Readers' Ombudsman: Keeping a Page 3 stunner means some small sacrifices elsewhere

Published on Sunday 23 November 2008 20:56

IT IS probably not a good thing if we are driving our readers mad, so when we receive a letter saying we are doing exactly that, we sit up and take notice.

"Am I the only reader who is being driven mad by the fact that we have to go to page four to get the continuation of the front page story, thereby missing, or having to turn back to, pages two and three?" writes Shirley Gibb.

"I buy The Scotsman every day and every day I forget what's about to happen, and get irritated all over again as I turn to page four. Unless they look especially interesting, I don't bother going back to pages two and three, which is a shame for the journalists who have no doubt worked hard on them.

"Is it not possible to have the front page story continued on page three, in a logical, easy-to-deal-with manner?"

As we know, if one reader takes the time and trouble to write in, there are probably many more who feel the same way. I think it would be valuable if I explained the thinking behind what we do.

The front page is the place where we put what we think is the most important story of the day, the one we hope is of great interest to many of our readers, and one that might get casual browsers of the shop shelves to pick up the paper. We also like to use some of the space on the front page to reveal what else we have in what is always a big and comprehensive package.

In order to give the splash (to use newspaper parlance – meaning the main front-page story) the projection it demands on page one, in terms of headline size and pictures (more often than not) it is not possible to get the entire story, which is usually a minimum of 600 words on the front, so the story has to continue inside the paper.

We recently carried out a lot of detailed research on readers' views of The Scotsman, and one of the messages that came through very strongly was that readers had difficulty navigating through the paper and finding the parts that were of greatest interest to them. So we now dedicate page two as a "signpost page", giving details on what is in the paper in the hope that this is what the reader desires.

Page three is seen as a very important page for the newspaper. The size of adverts on that page is limited to allow us good use of pictures, and it is seen as providing a break for the reader. The front page subject is often heavy, particularly in these troubled times, or tragic. Page three is usually something a bit lighter before the hard news continues in the rest of the news section.

Using that logic, the first available page for the continuation of the splash is page four.

Even if we thought that we could continue the splash on to page three and then have our lighter story on page five, very often the splash story demands a two-page spread to do it justice, and given our views on page two, this could not happen across pages two and three.

I'm not sure exactly how much this helps my argument, because we want to be original thinkers, but of all the other national newspapers, I could find only one – fittingly enough The Independent – that turned a front page story on to page three.

I KNEW my grammar would get me in to trouble eventually. In a wonderfully crafted letter, Andrew HN Gray writes: "I read your article in today's Scotsman today with interest, but also with a sharp intake of breath. When I reached your second sentence, I noted that you referred to a reader, 'who is keen that we are accurate in our usage of words – as we are'. Oh dear! We are not, I believe. The reader, surely, 'is keen that we be accurate in our usage of words'?

"I know that many will say that use of the subjunctive is 'old-fashioned', which is a popular cop-out in such situations. It is, of course, nothing of the kind."

With the greatest of respect I have to disagree. I think it is old-fashioned.

Using "be" just makes it a line from Pirates of the Caribbean – impossible to say without squinting upwards and using a throaty Captain Barbosa accent. Anyway they're not really rules, more sort of guidelines.