According to my feedreader, Britain’s Methodist newspaper the Methodist Recorder has been revamped just in time for its 150th birthday.
Founded in 1861 with the mission ‘To tell the truth and love’, the weekly newspaper for practising Methodists has unveiled its first major redesign in 10 years.
In addition to full colour, the revamped publication has introduced a raft of changes aimed at give it a more contemporary feel with new fonts, logos and editorial sections.
I haven’t seen this week’s edition yet — I’ve had no post since Tuesday because of the weather — but I’m looking forward to seeing it. A comment by the editor caught my eye, though.
She said: “We’re not immune to a decline in circulation. We are operating in the same world as secular newspapers… [But] I think in the market at the moment niche products are a very good place to be.
“While people can get so much of the daily news from the web and daily papers, for our specialist take on things they can only come to us.
“If people want Methodist news it’s the Methodist Recorder they need to come to.”
That’s certainly been true in the past, much less so now. Other denominational newspapers have embraced the new media with much greater alacrity - the Church Times has its own blog - and in this regard the Recorder has a lot to do to catch up. There’s a lively little circle of Methodist bloggers, and I’m sure we’d be persuadable if they need help getting something going.
Update (9/1/10) Finally got some mail through this morning. Got to admit: the Recorder does look much better
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Phil Bradley 01.09.10 at 12:22 am
Yes, I agree with your opinion on this. The thing that would worry me is “If people want Methodist news it’s the Methodist Recorder they need to come to.” Well, that’s taken an awful lot for granted. That people know it exists, how to find it, that they’ll make an effort and so on.
That’s not the world we live in today - that’s the old way of doing things. It’s necessary to reach out, touch people, engage with them, bring them into a community, and you can’t do that by sitting back (in some considerable arrogance it would appear to me) and expect them to do all of the work.
PamBG 01.09.10 at 3:14 am
The lack of any kind of credible web presence just proves that The Methodist Recorder, not unlike the Methodist Church, has not caught up with the 20th century (no, that’s not a slip of the fingers on the keyboard).
Richard 01.09.10 at 10:02 am
The facelift shows the right spirit though, Pam.
Phil - thanks for stopping by. You’ve been on my mind this last week or so.
PamBG 01.09.10 at 1:07 pm
Richard - I don’t get the MR in the US, so I have no idea what the facelift is. The website looks as anemic as ever; or have I gone to the wrong place?
fat prophet 01.09.10 at 1:11 pm
Call me cynical if you like but I just wonder if it is a precursor to another price rise - I think the price is another reason why lots of people don’t take it. I find it especially annoying when we lose a significant amount of the recorder to the regular supplement from Holy Tirnity, Brompton. If our local evening paper do a supplement it really is that - we do not lose almost half the paper in the process.
As I said elsewhere I will wait a few weeks before making any real comment.
John Cooper 01.09.10 at 1:51 pm
To see it you can find a web story
http://www.societyofeditors.co.uk/page-view.php?page_id=1&parent_page_id=0&news_id=1938&numbertoprintfrom=1
Phil Bradley 01.09.10 at 10:42 pm
Thanks Richard. Such events do bring things into a particular perspective and make you consider and reconsider the larger questions in life.
Olive Morgan 01.12.10 at 9:14 pm
I am envious that your copy of the Methodist Recorder arrived last week. I am still waiting for the postman to bring me my copy, so I’m curious to see what this edition looks like.