The Courier's coverage

[Guest Sandy Cromarty]

Charles your reply is merely fleshing out what already has been said on here that the HN and Courier are Inverness papers when in reality both carry sports coverage from throughout the Highlands, this weeks issue of the HN carries a full page on Shinty with a half  page report and a full colour picture of  a second division match between Skye and Beauly, as much as I believe that Shinty has it's place here in the Highlands and must be promoted I'm sure this was of little interest to a great percentage of Invernessians many of whom are incomers. Am I getting across here because I don't want to belabour this point that three days after RC's victory a newspaper entitled The Highland News fails to report on a Highland team winning a football trophy.

We here in the Highlands are part of a very rich fabric in all aspects of our lives, we should be proud of our achievements in whatever form they take and it is up to the local media to promote our successes to show to the rest of Scotland that we are a thriving and forceful community. The Scottish Innovative Policy Forum meets this coming week in parliament, part of the agenda may well be how our part of Scotland has succeeded towards affluence without a major industrial base and has become a desirable place to live, against all odds you might say? and that includes sport, so lets stop this narrow mindset and stand proud that our near neighbours are winners.

 

[Alex MacLeod]

Sandy, you obviously feel very strongly about this so why not write to the editor of the papers concerned. You may even get a favourable response.

[Guest Sandy Cromarty]

Yes Alex that would have been the course of action pre internet and I would have probably received a reply much the same as Charles has posted on this thread, however given that sports journos from across the country trawl sites such as this then criticism of this nature reminds them that we are not just fodder for disparate reporting but that we deserve accurate and informative coverage for our area, in short we have the facility to criticise nationally at our fingertips and not just a letter to an editor.

What has surprised me on this thread is that one poster who I suspect has not lived in the area for some years, nor purchased the two papers mentioned on a weekly basis, is advocating 'Local news for Local people'.

Anyway it's another week and thats a long time in politics so for me this has run it's course, hope you're home for Christmas Alex.

[Alex MacLeod]

Sandy, I dont live in the area, though I'm thinking of moving up, but I do read the courier online and get the HN delivered to Perth. Yes I am home for both Christmas and New Year. First time in five years.

[The Fly]

To answer Alex's question:

- ABC is the Audit Bureau of Circulation, an industry body that records how many copies of a paid-for newspaper are bought

- VFD (Verified Free Distribution) is the equivalent certification for free-distribution newspapers

- JICREG is another industry body that monitors the number of people actually reading the newspaper (i.e. you, your wife, the kids, the dog) - for paid-for newspapers you normally have 2-3 people reading each copy; for the worst of the free-distribution newspapers you can sometimes have less people reading a newspaper than the number of copies distributed (i.e. a large number go straight in the bin). JICREG enables a better comparison between paids and frees if we need to compare readership in any given area.

The Highland News (like a number of other newspapers) is misleadingly named - it only covers a small geographical part of the Highlands. Calling it the "Highland News" makes it sound grander!

Incidentally, circulation figures (average copies sold) for the Ross-shire Journal, Inverness Courier, P&J and The Scotsman for comparison:

Inverness (adult pop c.52000): Courier Friday edition 16373, P&J 5933, Ross-shire Journal 1467, Scotsman 555

Dingwall (adult pop c.15000): Ross-shire Journal 4320, P&J 1714, Courier Friday 813, Scotsman 89

To sum up: 10 times as many people in Inverness read the Courier than the Ross-shire Journal, 5 times as many people in Dingwall read the Journal than the Courier, virtually nobody reads The Scotsman! Figures that go some way to explaining why news and sport will be reported with a local bias in the weeklies - the P&J is the only newspaper with a decent circulation all across the Highlands.