Guardian Offers ‘Republican’ Option to Escape Royal Baby News
Max Fisher has spotted a tiny link amidst the Guardian's navigation options.
Max Fisher has spotted a tiny link amidst the Guardian’s navigation options.
WaPo (“British news site offers ‘Republican’ option for readers sick of royal baby news“):
But not every one of the royal baby’s future subjects is glued to their screens following today’s monarchical developments. Perhaps anticipating some reader fatigue, the Web site of the British newspaper The Guardian introduced a special option on the U.K. edition of its homepage Monday: a small toggle near the top of the page that allows readers to switch between “Royalist” and “Republican” modes, the latter of which removes all reference to English royalty and their familial expansion.
A reader loading the Guardian’s homepage for the first time today will be bombarded with royal baby news: the happy crowds gathered in the streets, the details of royal succession, yet another photo-biography of Middleton and even a story with the headline “Queen’s former gynaecologist leads top medical team.” But the reader also will notice a toggle at the top of page that says “Republican?” (I’ve highlighted it in a screenshot at the top of this page.) Clicking that removes all reference to the royal baby, replacing it with a story about art forgeries as well as lots and lots of sports news.
Here’s the standard “royalist” page:
And the Republican alternative:
This is brilliant. And perhaps the Republican Party here will take some cues for rebranding itself. An inanity-free option to our politics would make them a shoe-in to retake the Senate in 2016.
too bad I don’t have that option for my TV. I can’t believe that Americans even care about that.
Have you not been paying attention for the last 5 years, James? An “inanity-free” channel based on the US Republican Party would be dead air.
If I were a “subject’ of HRM, I would recommend the Guardian for a Nobel for that little electronic thing-a-ma-jig. Now if my local supermarkets would only have a checkout line that does NOT feature multiple spreads about Hollywood divorces, Little Green Men and Country Music Heroes Fallen To Earth, and other American royalty-substitutes.
The Guardian has done this before, I think it did it for the wedding too.
So, Marcus Setchell is going to retire after this. Is he going to write a tell-all-book now? 😉
@merl:
Me too. I thought that the fact that Americans did not worship a foreign Chief of State was the only thing where Americans were superior to the Canadians.
@Andre Kenji:
You’ve forgotten about BBQ, good sir.
@Andre Kenji:
Take a pick, the Bush clan or the Windsor clan….
(Obviously you can vote the Bush clan out….)
WE don’t. I think it’s just a certain segment of the population. Probably WASPs.