Isle of Man Examiner

3rd December 2012

Isle of Man Examiner 

This is the last of the 3 Manx papers I will be looking at, this is again a weekly paper that is published on a Monday every week, this is a paid sheet that cost 85p and from what I can see there is no choice for subscription. There is a very small amount of advert on the front page and this is again most likely because it is a paid sheet and it does not have to be bursting at the seems with adverts to make money. As it is coming up to Christmas the Police have launched their Drink Driving campaign and the hotels usually start advertising for hotel rooms for about £40 per night which is you happen to live on this island is usually cost to take a 15 mile drive after midnight in a taxi. So it is a very good time of year to be advertising cheaper hotel rooms. 

Th only picture on the front cover is a cute on, about a boy of 10 will represent the island in many future Taek-wondo because he world number 2 exponent. Now why would Johnston press put a picture of 2 cute little boys on the front of the paper? Well it is bound to sell more copies, mum is going to buy about 10 and send them of to every member of the family, all the people who know him are going to go out and by a copy and see what he has done and this is something that also looks good for the island as having somone who is up in the world top 10 for taek-wondo can make a community feel proud. 

article on tuition fees

The two written stories are about the economy and 'Investors fear they will never get money back' and Tax deal with UK a game changer but Bell doesn't know if  it will hit jobs'. While the 'Independent' focuses more on the news that involves people, places that sort of thing the 'Examiner' focuses more on the economy side of the news and the issues from Tynwald (our Government) and MHK (members of the House of Keys, like an MP) on the third page of the paper there is a full page article about protest of students having to pay for university fees. It mentions about how all of the 5 high schools on the island are getting signatures on petitions and how they are all bitterly disappointed after the MHK's complain that the 16 year old's never used their right to vote and over 3/4 of the student population who did vote voted in MHK's who stated in their manifestos that they would  not introduce tuition fees. Also although you can't really read it on this picture but there is an advert at the top of the page for 'Facebook' and that you can view peoples comments on p46. Once you get to page 46 there is a lot of feed back from their readers. This is the first time I have seen something like this in any of the Manx papers it was mainly written feedback that I could see in the 'Independent' and there was very little feed back about anything in the 'Courier'. 

readers views from 'Facebook' 

As I started to look at more of the paper the more Government stories there were, 'Robertshaw defends benefits assessors' is another one. The Government here are reassessing people on incapacity benefits and they are 'helping' people back into employment. The issue is no one here is going to willingly give up anything from £400 a month for doing nothing plus they get their rent paid for them and certain bills as well, why would you want to work when you can have all of that? However it is the governments own fault for allowing people to abuse the system and this is now why they feel they have to change it, it is just to bad about the amount of backlash they are getting from the people who are on benefits for legitimate reasons and are being punished instead of those who are abusing the system. 

The 'Shoprite' advert has appeared in this paper however instead of being a lengthy pull out as it was in the 'Independent' here is is spread over 6 pages of which only 3 pages long and is on the odd number pages, the even numbers are covered with articles that are very much community based 'Santa dropped in on school Christmas fayer' and a charity has been given planning permission to extend its accommodation for disabled people who are visiting the Island. These are all stories that are informing people in the community what has been happening and letting them know that good things are going on all the time. 

As i worked my way through the paper I found that more and more stories are about the finance sector or tourism, the wind farm, government cuts hit the proof of age card scheme and many many more. This paper is 64 pages long which is longer than the 'Independent' at 48 pages and the 'Courier' which is also 64 pages. 

 

I m begining to see why it is mainly people who are interested in business, finance and the economy that buy this paper. I am sure that to them it is very interesting but to the average reader like me I have no interest in the islands economic growth and how much a day it costs to run the governments I.T section. 

However there is sections of news within the paper that are called North News, West News, South News and East News. This a sections were specific news from local areas is reported for example Michael Schools Christmas Fair which is in the west of the island has been  featured in the west section. 

There is also a History section and a Green Column which is written by the 'Isle of Man Friends of the Earth' and it is one page that tells you all about how to remain as 'green as possible over Christmas and gives useful tips on 'how to reduce your carbon footprints' I can see the importance of putting something like this in the local paper as it is important that as a whole Island community we look after the environment and this is a good way to advertise how to do it. 

The 'Examiner' also has a section called 'Business News' which features stories about local businesses and what they are doing within their business and its not just businesses that are in here. 'Ballakermeen (which is a local high school  means business' and it is about they getting through the heats of the National Business Competition. It also shows the Island is doing throughout the world as there are some stories 'Aviation showcase in Dubai' that show certain parts of the Islands economy is working in other countries. There are also some fun articles considering we are on the lead up to Christmas 'top tips to surviving office Christmas parties' and then right at the end of the business section on the last page there is a 'Five-Minuet Briefing  on what is going on in the UK and in the world which is quite handy to know when you are looking at different economies I would think. Overall this business section is 8 pages long, but it isn't a pull out it is part of the paper and this really does confirm my suggestions that this is a paper that is mainly targeted to the more business side of the island and it is a paper that is mainly bought by businesses and people who are interested in business ect. 

This paper also has as section that contains star signs, quotes of the week and double cross-word. This is the first Manx paper I have seen that has this and it is something that reminds me of one of the National English papers like 'The Guardian'.

The 'Classifieds' in this paper look very similar to those in the 'Independent' and have the same categories announcements, buy & sell, jobs, motors,entertainment and public notices. The entertainment section is a thin column that properly is about 1/4 of a page as appose to the pull out that was in the 'Independent'. There is also a small property section before it moves on to 9 pages of sport. Again all of this sport is local and that is because here there is no way that they could possibly report anything about national or international sport that other national daily papers have not covered or that people can access it on the internet. Covering national sport would not really aid in sales for these papers and there is actually a lot of interest in local sport here.