Journalism Now Article: The I vs The Independent

The I vs The Independent

Calum Warren-Piper

 

With the success of the I newspaper in only it’s second year of publishing, it begs the question whether it’s become more successful then it’s Broadsheet elder brother, The Independent. Compared to The I’s two years of publishing, The Independent has been around since 1986. The Independent has become renowned for it’s liberal and non-bias viewpoint, “free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence”, at one point was a banner on the front page. Much like it’s sister paper, the I has yet to associate itself with a political party or any political alignment, this being said it is much like the Independent in it’s liberalness and thus can sway from party to party with every subject.

 

As for circulation, The I has burst onto the scene and has swooped over the Independent, whose current circulation is around 84,000 Monday to Saturday and 118,000 on Sundays, with over 243,000 I’s being sold a day. This being said, these are very different in both aim and content.

 

Take for instance, the two papers main stories on any given day (this example being 15^th November), compared to the in-depth factual articles that The Independent uses to describe it’s headline story “Osborne’s secret war on the PM’s green agenda”, compared to the “I” which runs the headline: “ King warns UK risks ‘triple-dip’.  This example gives a clear insight into the News-agendas that both papers run. On one hand the Independent is able to offer long and in-depth articles that can analyze and judge the economy and it’s politics, the I is both restricted by it’s concise way, in that it can cover the similar pan of stories, but lack in detail, where as the I has the ability to cover a wider range of stories from Politics to Sport, and International news, and delve into reasonable depth with these stories.

 

 

It seems the public that used to yearn for it’s Sunday papers, is ever changing and now seems more inclined to choose the concise over the comprehensive. Looking at the demographics of the newspapers however, constructed by the National Readership Survey of 2011, shows that the average age of an “I” reader is 50 and the Independents average age 43. Despite this, the survey show’s that the majority of “I” readers are within the ABC1 social class and The Independent readers are within AB social class. It seems that despite the “I” aiming for a younger audience, with lures such as “Student Subscriptions”, it somehow manages to attract an older audience as well as the young.

 

To conclude this review, the newspaper reader of the common day has changed, turned away from lengthy opinion pages the Independent has offered for years, to the “short and sweet” style of the “I”, a paper originally aimed to bring broadsheet journalism into a tabloid format, has since become more successful than it’s broadsheet sister, this alone shows the consensus that lives within the new standard of newspaper reading.

Rousseau and Romanticism

Originating in the end of the 18th Century, the Romantic movement saw the outlook into the arts/culture and even morality change drastically from the scientific and cold viewpoint it had been placed on.

A world that had for year’s based itself around fact and science slowly revolted itself into a society based around morales, and nature. Revolting against the industrial revolution that had caused society to become bland and lack the spark of creativity, the romantics such as Rousseau pushed for a life based more around nature and fulfilling one’s life rather than that of the states or “gods”. Bertrand Russell points out that the Romantic’s grew into a race that ignored and disliked “productivity” and admired “sensibility” and beauty. Stating, that the earthworm to Darwin is useful but not beautiful, to Rousseau the tiger is beautiful and not useful, but both favour them.

Rousseau who grew up in Geneva as a vagabond, and came from humble beginnings would later go on to spear-head the Romantic movement, fighting that the state is what stifles man’s creativity and power. One of the first fighters for liberalism in Government and politics, he states: “a State is only legitimate if it abides by the general will and if not it will fail”, he fought for this general will which would be the foundation for the first declaration of independence and human right’s.

Later in the American revolution, writers such as Thoreau and Emerson would look back on the work that Rousseau had done during the French Revolution and would write their novels founding the basis of the Naturalist movement in American Philosophy.

Bertrand Russell, describes the Romantic movement saying “it was aimed at liberating the human personality from the fetters of social convention.” Personally, I couldn’t agree more with this quote, the Romantic movement strongly pushed itself from society, and the state which had for years been too entwined with one another, rest assured they are different sections of life, and Rousseau helped make this a reality, books such as the Social Contract, which pushed home and cemented the romantic movement