does not have the sports writers capable of doing these sports justice.

The Sunday Mirror has the usual mix of predictable letters and repetitive agony aunt nonsense. The latter begs the question if anyone ever paid any attention to agony aunts why are the problems the same month-in, month-out.
I read the Sunday Mirror every two or three weeks (the mother-in-law buys it so I read hers) and I usually skip through most of it. There is little that interests me personally, I don't find it particularly offensive, its just not my sort of paper.

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