Former Daily Express editor and Daily Mail executive Richard Addis is concerned about the failure of papers to publish analytical articles (as distinct from opinion, or opinion masquerading as analysis).
He surveyed the content of seven national daily newspapers for a week and concluded that there was plenty of comment but "very little" pure analysis.
As a proportion of the content of seven titles - Financial Times, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, Mail and Express - there was an average of just 6.5% analysis.
"My hunch is that this percentage would have been higher ten years' ago," he writes on his blog, which contains a graphic breakdown of his research, paper by paper. He explains:
"When running the Express, or helping to produce the Mail, we used to commission two or three 'experts' per day to explain what was going on.
"It was hard and expensive but satisfying to get a Nobel prize-winner or at least a university lecturer to produce something in three hours that would try to explain Balkan post-war history or stem cell science to six million busy people with very little natural interest in the subject and next to no prior knowledge of it.
"There is a case for saying that this type of explanatory, analytic writing is the most valuable content a newspaper can deliver. Opinion pieces, frankly, can be written by anyone. (Frequently they are)."
Addis argues that analysis helps to keep people interested in the great news events of the age - and it sells.
The Economist, The Week and the FT specialise in it, and all three "are profitable and thriving."
