Monday 6 July 2009

Slim

Emperor Jahangir weighing his son Prince Khurr...Image via Wikipedia

As various posts over the past eight or so months have noted, Gulf News has been cutting back on the carbs and has dropped its weight from a rather turgid 1.3Kg in November 2008 to an average 640g in Feb 2009, a downward trend continued through May, which saw the paper taking up regular exercise and slimming down to an reasonably regular 540g.

It's been feeling lighter recently and I have generally resisted the mildly obsessive impulse to weigh it again, but today's edition felt noticeably more feather-like. And it is - thanks to my trusty weighing scale (the best Dhs19 I've spent at Lal's in a long time) I can report that today's GN is weighing in at 440g, something like a third of its original weight. I have to add the usual caveat - a Dhs19 scale is hardly capable of atomic accuracy.

I think we can all agree there's a trend here - it's hardly rocket science. The fact that the trend is continuing is a worry, though. GN has already apparently shed a number of journalistic jobs - albeit fudging this news with an example of corporate responsibility and transparency that should inform any company wishing to call the skeleton in the cupboard a 'new market opportunity'. Few will welcome the news of more to come.
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8 comments:

Kartik Rao said...

A closer examination might reveal that the reduction is in advertisement side of the paper, more specifically the real estate advert side. So the slimming might just be to do with the tyres around the waist and not the muscle itself. But then some people might look at it the other way round

Rose in Dubai said...

Yes, but the tyres make the thing run! No tyres (advertising) no income.

Em said...

yup. time a for a lil rate reduction...if they wanna bulk up.

Anonymous said...

Much better for the delivery boys!

Anonymous said...

You mean you guys read newspapers?

Jen Gerson said...

Dude, you weight the paper? Regularly? That's almost as bad as having 53 pictures of your cat on your phone.

Unknown said...

Guessing that a good chunk of that weight might have from them ditching three out of the usual four or so property supplements?

Oman Holiday said...

you should wight the Times of Oman - in at 156gms

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