new free newspapers

[sidekick]

i've glanced at all three of these new free papers and the only one that i've picked up more than twice is the Dose one.

24 reminds me too much of TV Guide

Metro is too little news and too much crap about celebrities, i find. it's like reading an episode of Entertainment Weekly.

i like the Dose one because (so far) there is very little advertising in it and it covers a pretty wide range of news stuff. plus, i like the way it's laid out.

what are your thoughts?

[-ff-]

my thoughts:

http://www.fnk.ca/board/showpost.php...4&postcount=19

[sidekick]

^yeah, i agree with you on the garbage thing. but you know what's funny? i have seen tons of 24 papers all over the ground, but not as many Metros and Doses.

i counted 4 of the 24 orange paper boxes on one street alone! Dose is the one with the least ammount of boxes over town, i've found. i'm not trying to protect it or anything, just what i've noticed.

and yeah, you're not getting the entire story with those little tiny columns...but as long as you understand that fact, it's a good way to get a quick blast of what's going on. i still read The Globe and Mail...but i like Dose for a quick read while i'm drinking coffee or something.

[-ff-]

I'll stick to the georgia straight, terminal city, and westender myself.

[sidekick]

i read the georgia straight as well and sometimes i pick up a terminal city...but damn, the spelling errors in terminal city the times i've read it are horrific.

[-ff-]

haha!

It adds character.

And they're awesome for local music and politics coverage.

(http://election-terminalcity-ca.bryght.net/)

[acidic_liquid]

If I was looking for a specific article, I'll look for it online.

As for a paper to read, I already get The Province at home. It's entertaining :)

[ja_raul]

ive recently started taking public transit, and ive been reading some of the new newspapers out there. i honestly prefer the vancouver sun of the national post to any of the new free ones.

dose had a good ad of that guy holding a piece of wood and ya.. it was entertaining, but after i read it a paper i felt like i just snapped out of a grade 5 reading time session. i felt very much the same about the metro, its somethin to read... but it just doesnt cut it for me when i want to read something intelligent.

i also dislike how the metro uses websites as their sources in certain articles. i'd much rather get a full story from the article instead of having to refer to a website when i want the real full story or i want to miss in the blanks from an article i read in the morning.

i suggest that if you want to read something worth your time, just pay for the sun of national post. it aint free, but its worth it.

[Liqwid]

none...

it bugs me how they want me to take them when i am down town in the morning...

sometimes they give out good free stuff

~dalyn

[-ff-]

Originally Posted by ja_raul

ive recently started taking public transit, and ive been reading some of the new newspapers out there. i honestly prefer the vancouver sun of the national post to any of the new free ones.

dose had a good ad of that guy holding a piece of wood and ya.. it was entertaining, but after i read it a paper i felt like i just snapped out of a grade 5 reading time session. i felt very much the same about the metro, its somethin to read... but it just doesnt cut it for me when i want to read something intelligent.

i also dislike how the metro uses websites as their sources in certain articles. i'd much rather get a full story from the article instead of having to refer to a website when i want the real full story or i want to miss in the blanks from an article i read in the morning.

i suggest that if you want to read something worth your time, just pay for the sun of national post. it aint free, but its worth it.

Interesting tidbit. The same company that publishes The Sun, the Province, and the National post (as well as the Courrier and about half of vancouver's local weeklies, and GlobalTV), CanWest Global, publishes Dose and owns 1/3 of Metro. So really, what you're getting in Dose and Metro isn't going to be much different from what you get in the sun or the national post - they'll just have dumbed it down one level lower than the province (in the case of Metro) or tried to give it a 'hip' or 'urban' edge in the hopes of attracting younger customers (in the case of Dose). Same editorial content. Probaly the same choice of stories (and possibly actual segments cut and pasted from the same stories). Same slant.

CanWest has a pretty bad rep when it comes to free press issues and journalistic integrity, as well. They're known for firing publishers and editors when they clash with the owners over editorial content.

YAY FOR MEDIA CONSOLIDATION!

[acidic_liquid]

Originally Posted by -ff-

Interesting tidbit. The same company that publishes The Sun, the Province, and the National post (as well as the Courrier and about half of vancouver's local weeklies, and GlobalTV), CanWest Global, publishes Dose and owns 1/3 of Metro. So really, what you're getting in Dose and Metro isn't going to be much different from what you get in the sun or the national post - they'll just have dumbed it down one level lower than the province (in the case of Metro) or tried to give it a 'hip' or 'urban' edge in the hopes of attracting younger customers (in the case of Dose). Same editorial content. Probaly the same choice of stories (and possibly actual segments cut and pasted from the same stories). Same slant.

CanWest has a pretty bad rep when it comes to free press issues and journalistic integrity, as well. They're known for firing publishers and editors when they clash with the owners over editorial content.

YAY FOR MEDIA CONSOLIDATION!

I was wondering who owned the free dailies. I'm not surprised. CanWest pretty much owns everything.

[-ff-]

yeah, Metro is owned by CanWest, Torstar (publisher of the toronto star) and Metro International which publishes a similar product in Europe. 24 Hours is Quebecor Media (which, funnily enough, has Glenn Clarke as its president, and is owned by the Pattison group), and Dose is an all CanWest product.

I think CanWest should just debrand all of its individual papers and merge them into one called Pravda.

[ja_raul]

gap inc. also owns banana republic, the gap and old navy. not all 3 stores sell the same quality material. point being, the free newspapers have shitty articles with a reading level requirement of an elementary school child. i wasnt demanding that they write better stuff, i was just pointing out the differences of newspapers and my taste. am i surprised that the free newspapers dont get the best columnists? no

on a side note: i still consider the bbc the best source for news

[-ff-]

^

Yeah, I'm fully down with the BBC.

The internet is is the greatest newspaper ever. You can instantly compare 3 different sources on the same story and try and filter out as much of the bias as you can.
I'm also a big fan of the NYtimes online and the globeandmail online (though they restrict too much of their content for paid subscribers for my liking)

[tommy-boi]

they are often given out in the morning at skytrain entries...

i like the metro one... dose is okay

[Bitchin]

I see the adds for them every where.........

looks like crap.

[ebbomega]

news.google.ca
slashdot.org
groklaw.net
my.msn.com

The last one always has me checking a headline and hopping over to google news for the real story, though, really.

[mapleleaf4ever]

I use them to waste my time on my commute to work.

[dJ_MeDiC]

One thing that I remember hearing is free news papers, and bought ones for that matter, are written at a grade 6 level. This is so everybody literate or not can get a read out of them. The spelling mistakes, well, there's no reason for that....just a bad editor

[sidekick]

like i said before...i'm not reading it for my daily source of news. i'm not going to quote what i read in 'Dose' in a university paper, or use it to back up something for an argument.

but hey, it's free, and sometimes i don't have time to read an entire newspaper. and i love BBC too, but i don't get that channel anymore :( and sure CanWest owns WAY too much newspapers and media conglomeration is ultra lame, but i find that as long as you're informed about the issues and read a lot of different newspapers you can usually piece together your own idea of what's going on.

and yeah, Dose is definitly marketed to have a hip and edgy look, or whatever. i'm not blind to the fact that it's all a big marketting ploy to grab a demographic that won't necessarily pay money for any of CanWest's newspapers, but hell, i think Dose does look good. i like the layout.

ps. whoever suggested i go to a real news source like 'The National Post'...well, in my opinion, most of the stuff in 'The National Post' really IS garbage. i read it sometimes, but only if i want to get angry and write letters to the editor. the stuff they write about homeless people just makes me sick.

[miss.myra]

Originally Posted by -ff-

I'll stick to the georgia straight, terminal city, and westender myself.

The georgia straight is not a reliable source for news, but moreso a megaphone for left wing opinions :p


..but I love their entertainment stories, restaurant bits, etc.

[.o0*HaLo*0o.]

i haven't checked out dose yet but maybe i'll do that..
their all kinda weak :P

I'll stick w/ the province. Everytime i go to get on the sky train theres two religious mags, does, metro, and 24... all getting thrown in my face, its annoying. I feel like im wakling thru the internet and stumbling upon pop up ads :P