London Weekly launches online
December 21st, 2009Posted by Judith Townend in Newspapers, Online Journalism
Here’s a quick heads up that the capital’s latest freesheet has launched online and on Twitter (@thelondonweekly).
Obviously it will be trying to succeed where its predecessors failed – and it looks like the London Weekly is not scared to experiment with new techniques. Adverstiment? Sounds intriguing.
Tags: freesheet, london weekly
December 21st, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Absolutely ghastly.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Wouldn’t be so quick to condemn – any attention’s good attention for adverts, perhaps it’s deliberate. One of our advertisers wanted their advert to be printed upside down, they reckoned the attention the ‘mistake’ would be a good thing.
Or maybe it’s just a cockup, who knows.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I’m not sure this isn’t a wind-up. I can’t find any reference to any of the staff listed, and there’s virtually no information available on the publishers, and all of the news coverage so far has obviously been written from press releases. It doesn’t add up.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“all of the news coverage so far has obviously been written from press releases.”
I’m sorry, you think this makes a newspaper look LESS realistic…?
December 21st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I meant news coverage by other outlets of the launch of London Weekly.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Admittedly, a few odd things, aside from typos:
*No listing for Global Publishing Group on Companies House (although there’s a listing for The London Weekly Ltd, incorporated 17/12/2009)
*A rather lengthy editorial staff list (anyone know any of them?): http://www.thelondonweekly.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=73&Itemid=110
But, on the other hand, for it to be a wind-up: for starters, why?
Secondly, I’ve just spoken to (apparently!) Roisin Robertson, who is listed as the managing editor on londonweekly.co.uk. On the Green Party website, she says she is former chief reporter of the Chislehurst Times. She didn’t want to talk about the launch right now, but said she would be in touch in due course.
My phone enquiry to the general number has not yet been returned and I received this email response from the general email address:
Thanks for writing to us.You will be contacted by a member of the London Weekly team shortly.
Please, also read the following contacts below ;
For Advertising:
E-mail: paul.morris@thelondonweekly.co.uk
Send your press releases as (word) and supported j.peg in first instance to be reviewed by the editorial team by e-mailing:
info@thelondonweekly.co.uk
For new partnerships:
E-mail: alan.mills@thelondonweekly.co.uk
Please, note that for all other vacancies except Advertising sales staff. We have filled all editorial positions and have no editorial positions at present.
Many Thanks,
LW
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:42 am
Yawn. Another anodyne rag, with the usual mix of gossip (‘Sienna Miller invites Jude round for Christmas’), wire copy/press release ‘hard news’ (‘Eurostar ruins Christmas for hundreds’), and poorly subbed health miracle stories (‘Are Pomegranate [sic] the latest weapon [sic] in the fight against MRSA?’).
It’s totally freesheet-by-numbers. It would be great if someone tried to do something completely different. I like that when you visit any big city in North America there’s an alternative newspaper, free, weekly, skewed towards the young. Of course many of them are hurting as much as the rest of the industry but at least they take risks, challenge the conventional wisdom, occasionally do an investigation – stuff that newspapers were meant to do in the first place.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Roisin Robertson is no longer associated with the London Weekly.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
[...] I was sceptical about this new company from the beginning, but in December I spoke to its listed managing editor, Roisin Robertson, on the phone, via contact details I found on various environmental websites (she is linked to Greenpeace, the Green Party and Friends of the Earth). She assured me she was its managing editor and couldn’t tell me much more before launch. According to an online biography, she was formerly chief reporter of the Chislehurst Times and a Parliamentary Green Party candidate in 2008. After speaking to Robertson, I went ahead and published a blog post, questioning the quality of the new site. [...]