Liverpool Echo prints blank front page

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/01/liverpool-echo-blank-front-page

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The Liverpool Echo has been printed with a blank front page for the first time in its 136-year history.

The blank page, which only features the masthead and the line “Your normal Echo is inside”, aims to raise awareness of a relaunch of the newspaper at the end of the month.

Editor Ali Machray said that the aim is to prompt readers to get involved and provide views on what Echo should look like.

“I know it will raise eyebrows but what we are saying is that we want the people of Liverpool to tell us what they want to see in that big white space as well as in the rest of their paper,” he said.

“What is inescapable is that Liverpool has changed hugely and is unrecognisable from what it was 20 years ago. It is a city reborn. Weare proud of what we do but now we’re asking ourselves how we can do it even better and reflect the new Liverpool as well as we should”.

Machray said that it was essential that the “paper moves in the same direction as the city and its people”.

He added: “I’m really keen to hear from everyone and anyone on Merseyside about what they want to read in their Echo every day – the type of news we should be reporting, the things we should be celebrating, the stories we should be telling.’’

Monday’s edition encourages readers to tweet their ideas using the hashtag #TellAli.

Readers can also complete a survey in the paper and post it in, or post a picture of the survey page on the newspaper’s Facebook page or Twitter account. There is also an online survey.

The Echo, published by Trinity Mirror, currently sells about 60,000 copies a day in print. It was first published in 1879 and has never before published a blank front page.