Metro now the world’s biggest newspaper and still not the best in Vancouver
I’m not a big fan of the Metro newspaper [wp] that’s given out free around Vancouver. It’s just a rehash of wire stories with sadly little local content mixed in. That it and 24 Hours have pushed out locally owned and produced papers is a shame. If Edmonton can support two high quality alternative papers then why does Vancouver have to choose between two national ones and the Georgia Straight?
Anyway the Metro line of free daily newspapers has become the largest newspaper in the world. Largest I assume means most widely distributed as opposed to physically the biggest. According to Wikipedia:
Under the brand name Metro, it runs the world’s largest chain of free newspapers, 69 daily Metro editions are published and distributing in 92 major cities in 19 countries in 19 languages across Europe, North & South America and Asia.
I got hip to the story thanks to NowPublic [np]. The largely unanswered question is whether or not having these free daily newspapers is a good thing for Vancouver. It creates a tremendous amount of garbage, the people who hand out the papers at the Skytrain stations are generally pushy, and as I said before it hurts local publications. The trouble is, what exactly can we do about it?
I suppose the easiest thing to do is stop accepting the papers when they’re handed out. After Metro starts getting stacks of undelivered piles, sooner or later their advertisers will realize it’s not worth the money, and voila: no more Metro. A few complaint letters to city call would probably help as well.
Yeah, I never take the papers. It just encourages them. But I feel bad because I’m sure handing out papers pays shit all, and it’s a crap job. But the fact is Metro doesn’t really give a shit how many they actually give away, their ad rates are based on how much they publish and not how many are actually picked up.
But yeah, a concerted effort not to pick up the Metro might help. It’s pretty much the only option.