British News Paper Discovery

I joined the Royal Navy in January 2004. I had little to no clue about British Culture so it was a cultural adventure for me. I found most of my lessons on British culture came from watching TV.

There is so much you can learn about Britain from watching British TV. I loved watching ‘Who’s line is it?’,‘This week in the news’, ‘Two out of ten Cats’ and ‘Question Time’. All programs taught me so much about how Britain thinks. The British Intellectual humour that is so infectious, was delivered to me through these television programs. I realised that I was living in a literate society when all these programs that made fun of current affairs issues got their ingformation from broadcast on radio or TV but mostly from what was printed.

Then after figuring out how Britain rather their news, via print, I had to work out exactly what paper to read. I went to the news agent one sunday and I picked up the Sunday Times. Not there was a lack of options, but I thought the size of a paper said all I needed to know about its content. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I loved the Reviews Magazine and the Sunday Times Magazine. I especially look forward to the Ariel Leve articles in the Sunday Times Magazine. Then there were the middle aged, affluent-intellectual views of Simone Jenkins and Micheal Portillo not to mention Atticus within the Comments section of the main paper. I fell in love with Sunday Times. There was so much to love, the tasteful layout, the language - the use of the English language to impart information like poetry. What was there not to love.

So the first paper was a hit.

I found it strange however that no one in my age group that I knew who were british read the Sunday Times. I thought I was a bizarre freak of nature who has transformed into a Middle Aged millionaire without even seeing his 21st birthday. When ever I was in a conversation about Politics and I opened a point by saying ‘In the Times yesterday was...’, I was shunned, treated with the same ‘smiled-hostility’ a Commissioned Officer would receive.

This troubled me. I caught on quickly and borrowed a copy of the Sun. The Sun was a gift from heaven, well page 3 was a gift, the rest seemed like an elongated advertisement of cell phones. I think I read the entire paper in less than an hour. I am not an exceptionally fast reader, in fact I struggle to find text. I found the news in the Sun was told mostly by pictures and lager graphics. I guess the scantily clad girl on page 3 was the entire paper and kept people buying it.

The fear of being accused of being a snob made me keep my mouth shut when it came to my thoughts of The Sun News Papper.

The next paper on the hit list was the Independent. I remember clearly, it was a summers day, it was warm and I just came out of Holborn Underground Station in London. There was a Costa Coffee not far from where I was standing and I wanted to grab a paper. Standing at the news stand the Independent spoke to me- "TERROR OR PROPAGANDA?" (there you go, you can have my 60p). I enjoyed the read. The tone of the paper varied as you flipped the pages. One article may focus on the terror cells in Europe the next on Muslim leaders who are speaking out against discrimination. I loved that touch, the mixture, the two point of views that made the news interesting. Otherwise its just a one sided pitch. Needless to say the Independent became my daily paper.

Speaking of one sided pitches, what is up with the Daily Mail? I feel like I am being shouted at every time I read the paper. The large graphics and pixellated images scare me. What might be an entire investigative piece in other papers was a headline in lager print and a paragraph in the Daily Mail. Its not that I don't like the paper, I have read a couple, but only because it was the only paper available onboard. Well not really there was always The Sun but, extracting information from the Sun is like pulling a rabbit from a empty top hat (seems impossible but some people can).

The Telegraph. The paper with more words per square inch than any other I have ever read. Not particularly interesting read, but, very, very informative. Whenever I see someone reading a Telegraph I can only think, “Wouldn’t you rather wait for the audio version?”. After all anything so big must have a movie deal.

Over the course of my Discovering British Culture, I realised that the paper you read tells others all they need to know about you. If that is so, does the fact that I read the Sunday Times religiously and on week days the Independent says everything there is about me?
If you are interested the papers I read dictates that I am in my mid thirties, university educated, middle class, affluent, vote conservative, listens to mozart and Bach, horse back riding/horse racing is an interest and am white.

Well FYI - I am an Able Rating in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, I am lower class by looking at my bank balance, I am interested in politics- both local and foreign, I love the music of my home (Jamaica) but I also listen to classical and jazz, I am ineligible to vote but if I could I would vote ‘Labour’, I am interested in mountain extreme sports, I love Urban Art, I think Micheal Angelo’s David is Lewd and I am Black Caribbean.

Luron Wright