Trinity Mirror to launch 'politically neutral' standalone newspaper The New Day

Updated

Trinity Mirror has confirmed it is to launch the first new standalone newspaper for 30 years - and said it will be an "optimistic" and "politically neutral" title.

The paper, to be called The New Day, will hit news stands next Monday.

The publisher said the newspaper "will cover important stories in a balanced way, without telling the reader what to think", and stressed that it will be a standalone paper and "not a sister title" to The Daily Mirror.

The move comes despite a sharp decline in newspaper sales as readers switch to online websites. The Independent and The Independent on Sunday newspapers are to close next month and go digital-only.

But Trinity Mirror insists there is still an appetite for the printed word, and The New Day will appeal to new readers.

It will run to 40 pages and be available free from more than 40,000 retailers on its first day, Monday February 29. It will trial at 25p for two weeks and sell for 50p after that.

Alison Phillips, The Mirror's weekend editor who will also edit The New Day, said the paper will be a radical departure from other titles on the news stand by being concise, politically neutral and optimistic.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Whilst we have continued to put newspapers out in a fairly similar way for 100 years, there has been a massive nuclear bomb gone off in the media world with the advent of the internet, and we have created a newspaper which reflects that and understands that.

"So, whilst now there is a breaking story and people have got news alerts on their phones all the time, what they quite often want is a ruthless edit of the day - this is what they need to know."

She added: "Most people, and we have spoken to thousands of readers over the last year or so, they only want 30 minutes, they only have 30 minutes, everyone is time-poor nowadays."

She said the paper will be packed full of comment and opinion from all sides of the political debate, but unlike others it will be politically neutral and will not have an editorial leader column.

"We are not having a political line of our own, we will just tell the story straight, we will provide the facts and we will provide opinion from across the argument and then treat our readers like grown-ups who are capable of making up their own minds", she said.

"Why should I, as an editor of a newspaper, enforce my opinion on my readers?

"I think the whole social media and sharing of news has changed the way people operate, in that people don't in this day and age want some sort of great newspaper on high telling them what they should think.

"We are trying to create a mood of optimism and positivity that is lacking elsewhere."

The newspaper will have a presence on social media, but it will not have a website.

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