You are what you read

I am ashamed that it has again taken me a whole week to write my next post. Tuesdays just seem to be blog day. I will try harder next time.

This week I'm going to look at the content of websites to see if I can find any trace of their large overseas audiences. I have picked three of the most popular online news providers, the BBC, the Guardian and the Telegraph. They all have different aims, viewpoints and politics but each one carries a "Most popular" function. I do not believe news organisations should be directed purely by what people read during a 5 minute tea break in the office as I think the role and responsibility of journalism stretches much further. But I want to find out who is reading these websites and looking at what these people are reading may give me an insight. It may also show the effect of free, one-click media on the journalism published.

The leading stories on the BBC website today include the rows over plans to sell of 30% of the Royal Mail, Jack Straw's veto of the publication on Cabinet minutes leading up to the Iraq war, and the report of the police investigation into the death of Stuart Lubbock in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool. These are the stories which the BBC deem most important and therefore make most obvious. They are the stories which, you'd think at least, most readers would be inclined to click on, especially if they are just checking the day's news updates. These stories are also UK-based.

But none of these stories appear in the top three of the BBC's "Most read" list. Instead it lists the titles, "Does University Challenge really test intelligence?", "Skating pensioner fined by court" and "How do you explain a missing hand to a child?". The "Most watched/listened to" shows even further bias to the University challenge final and the 71-year-old skater fined £300 for rollerblading through Southport. The BBC's reader's seem to prize a different agenda from the editors.

A similar discrepancy is clear on the Guardian website where the headlines include Straw's veto, Polish immigrant workers leaving due to the recession, and NASA's failed satellite. Their most popular stories include the University Challenge final but also Gmail grinding to a halt, and in first place, fears of middle-class riots over the recession. It is interesting that even though at least 60% of the audiences of both of these sights are apparently outside the UK, there is still little focus on international news.

The Telegraph carries the same headlines again and the most popular stories include a 10-year-old girl who has been dubbed the next Banksy, Gmail failing and the Oscars.

Now I think it is quite surprising how similar the leading stories are in each of the publications despite their claims to different audiences and different aims. It is also interesting that the readers of all three are most interested in similar stories which are not those in the headlines. It is particularly entertaining to see that one of the most popular stories on the Telegraph website is Jade Goody. How things change. You wouldn't normally expect celebrity dramas in this high brow publication.

The websites's international readers however remain quite invisible. The most popular stories are perhaps less focused on the UK than the headlines but there is still no real diversity. This could maybe be because most of the overseas readers are British based or British born. I'm not sure.

But the one thing which is clear from this overview is the popularity of quirky, bizarre stories. The skating pensioner is a great example of this, as is the 10-year-old Bansky. The strangest and most enticing I think, is "Woman fell to her death while chasing a feather" (Telegraph). How tragic and how ridiculous. It seems that, no matter where the audience is in the world, they still prize the principle of "man bites dog". A universal sense of news value is highlighted in the "Most popular" lists. We should take note.