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lhsi writes:
"The Independent will no longer review any children's books that are aimed at a specific gender. Katy Guest, the literary editor for the paper, notes that 'brothers and sisters shared the same toys, books and games, which came in many more colours than just pink and blue, and there was no obvious disintegration of society as a result'. Some publishers, but not all, have previously said they would stop printing books for a specific gender.
'Happily, as the literary editor of The Independent on Sunday, there is something that I can do about this. So I promise now that the newspaper and this website will not be reviewing any book which is explicitly aimed at just girls, or just boys. Nor will The Independent's books section. And nor will the children's books blog at Independent.co.uk. Any Girls' Book of Boring Princesses that crosses my desk will go straight into the recycling pile along with every Great Big Book of Snot for Boys. If you are a publisher with enough faith in your new book that you think it will appeal to all children, we'll be very happy to hear from you. But the next Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen will not come in glittery pink covers. So we'd thank you not to send us such books at all.'"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Sunday March 16 2014, @10:13PM
Your statistics are not representative and are misleading because they don't take the full picture into account.
For starters, about 12 million people in the UK are either =85 years age. People in those categories are less likely to be reading newspapers (and yes, I said "less likely to read " not "they do not read"). Secondly, a lot of newspapers are purchased on a household basis because it's common for them to be delivered to the door in the UK. Consequently, your number is out by at least a factor 2. That doesn't take into account papers bought by libraries, clubs, etc, which will be ready more widely still. Thirdly, your numbers do not count readership of the paper on the web.
If you want to assess the impact of the paper you may be best off comparing its circulation to that of other papers rather than to the population of the UK. This is where you see a fuller picture. Over the last 5 years, the circulation of The Independent has dropped markedly. So why is that? The reason is that Independent Print, which publishes The Independent, launched a new paper called "i" in 2010. This new paper has obviously cannibalized The Independent's readership by riding on The Independent's brand recognition. Just prior to the launch of i, The Independent had a readership equal to about 1/3 of that of The Times and about 2/3 of that of The Guardian. So it was well read amongst people who choose to read broadsheet papers. These number are now more like 20% and 38% respectively, which is still not bad and doesn't take into account the much higher readership of its sister publication, i. Broadsheets in general are not as widely read as tabloids in the UK, but they punch above their weight as judged by circulation numbers because they are read by more influential people.
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday March 17 2014, @03:43AM
damn it: either under 14 years of age or over 85 years.