Brainpower is Free Just Like Your Paper

There is a disease amok amongst the good people of London town, infecting them on the sweaty, sweltering Tube carriages, spreading like wildfire from commuter to commuter; no, not swine flu (yet), but the dubious charms of London’s ever-increasing  free newspapers.

Whilst at university, in order to avoid starvation, I resorted to taking a part-time telesales job. I had to suffer the indignity of cold-selling subscriptions to The Daily Telegraph. Whenever I spoke to someone in London, I had no chance of selling anything, as everyone simply replied ‘oh I get a paper for free on the tube’.

My heart would sink. A small part of it was the atrocious standard of journalism. I cringe every time I see space being filled with yet another ‘adorable’ animal picture story (it averages about four a day. I’ve counted). The Bollywood gossip column is another offender, which spends most of its word count explaining who said ‘stars’ are, rendering the ‘celebrity’ gossip utterly pointless. Or how about the human freakshow that is the ‘I was the overweight 40-something reading X-Men comics; you were the teenage blonde wearing a miniskirt. Drink?’ section?

Of course, if they annoy me, I should just bring a book. Which I do. But what worries me is that people never think to question the ‘facts’ being thrust into their hands. If you make the decision to buy The Daily Mail / The Guardian / The Daily Star you know you’re getting, respectively:  wishy washy political correctness/ Nazi NIMBYism/tits. We all know how subjective the news is.

It’s the fact that the free papers are now an industry, as opposed to just a one-off, that scares me. This doesn’t happen in other cities. Brighton has its lonely Argus Lite, but no one takes it seriously. Yet in London rival vendors now fight each other off to force their wares into your hands. And because of that, you don’t feel the need to choose what you read. Editors who can afford the most eager vendors can put their own spin on the news. If you wanted to seriously, subconsciously influence the population of London all you would have to do is hand out a free paper with your fascist and/or communist propaganda next to paparazzi snaps of Peaches Geldolf.

Of course, I don’t really think there’s a conspiracy going own. The Illuminati isn’t brainwashing us on our commute home.  Just think about what you are reading.

Image by Unhindered by Talent courtesy of Flickr