The question of which political classes read which newspapers has been asked in many countries for many years. One of the more famous versions came from the British comedy television series 'Yes, Minister', in a 1987 episode:
Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.
It seems an American version is now doing the rounds. I received this by e-mail today:
An easy guide to keeping political news in perspective...
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time – and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Key West Citizen is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.
Peter
4 comments:
That one is a home run Peter :-)
What a hoot! This is funny, and probably correct. Thanks.
Close to the truth, I suspect.
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
- Thomas Jefferson
“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”
- Mark Twain
When I was in Germany, you could tell the serious news readers from the common slob by how many pictures of naked women were on the front of their newspaper. Most of them didn't even put them on page 3.
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