The London Weekly exists
So, contrary to earlier doubts, the London Weekly does exist. An actual paper has appeared on the streets, according to Twitter reports.
But (and we haven’t yet seen it) it has already been judged “shocking” – in the wrong sense.
“I’m fairly shocked the London Weekly made it to the streets,” writes Gordon MacMillan over at Brand Republic. “It is out and we have copies floating around the office. The verdict is worse than you could imagine. Low quality and badly designed and no match for a good local newspaper.”
Meanwhile, excellent questions about this venture’s origin continue to be raised over at the collaborative journalism site, Help Me Investigate. And it all seems to come back to Invincible Media, founded by one Jordan Kensington. Know anything about this mysterious organisation? With little to show despite (some) media and (lots of) self-acclaim, it seems more questions need to be asked about its various arms – radio, magazine and events. You can join the Help Me Investigate project here. If you’re not a beta-tester, you can request an invitation here.
Whatever the truth behind Invincible Media’s claims of success, it provides an interesting case study for assessing the power of hype. The London Weekly, whilst a poor quality product online, has managed to attract advertising and free competition prizes from Packard Bell and Samsung. For how much longer, it remains to be seen.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I should point out that anyone who already uses Help Me Investigate can invite others to an investigation (the ‘Invite people’ link is at the top right of each investigation). So if anyone posts a comment here, Judith, you should be able to invite them!
February 5th, 2010 at 11:53 am
The splash is word-for-word from a press release, and not even a new press release.
http://www.wasps.co.uk/news/wasps31284.ink?newstype=N
If people actually choose to read this newspaper with no journalists, there’s literally no hope for the rest of us.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Thanks Paul – yes, happy to invite anyone who expresses interest in doing a bit more digging! Leave a comment here, or email / tweet me: judith [at] journalism.co.uk / @jtownend.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
check out Invincible’s “brand statement” on their website (http://www.invinciblegroup.com/)
“We Discover Great Oppurtunities [sic] and Make Great Matches”
heavens
February 9th, 2010 at 9:28 am
[...] paper did indeed launch on the Friday, although the distribution was limited (despite a promised circulation of 250,000) and the [...]