I've received an email from Will Lewis, editor of the Daily Telegraph, which I feel I should share with you because, clearly, he would appreciate as much advice as possible about the content of his newspaper. The clue is in the headline: "What would you like from the Telegraph?"
On the other hand, it soon becomes apparent that what Will is really hunting is information about me.
"Dear Roy, In my role as editor of the Telegraph, I want to make sure we're only sending you relevant information. So I would be grateful if you could click here to tell us what interests you and check that your details are up-to-date. It will only take a couple of minutes.
"You will benefit from unique access to the unrivalled information resources of the Telegraph, exclusive offers, invitations to special events and much more. And we will only be emailing you with what you tell us you want to know about. So please just click on the link to tell us your preferences or, should you wish, to opt-out of future emails from the Telegraph.
"So, many thanks for your time, please do click the link and help us to stay relevant to you. Regards, William Lewis" (A mite formal after that "Dear Roy" beginning, is it not?)
But it was friendly enough, so I clicked the link to discover that he wanted to know what I like to read about "so that we can let you know about relevant articles and exclusive offers both in the paper and on our website."
It was a rather restricted - but revealing - choice of topics (personal finance, business & finance news, sport, lifestyle, arts & entertainment, gardening, travel, family & education, food & wine, motoring and technology). So, no box for home and foreign news, comment and analysis - the real reason for buying a newspaper.
Then the survey asks which papers I read (and when), though I rather think Will knows I read them all. And, finally, do I read news online?
It's unclear quite what Will hopes to achieve with this survey. I sincerely hope the paper doesn't set out its editorial strategy based on the replies. Or there will be no news at all in the Daily Telegraph.
