Letter: Sword of truth

Sir: Andrew Neil ("So what does The Guardian stand for?", 17 November) once again demonstrates that there are lies, damned lies and a newspaper's analysis of its competitors' sales figures. After a year that included both a general election and the tragic events surrounding the death of Princess Diana, all daily newspapers have found sales difficult in 1998 except The Daily Mail and the FT, and even there UK sales are static with growth coming from international sales. If they are excluded from the mix, in the six months to October quality daily sales are down six per cent. Again The Guardian has outperformed the market, down only four per cent. While not immune from the trends in the market, The Guardian continues to show resilience, increasing market share for the second consecutive month.

It is The Independent, with sales down more than 16 per cent on last year, despite the recent substantial investment in the editorial product, that would appear to be the newspaper with an uncertain position in the market. Even with a considerable effort, sales in October have grown by 610 copies, or 0.2 per cent, on September, and full-price sales have fallen to an average 164,000 copies per day.

Mr Neil's analysis of the market also appears somewhat out of date. In the 1990s quality journalism, innovation, promotion and useful sections are every bit as important as political opinion when readers decide their choice of newspaper. Readers realised this long ago; it is only newspaper analysts who continue to believe that a newspaper's sales are a one-dimensional reflection of the opinion polls. The Guardian is a paper founded on free thinking and independent journalism. It is because we continue to hold to these principles that we have disagreed with the Government. The fact that this has led to sometimes heated disagreement is surely evidence that The Guardian cannot be ignored.

STEPHEN PALMER

Marketing Director

The Guardian

London EC1