Scotland: Edinburgh Herald & Post relaunches

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 2:18 PM

The free weekly newspaper in Edinburgh will relaunch next week with a greater focus on shopping and local listings, All Media Scotland reports.

The new-look Edinburgh Herald & Post, produced by The Scotsman's publishers, is expected to focus on the shopping and services sector in the city with consumer news and features. It will also include local listings and a picture gallery to focus on community events. The newspaper will be distributed free to households across Edinburgh from Thursday.

The editor will be Helen Martin, who has previously worked as features editor at sister title the Edinburgh Evening News and as a communications manager at Scotsman Publications. She will continue to write her Monday column in the Evening News alongside her new role.

"Shopping - be it for food, fashion, or other goods and services - is both an essential and a leisure activity now," Martin said. "And everyone's looking for value for money. It's all about being useful to readers. And there is so much going on in local communities around the city that there's a need for that to be documented in good, old-fashioned, local weekly newspaper coverage. The paper has been redesigned with a fresh new look to match the new content."

The good, old-fashioned local coverage she describes may appear at odds with the paper's focus on shopping and consumer features. Late last year an inquiry was announced into a decline in the local Scottish press: let's hope that this relaunch is part of a renewal instead.

Source: All Media Scotland