In an attempt to shore up the ailing Independent and after coming perilously close to hiring general cloaca Rod Liddle as editor, Alexander Lebedev has created a spin-off newspaper, ostensibly a “digest” of the best of the Indy. This comes with the relaunch (yes, another one) of the Indy itself as a more upmarket paper.

Truth be told, I’ve thought that in the past few years, the Indy has veered dangerously close to becoming a left-wing Daily Mail. The new paper, the i (yes, stupid name) only serves to reinforce that suspicion at first glance: despite being part of the self-appointed “quality” press, its first front page features a story about house prices, a death spun into a tragedy, and speculation on a Sesame Street character’s sexuality.

House prices, lolgays, tragedy

So far, so Express. You’ll note from the image above that the i has an incredibly reasonable price tag of 20p per issue – this makes it the same price as the Sun.

Of course, the Sun is arguably most popular for its page three section, in which they print a full-length photograph of a very pretty lady with no top on. The i, not wishing to be upstaged, has also printed a full-length photograph on its page two:

CLARKSON!

It’s worth noting that pages two and three are taken up by one of i‘s many “matrices”, this one being the “news matrix,” summaries of the day’s stories in a soft grid format. It’s a good idea, in principle: however, there are a few problems with the present implementation, the first being that there’s no indicator as to where the story is covered in greater depth. A little strap reading “more on pg7,” for example, would be very welcome.

The most important issue, however, is the fact that the full-length photograph of Clarkson isn’t actually tied to a story in the Matrix. In fact, Clarkson does have a legitimate reason to be in the news, but this story isn’t covered until page nine:

These “matrices” are applied throughout the paper, with varying success. For example, there’s this one, forming the TV guide:

This, again, is a relatively innovative idea: the columns represent genres, and the entries within them represent the “picks of the day” for those topics.

Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work. At all. The problem is that if you want to go on, say, an American Crime binge, you’re forced to choose between CSI Miami and The Mentalist, both on at 9pm. Although the shaded item is supposed to represent the “choice” (I think) there isn’t enough information – nor is there enough space – to make an informed decision. Add to this that it’s far too radical a departure from the Radio Times-style listings we’ve all become accustomed to, it’s hard to see how this could win any fans.

Here, we come to iQ, the i‘s look at “interesting” things. Unfortunately, the i‘s idea of what’s interesting is very… weird.

The Indy was never great at science reporting (the best paper for that is the Grauniad, and even then it has issues.) This means I was initially rather surprised by this little panel on page twenty-one:

With my scientist’s hat on, I have mixed feelings about this section. On the one hand, unlike the Mail or the Express, it doesn’t talk of “wonder drugs” or spin entire stories out of reports to claim that Facebook or going to the toilet in the middle of the night gives you cancer. It also uses qualifiers: for example, it mentions that “people who are able to sleep for just a few hours each night [...] may be fortunate enough to be born with the ability to cope with a chronic lack of sleep.”

On the other hand, this does over-emphasise the importance of single reports. Dozens of scientific reports, papers and surveys are published every day: all have wide margins of error, and none of these single-handedly prove any one thing. Science doesn’t work on a reactionary basis: no experiment’s results are taken as gospel until they are repeated and verified, again and again. Theory is not blind hypothesis: the theory of evolution, for example, is backed up by a myriad of transitional fossils, biological evidence and the fact we can see macro-evolution taking place beneath our very eyes.

More worrying to me was this:

I was never very fond of Johann Hari. Of course, he is less odious than Littlejohn in his views, and far more eloquent: more often than not, however, he allows himself to become overrun with the rampant sensationalism, single-mindedness and ignorance of evidence that is precisely why I hate newspapers. The only columnist I’ve ever really liked is Charlie Brooker, for this reason: whilst forthright in his views, he is willing to fact-check himself, and concede when others have it right.

This is where the Indy has arguably had an advantage for years: although claiming to be free of party-political bias, it also includes a Viewspaper, specifically dedicated to the opinion. The new paper features a matrix of opinions, along with a single “My View” column. This didn’t seem to work very well today: we’ll have to wait and see if it settles in over time.

Of course, the only reason anyone buys a newspaper these days is either to gawp at tits on the bus (as in the Sun‘s case) or to reinforce their own prejudices (as in the case of the Daily Mail, et al.) This is why I’m not too sure about how the i handles opinion: I like my preconceptions challenged. I’m rather fond of The Week for its eclectic mix of news and opinions: I don’t like a newspaper where everyone’s singing from the same hymn sheet.

If we ignore the opinion section, the i‘s first issue is OK. Desperate, yes. Will it work? I’m slightly doubtful.

See, it’s marketed as a paper for busy, but intelligent people. The trouble is that this market is mostly catered for already by Metro, which even beats i‘s very reasonable price tag by being totally free. Whether or not people will plump for the i (or the Indy-lite, as it’s more accurately described) will be an interesting experiment.

I have still to decide whether I want it to succeed. Give it a few weeks or so, and we’ll see.