In the media press

The media commentators have some varied subjects to talk about:Steven Glover in the Independent mourns the passing of the Old Spectator as Andrew Neill's chief executiveship takes control

"What a coup Mr Neil has achieved. First he gains control of a magazine with which he has scores to settle. He chooses a new editor, Mr d'Ancona, who is prepared to change it. Then he conjures up another magazine, close to his heart and dear to his wishes, whose survival is virtually guaranteed by the profits and resources of The Spectator. This plan can only go awry if Mr Neil manages to kill off The Spectator in the process, but that, in the nature of things, is bound to take a long time."

Peter Wilby in the Guardian looks at the press' treatment of financial reporting

In other words, the press presents the world through a middle-aged, middleclass prism. When young people read that house prices have shown "healthy increases", they must think journalists live in a parallel universe. No wonder they don't read newspapers or feel any affection for them. If any paper hopes to woo the under-30s in large numbers, whether through new media or old-fashioned print, it will have to get to grips with what Faisal Islam, economics correspondent of Channel 4 News, calls "the great generational robbery". In the New Statesman this month, he wrote of how 22-year-olds, through rent payments, are paying off the mortgages of older landlords who benefited from cheaper house prices; of how, when they eventually buy houses, it will represent a transfer of many millions of pounds from young to old; of how, through rising taxation, they are paying their parents' pensions. Why do we so rarely read of this in the daily and Sunday papers? Why do papers such as the Telegraph and Express fuss so much about inheritance tax which matters to people in their 50s and 60s, whose parents are approaching the end of their lives, not to those in their 20s and 30s? Newspapers think they are trying hard to attract younger readers, with new designs, consumer guides to iPods and long features about pop and film celebrities. It is all window-dressing. In their coverage of politics, social affairs and business, they betray underlying assumptions and attitudes to drugs, sex, money and much else that seem quite alien to the most young readers.