Pop-up weekly sees sales gap on Brexit’s losing side
A NEW “pop-up” newspaper aimed at the 48% of Britons who voted unsuccessfully to stay in the EU has hit news stands, aiming to cater for what it called their sense of dismay.
The New European, costing £2 (about R38) a copy, will appear weekly for the next three Fridays, mostly in areas that voted to stay in the EU in the referendum last month, such as London, Liverpool and Manchester.
Whether it continues any longer than that will depend on sales. Publishers Archant said that after the fourth issue, “every week’s sale will be a referendum on the next”.
The first edition features a brightly coloured front page carrying trailers for the paper’s contributors alongside a large cartoon. Inside, editor Matt Kelly writes of the shock he says many pro-EU voters felt at the result.
“Walking in London the day after the vote was like walking through the world’s biggest funeral parlour,” he said in an introductory leader. “Everywhere the sense of bereavement was palpable.”
The paper features articles from journalists across Europe including Tanit Koch, editor of Germany’s Bild, FOR THE 48%: The New European, on sale this week and Wolfgang Blau, former journalist for the Guardian and Germany’s weekly Die Zeit.
The New European is, appropriately, 48 pages long, and its publishers said its was the quickest newspaper launch in British history.
“If ever there was a gap in the market, with a constituency for a newspaper, it’s today, and there’s over 16 million of them,” said Kelly.
In all, 200 000 copies of the first edition have been printed, a quarter of them in Manchester. —