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Queen reads regional newspapers: the photographic proof!

A TV documentary has provided photographic proof that the Queen reads regional newspapers.

The feature-length programme, to be broadcast on Sunday, provides a detailed portrait of Her Majesty during her Diamond Jubilee year.

It includes footage from her private sitting room in her Balmoral residence in which a collection of newspapers and magazines are visible, including The Scotsman and The Press and Journal.

Other titles on her reading list, pictured below, include The Times, Racing Post, the Daily Mirror and The Daily Telegraph.

The Queen meets Prime Minister David Cameron in her Balmoral sitting room.

A close-up of the newspapers and magazines on display, with the masthead of the Press and Journal and the distinctive crest of The Scotsman clearly visible.

The editors of both titles have welcomed the Royal endorsement.     Scotsman editor Ian Stewart told HTFP: “We know the Queen loves Scotland and has a great interest in its history, culture and politics so it comes as no surprise that she reads The Scotsman.

“It is however a great endorsement of the work everyone here does to produce a quality newspaper that each day has the best Scottish news, sport, business, comment, analysis and debate.”

Press and Journal editor Damian Bates said: “The Press and Journal has had a very strong connection with the Royal Family and Balmoral for many, many years.

“We’re incredibly proud and humbled to serve the Queen and other members of the royal family – as we are with all our readers – by delivering the news on everything that happens in the north of Scotland and beyond.  After all, the P & J has been the Voice of the North for all its readers since 1747.”

The two-hour documentary called Our Queen was filmed by Oxford Film and Television, which was given unique access to the Queen during 2012, and will be broadcast on ITV1 on Sunday at 8pm.

It includes footage of other members of the Royal Family, interviews with her staff and access to her various residences.

Last month, Eastern Daily Press editor Nigel Pickover claimed the Queen had told him she also read his newspaper “every morning.”

At the time, however. the Buckingham Palace press office said it could not confirm or deny whether the Queen read the EDP and the paper is not visible in the image from Balmoral.

16 comments

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  • March 15, 2013 at 9:08 am
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    Judging by the Hello! mags on that table, she also keeps up to date with celebrity drivel. But does it matter what she reads, or doesn’t read?

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  • March 15, 2013 at 9:27 am
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    “…. and the (Eastern Daily Press) is not visible in the image from Balmoral.”

    Do you seriously expect she’d get the EDP delivered to Balmoral in northern Scotland – or for that matter a copy of the Press & Journal when she’s at Sandringham in Norfolk?

    But that’s no reason why she wouldn’t have the local options to hand wherever she is. I know I always read the local and regional papers wherever I’m travelling or holidaying. Not sure if I’d be claimed by Nigel Pickover as a regular reader of his esteemed publication on that basis, though.

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  • March 15, 2013 at 9:33 am
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    The Scotsman (founded 1816) is NOT a “regional newspaper” but a national newspaper throughout Scotland, which is a nation, even under devolution, not a county outside Watford.
    Please stop this antiquated way of looking at everything through the narrow end of a drainpipe in London.

    Dorothy-Grace Elder

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  • March 15, 2013 at 9:39 am
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    How on Earth does this prove what the Queen reads/does not read??

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  • March 15, 2013 at 9:49 am
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    Dorothy-Grace – The Scotsman has recently announced it will now be considered among the ‘regional’ ABCs, so I think it probably counts itself as regional

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  • March 15, 2013 at 10:00 am
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    Actually Dot, you can untwist yer kilt, as that is not a dig at Scottish nationalism but a factual reference to the position of The Scotsman in the ABC listings. The owners recently changed it to be listed as a regional daily, not a national.
    And I’m a Scot so this is not racist before you start with that patter.

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  • March 15, 2013 at 10:28 am
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    I think Dorothy-Grace Elder is nostalgic for the glory days of The Scotsman. With a circulation now of just 33,563 it has even less penetration than a host of English weeklies. There is nothing ‘antiquated’ about the facts.

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  • March 15, 2013 at 10:40 am
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    Scotland is certainly not a county outside Watford, but Scotland as a country is run by the London establishment… that’s why so many Scots want their independence. The Scottish “national” newspapers have traditionally towed a sycophantic political party line to the City of London to the impoverishment of their homeland.

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  • March 15, 2013 at 11:34 am
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    Looks like Her Maj has opened up her own newsagents in that pic. Surely she doesn’t read all of those?

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  • March 15, 2013 at 11:36 am
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    A clever marketing ploy to try to convince more people to follow in the footsteps of The Queen by reading local papers! Why doesn’t the image show at least some regional papers on the table?

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  • March 15, 2013 at 12:44 pm
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    In order of reading preference :

    Times then Racing Post interesting.

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  • March 15, 2013 at 1:16 pm
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    Dorothy-Grace, The Scotsman is definitely a regional. It sells only 20+ thousand copies a week and the vast majority of its sales are in the Edinburgh/Forth area. It may carry national news (as does the Herald, Courier and P&J) but each of those four broadsheets predominantly focusses most of their news on their own geographical area (Herald = Glasgow, Courier = Tayside and Fife, P&J = Aberdeen, Inverness and far north; Scotsman = Edinburgh). Speaking as a reporter who has worked at two of those four (including the Scotsman) I have no qualms in saying that,

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  • March 15, 2013 at 2:55 pm
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    Why does she need to read Majesty, surely she knows what she’s up to?

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  • March 15, 2013 at 4:04 pm
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    What a disgusting fleck of trivia. Who gives a flying fart what that old billionaire reads, or gets her flunkies to read to her?

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