The Bristol Post is relaunching today focussing less on news and more on lifestyle, according to its editor.
In a note to readers, Mike Norton said that the paper will be “bright, modern and aimed more at celebrating the city and the success of its people than accentuating what is negative about Bristol”.
A clue to the Post’s new direction came yesterday with a front page story trumpeting George Ferguson’s globe-trotting without once questioning who pays for the expensive foreign trips taken by the man already dubbed “Junket George”.
Norton added: “As well as news and sport, there is much more lifestyle content designed to give readers indispensable, trusted advice on what to do with their time and money.
“No matter how much people think they know Bristol, the new Bristol Post strives to find new things for them to do, food for them to eat and places for them to visit, while providing expert insight in to shops, shows, products and performances.”
The news of the relaunch came on the same day that freelance music and theatre writers were informed by features editor Tim Davey that the Post will no longer pay for reviews.
UPDATE
Here is today’s front page, with a noticeable lack of hard news:
If your lifestyle involves hating cyclists, hipsters, muslims, greens, graffiti, green spaces and migrants whilst loving cars, car parking, supermarkets and out of town retail/leisure, then the Bristol Post will be trailing the lifestyle for you.
Good work questioning the new direction of the Post. And their ignoring of the accountability of public officials. ‘Accentuating the negative’ – well they could just report news like newspapers do.
Looks like they’re trying to turn print into a website/blog which makes no sense. It will be scaled back to a weekly publication within 12 months.
Bad to worse….Maybe the better idea would have been to have had a “lifestyle / listings” mag that came out once a week with reasonably interesting reviews, listings and space for social comment – oh no wait, that was Venue…