malcolm coles

London's ‘morning' Metro newspaper goes to press so early that it failed to report on Arsenal's penalty shoot-out win over Roma last night - as the paper went to press, Arsenal were still playing extra time, leading to the headline:

‘Arsenal left on brink as Juan puts Roma on top'.

Metro appears to go to press before 10pm news finishes

Metro goes to press before Arsenal finish playing

As extra time finished at around 10.15pm, this meant that the paper had gone to press before the 10 o'clock TV news finished the night before.

This was the edition picked up at Finsbury Park (two stops from Kings Cross on the tube and right next to Arsenal's stadium!). A later edition I found on the 106 bus did contain a report of the shoot out, leading to two three questions:

• Why does Finsbury Park get such an early edition when it's so close to the centre of London?
• Why do any editions need to be so early when it's distributed only in London. It's not like it's got to get to the highlands of Scotland ...
• Is there any point in printing news when you go to press so early?

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