Daily habits are relatively easy to modify because most of us can remember what we did the day before, enabling us to make the necessary change. However if we do something just once a week, as determined as we might be to change our behaviour, it can take weeks if not months to really remember that we intended to do things differently. As someone who goes to church most Sundays, I know how long it can take for a relatively small group of people to remember that the time of the meeting or the venue have changed. To persuade 1.6 Million people, most of whom are unknown to you, to change their weekly behaviour is clearly a much bigger challenge. However if the cause is good enough, it must be worth a try?

Last Sunday the Mail on Sunday, a paper with 1.6M readers published some appalling articles on the work of foodbanks, based on techniques usually referred to as investigative journalism. I wrote my own response last Monday here and the original articles can be found here. My suggestion was that regular readers of the Mail on Sunday should either donate the money they usually spend on their Sunday paper to the Trussell Trust, or else buy a different paper. If I am honest I would not personally buy the Mail on Sunday if it was the last paper available at the newsagents, any week. However a friend of mine works for the paper and he reminded me and others on facebook last week, that the paper is not all bad and people like him depend on the paper for their work. My friend suggested I write to the paper with my concerns. He believed that this would be responded to. Sadly for my friend, his confidence in his own company was severely misplaced and nearly a week later I have not even had an email acknowledging that my email had been received. I also sent a tweet to David Rose whose twitter account describes him as the deputy news editor of the paper. Although he has not responded to my complaint, he has not tweeted at all for over a week so perhaps he will respond when he is next on twitter, LOL!

Because of my friends plea and because I believe in the principle of redemption, my suggestion is that people who usually buy the paper, send a clear message to the editorial team who are so despicable that they printed the articles in the first place and so spineless that they have not responded to emails sent to their published email addresses.  This week please remember how you felt last Sunday, and send your own message to these purveyors of dishonesty. If the circulation drops this week, by a measurable amount (say 5%-10%) the editor and his team will hear the message that they clearly could not read from my email. That is 80,000+ copies of the paper going unsold. Its a big ask, but it is clear that I am not alone in my dismay at this behaviour, many people have donated funds to Trussell in the last week. Lets show Geordie Greig and his fellow fat cats, that we really do care what they do with their newspaper.