The London freesheets and the web - Part 2: Films and Celebs

This week I've been looking at how the three London freesheets given to commuters in the capital integrate user-generated content and web links into their newspapers. Yesterday I was looking at music reviews.

Movie reviews

As well as for music reviews, The London Lite also uses content from thisislondon.co.uk on their movie listing pages called 'B@CK ROW BLOGGERS'.

Personally, I'd always understood that the back row of the movies was for something entirely different from composing your own reviews of the film:

"Saturday night at the movies
Who cares what picture you see
When you're hugging with your baby in last row in the balcony"

Still, at le@st the phr@se 'B@CK ROW BLOGGERS' h@s @ h@ndy @ in it so that they can do that thing of replacing the 'a' with an 'at' symbol to denote online.

Celeb Gossip

A big feature of the London freesheets seemed to be their celebrity gossip and style content.

Metro has their 'Guilty Pleasures' section, and The London Paper also goes big with a lot of pictures about 'style'.

There's a bit of me that doesn't wonder if Nigel Dempster isn't revolving in his grave about how his inimitable style of coded language like 'the troubled duchess' for the aristocracy has mutated into a constant diet of 'troubled' Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty.

London Lite again uses the audience as their all-seeing eye with the SPiBLOG columns. This encourages readers to send in 'gossip, celebrity pics, or sightings' via phones or the internet.

I was surprised though, that they were not using a shortcode, and instead were genuinely asking people to phone up and '020 7' number.

[You'll remember that, I hope - 020 for London, not 0207 and 0208 as scaremongering newspapers would repeatedly have you believe]

Next week I'll continue this series by looking at how the free papers incorporate voting into their offerings.

This is one of a series of posts about the London freesheets, The London Paper, London Lite and Metro, looking at how they integrate web and user-generated content into their print editions.
It covers music reviews, films and celebs, voting, sports coverage, messageboards and comments, video and new media reporting.

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in Chipwrapper, a UK newspaper search engine with headline RSS feeds.

Posted by Martin Belam, September 21, 2007    
Read the latest posts on currybetdotnet about: Newspapers
The views expressed on currybetdotnet are my own, and do not reflect the views of Guardian News and Media Limited, or any current or former clients or employers.

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