The Independent

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It's not like we're the Independent; we can't just stick a headline saying 'Cruelty!' and then stick a picture of a dolphin or a whale underneath it. ~ Daily Mail editor Adam Kenyon, The Thick of It

The Independent / The Independent on Sunday, colloquially known as the Indy, is a liberal broadsheet founded in 1986. Although it aspires to be a paper of record and it has some decent columnists, Adam's criticism is not unfounded.

History[edit | edit source]

The Indy arguably came about as a result of Rupert Murdoch and the Wapping issue - the breaking of the unions lead to lower productions costs for newspapers and the brains behind The Indy got together and decided to print their own paper. The paper launched on 7 October 1986 with the headline "It is. Are you?" which turned out to be a pretty good start for the paper. The newspaper was places as a rival to both The Times and The Guardian with the idea of occupying the centre ground, stealing the lefites from The Guardian and the people who liked to read "quality" papers from The Times. Just three years after its launch The Independent had a circulation of over 400,000.

The paper was generally seen as a success, although The Independent on Sunday didn't launch as well as hoped in 1990. The paper helped to chivvy along the others to update their look as well, which was much welcome by everyone who could see the newspaper.

By the 1990s the shine had worn off somewhat - facing financial issues from all the other papers the launched in the 1980 after Murdoch crippled the print unions, The Independent had to deal with a lot of competition and since it hadn't been around as long as some of the other major newspapers, this caused a lot of problems. It was at this time of financial owe that the editorial staff had a great idea and decided to take on both the Murdoch papers and The Telegraph by suggesting that the papers reflect the views of their owners rather than the people.

The Independent was refinanced a number of times in the 1990s. Then the new owner had a great idea - in 1996, Andrew Marr was appointed as head of The Indy. Being the hip young thing that we all know Andrew Marr to be, he launched a massive overhaul and redesign of the paper which all the wanky journalists loved but left the people actually buying the paper confused and annoyed. Marr admitted his changes had been a mistake in his book My Trade, surprising absolutely no one.

By 1998 the paper's readership had fallen to about 200,000 and there was much trading between the newspapers for editorial staff and journalists. A gradual improvement of readership numbers throughout the 00's couldn't offset the massive £5million a year the paper was losing by mid-2004.

The paper tried a number of cost-cutting measures like moving the staff of The Independent into the same building as The Independent on Sunday but it wasn't enough. On 25 March 2010, the newspaper was sold to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev for a nominal £1 fee and £9.25m over the next 10 months, since closing The Independent and The Independent on Sunday would have cost £28m and £40m respectively, due to long-term contracts.

The End of an Era[edit | edit source]

On 12 February 2016 it was announced that the Iny and it's Sunday counterpart were to move to an online-only service[1]. The idea had been floated for a while but it was finally confirmed that it would cease print production in March 2016.

Political Affiliation[edit | edit source]

...it was started as an antidote to the idea of journalism as views not news. That was why it was called the Independent. Today it is avowedly a viewspaper not merely a newspaper. ~ Tony Blair[2]

An Ipsos MORI poll estimated that in the 2010 general election, 44% of regular readers voted Liberal Democrat, 32% voted Labour, and 14% voted Conservative[3]. On the eve of the 2010 general election, The Independent supported the Liberal Democrats and at the 2015 general election they backed another Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government.

In general it's pretty in favour of electoral reform, against going to war in Iraq and pretty meh on the royals, being more annoyed with how the other papers fawn over them rather than having any distinct issue with the family itself.

Importance in Fandom[edit | edit source]

The Indy isn't the worst paper out there, so it's always a handy second-check for people posting news links/getting general info.

References[edit | edit source]