farmdoc's blog post number 381

I’ve just finished reading Giving Ground: Media and Environmental Conflict in Tasmania. Writer Libby Lester – a sister of Sue Lester – quotes a Tasmanian newspaper editor replying to public complaints about increasing trivia in their regional, daily newspaper: ‘I put a dog on the front page and sales go up by five to six hundred. I put forestry on the front and sales go down by five to six hundred. I make no apologies. The paper is a commercial enterprise’. Yes, all newspapers and magazines are. This week’s issue of People magazine features its annual list of the 100 world’s most beautiful people. But this list’s not available in full on the Internet even though, as I wrote last Monday, People’s Time Inc. magazine stable-mate Time posted the full list of its 100 most influential people, on its internet site. I suppose it has to do with market demographics and segmentation, and other esoterica that are lost on me. Anyway I’ve no idea how People constructs its list. But at least it contains some males; and the cover photograph’s of someone called Christina Applegate – who’s had breast cancer, a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. As cover girl (cover person?), she’s numero uno on the list. I don’t care. But I do care that, whilst I haven’t seen the full list (and I never will, because I’m not buying the magazine), of the list members I’m aware of, no-one’s aged over 49 years. Ho hum.