Manchester Evening News

I'm back snooping.

The Manchester Evening News are getting singled out here. It's not just them it's every paper. so this is more about the company behind the branded papers we recognise like the daily star, the daily express, Reach PLC. Where I live the evening paper the Sheffield Star is owned by a smaller publisher Sheffield Newspapers Ltd and they don't have the same headline presence online.

The kind of thing that absolutely drives me potty to the point I have stopped reading the paper or anything supposedly “news” related online.

I am even conscious now when I inadvertently see a headline, the internet and my iPhone know what I am interested in, it listens to me and watches everything I do, so AI and big bad algorithms try perpetually to show me things already planted to make me click.

I am so aware this is happening now whenever I go online, my location is switched off, I browse incognito, I’ve left Google behind in favour of Duck Duck Go and I have almost become an anti consumer after being shown beautiful photographs or horrible product and led up the garden path to shop for things in the past I didn’t really want or need.

That said this morning I was presented with this headline in the Manchester Evening News, probably because I am currently in the market for some Jo Malone perfume.

“Jo Malone fans snap up £21 bottles of perfume normally worth £118 for 100ml”

I do wonder what journalist Shawna Healey is feeling about writing attention grabbing headlines like this.

It worked on me.

When you read the rest of the article you are not getting 100ml of your favourite Jo Malone perfume for £21 instead of £118, you are getting 2 travel size perfumes 9ml each a total of 18ml for not £21 but actually £42. Talk about bait and switch.

I’d imagine this to be a paid piece for Jo Malone and lo and behold in very small print I did find a disclaimer on the article. paid advertising under the “News” section.

If you call yourself a journalist, for me the time has come to ask yourself what is the purpose of your work.

When the answer is clearly to mislead the consumer, the audience, for money it’s not really surprising newspapers are in trouble.

And if brands like Jo Malone are so desperate they are paying the Manchester Evening News for this kind of tricky paid promotion maybe the time has come for me to look for a smaller independent perfumer. Suggestions very welcome below, the Jo Malone I like is English Pear and Sweet Pea