Crawley Observer front page, Oct 14th 2009

The Crawley Observer was very popular at work today.

One colleague thought that the headline was a classic, deserving of some sort of headline of the year award.

Another colleague scanned the story and asked why the traffic police were rescuing people from a toilet…   a fair amount of hilarity ensued bfore we could explain that it was not that kind of bog.On a more serious note, isn’t it just a little bit strange that a local paper which is on the streets a day before a hard-fought council by-election in the area it covers does not even mention that there is an election?

In recent months the paper has shown a real preference for ‘human interest’ stories or anything with even the slightest celebrity connection over any sort of seriousness, while its competitor, the Crawley News,  has been moving the other way – and since its re-design it even looks like a ‘proper’ paper too.

Ironically, the events which triggered this by-election are a perfect example of the contrast between the way the two papers cover events.  The News stuck to the facts – that a Lib Dem councillor had resigned due to personal reasons – while the Observer went into some details in true tabloid style.  I’m sure they would claim ‘public interest’ but really it was just gossip.

Not only is there a by-election, and a hard-fought one, but there is a small amount of controversy over the campaigning.  I had heard through the grapevine that the Observer was aware of the controversy but they have chosen to not mention it.  I suspect the story of two ladies getting stranded in a field made the front page because of the chance it will appear on TV since the police who turned up had a TV crew with them for one of those cop-chase shows. – a good example of a tenuous celebrity link.

My own theory is that the reporting staff are getting stretched a little too thinly these days, what with having to knock out two papers in Crawley each week.  Also – to hark back to my preceding post – they must be almost fully-employed just writing up all the details of the week’s crop of car crashes!