An alleged former gangster’s murder saw a record number of local readers log on to a regional daily’s website.
A total of 329,000 unique users from the Manchester Evening News’s patch visited its site and associated apps on Monday after the newspaper broke the news about the shooting of Paul Massey, known as Salford’s “Mr Big”.
Mr Massey was shot four times outside his house by an unknown gunman on Sunday night.
As well as readers across Greater Manchester and East Cheshire, the site was visited by a total of 1.07 million unique users globally during the same period.
The previous record number of local visitors to the MEN’s site came after Manchester Dogs’ Home was destroyed in an arson attack last September, which saw 270,000 local readers visit the site in a single day.
Mr Massey had previously been jailed for 14 years after stabbing a man in the groin and leaving for dead.
Following his release, he fought an unsuccessful campaign to become the elected mayor of Salford, pledging to rid the streets of drugs and improve youth rehabilitation programmes.
His death also provided front pages for the MEN on Monday and Tuesday, pictured above and below respectively.
Editor in chief Rob Irvine said: “I am pleased with the way the editorial team handled the coverage of what was a tragic and appalling story, the cold-blooded murder of a well-known man in Salford.
“Mr Massey had a colourful and at times violent past and our chief reporter Neal Keeling has had many dealings with him over the years.
“Neal was the first to break the news of his murder on Sunday night, prompting a very busy couple of days in the office.
“Importantly, we treated a human tragedy with dignity and avoided sensationalism. Early indications are that the sale of Monday and Tuesday’s papers are also very strong indeed.
“This terrible crime has been the main topic of conversation in many a living room, shop and pub across the region and we hope we are giving our readers the most thorough and balanced coverage possible.”
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Seem to recall a few weeks back a story on here about the Liverpool Echo moving away from stories about gangsters and gun crime as splashes because readers had said they wanted to see more positive news on the front page.
Different cities I know, but I did think at the time that readers are a bit in denial about what they really want to see, and when asked in surveys always say “less doom and gloom.”
In reality, this sort of stuff is what really gets a reaction and gets people talking and, although it has its place, no amount of community content or the dreaded “UGC” is going to top a decent tale written by reporters who know how to get the job done.
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This makes something of a mockery of the recent debate at the MEN’s sister paper in Liverpool. The Echo was congratulating itself for taking heed of readers’ complaints about too much crime coverage. Could it be that readers – in Liverpool, Manchester, wherever – high-mindedly condemn their local paper for reflecting the crime in their area, but are secretly fascinated when it comes to a juicy crime story like this one. In other words, don’t edit by focus group or market research.
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The Echo has continued to run with crime fronts, from what I’ve seen.
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If you look at what the Echo said, it wasn’t ‘no more crime’ it was ‘no more sensationalising crime for the sake of it’ and the paper is trying to reflect more aspects of the city. Gangster who wanted to be mayor being shot dead is a natural front page for any paper, as are many crime stories.
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