Analysing the Print and Online Editions of the Financial Times.

 Introduction

The Financial Times is a very prestigious long running financial news outlet based in the United Kingdom. It is one of the worlds leading authorities on business and financial news. It is also a very niche and intellectual publication, assuming its audience to have a decent understanding of both business and market fundamentals. I was interested in how this type of publication might differ in its transition to digital formats verses its more mass appeal counterparts, and if a financial publication would also have some unique differences due to the rapidly changing nature of financial markets. The print paper is clearly a focus for the company as well, as evidenced by the fact they often post the front page on their social media accounts, as seen here. For this purpose I took an in depth look at the November 14/15th 2025 issue of FTWeekend. I went over 3 stories in the main paper, and the two front page stories in the Life & Arts and House & Home sections of the paper, and I compared them to their digital counterparts. Since many of these articles differed in title verses their digital counterpart I will list them by their print title and link to the online article, they are as follows: "Alibaba tech 'helps China target US'", "Meloni covets Italian Families' hidden gold heirlooms in rush for tax revenue", "Purge casts doubt on China's War readiness", "Why is it so difficult to run the BBC", and "Has Aspen reached peak chic". First I am going to go over an overview of the paper as a whole, and some initial thoughts about the presentation of the paper. Then I am going to go over each article in more detail, and finally direct comparisons between the print and online versions as well as my concluding thoughts about the paper.

Part 1: Overview/Thoughts  

 Overall I was very impressed by the papers presentation in several ways. While the weekend edition I analyzed for this project is much thicker than the weekday editions they are still dense in content, and the articles were given room to breath and were rich in detail. The visual design of the paper was clearly very thought out and actually impressed me, especially considering that the FT is a daily paper. As far as the content goes the digital articles were consistently longer and more detailed. Of all 5 articles I found a single example where the paper counterpart mentioned a detail that was left out of the online version. There was often additional visuals when compared with the print counterpart, and the FT only gives certain stories the color print treatment so the visuals that were included were often in black and white.The online version was also able to employ links, which it did heavily, especially when mentioning notable people. One significant difference in the overall presentation was the ads. The paper has some of the most upper-crust targeted advertising I have ever seen. Specific ads included were, an ad for a post-graduate degree in Asian Arts from the University of London, an ad for a $17000 watch, and an ad for antique furniture from actual 1800s era royal estates. This is in stark contrast to the kinds of ads presented on the websight. Which were far more inline with my expectations, primarily including financial services, electronics, and even some ads for boarding schools. All these differences lead me to believe that the print version is intended to target a very rich customer base. I had assumed that consumers of a finance focused paper like the FT would primarily be business-people. The digital advertisements are inline with that assumption, but the print advertisements feel beyond the scope of even most of the upper 10% of earners. Overall I was very impressed with the visual  design, while the the websight is more typical of other online newspapers, I appreciated the consistent motif of the FT's iconic pink paper, which actually made for a very pleasant reading experience at night.

 Part 2: The Articles 

The front page of the paper. Source

I analyzed five articles for this project as mentioned before. While I am not going to go into the nitty gritty details of each article there are some things I want to mention about each one in more detail. Firstly we have the front page article, titled "Alibaba tech 'helps China target US'" in print and "White House memo claims Alibaba is helping Chinese military target US" online, is an article about a declassified White House security memo that claims that the Chinese tech company Alibaba is providing the Chinese government and the PLA with access to its collected consumer data. There is a significant difference in length of these two articles. The digital version is roughly 850 words, while the print version is only about 350. There are multiple shortened sentences throughout the article and multiple missing paragraphs, especially towards the end of the article. This is by far the largest discrepancy in word count between the two versions, and makes me wonder if it has to do with its prime location and and spacing. However contrasting this with the next article called "Meloni covets Italian Families' hidden gold heirlooms in rush for tax revenue" in print, and "Meloni’s government eyes Italian family gold in hunt for budget funds" online also shares the front page of the paper, but while having a much less flashy presentation actually has significantly less content removed. The online article being about 530 words, and the print article being about 400 words. The article itself is about how the Italian government is trying to generate revenue by giving people a reduced tax rate on getting their undocumented gold valued. The article explains that Italians hold significant amounts of undocumented gold and that if they can convince people to value a significant portion of it, even at a reduced rate it would be a significant revenue stream. I don't have a lot to say about this article specifically except in how it compares to the previous article. I would have assumed prior that the front page large, text article, would get the most love but there is actually slightly more words dedicated to this article. The next article is on the second page and is titled "Purge casts doubt on China's War readiness" in print and "Xi Jinping’s purge of military officers raises doubts about China’s readiness for war" online. This article is significantly longer than the two previous at over 950 words for both versions. The article is about a long series of replacements and firings of notable members of the Chinese military, and how that has caused some experts to question the actual war readiness of the country. The print version of this article is mostly intact, Though it does still have a couple paragraphs removed. This is an article that illustrates the online versions strengths with its heavy use of links as well as several visuals that are not included in the print version including an interactive chart. Lastly we have the articles in the supplementary categories. For context the sections that these two articles come in namely Life & Arts for "Why is it so difficult to run the BBC" and House & Home for "Has Aspen reached peak chic" are given special treatment in the print version. They are basically each their own separate small papers, presented with their own front pages, and are only provided with the weekend print. This is interesting, because these categories are treated largely like any other on the websight, and House & Home is actually a subcategory under Life & Arts on the websight. This special attention in the print version really shows since both of these articles are basically entirely intact with "Why is it so difficult to run the BBC" missing only a single sentence, and "Has Aspen reached peak chic" being the only example of the print version not only not missing anything, but actually including more details than the online version. I assume that this has to do with the fact that these articles are FTWeekend exclusive, though it is interesting that these "subpapers" are given more room than the main one even for weekend editions. The articles themselves are very detailed and interesting. With "Why is it so difficult to run the BBC" being about the BBC's rocky history and how almost none of its directer-general's have left on good terms, and "Has Aspen reached peak chic" being about how the Resort town of Aspen Colorado is being overrun by celebrities and the super rich, and pricing out many of its native residents. The articles are both very long, with the entire front pages of their sections being dedicated to them, with them both continuing on page two. The writing style of the articles is also very different, tho that was expected due to the nature of the categories. 

 Part 3:Comparisons 

 Overall I found that while I very much enjoyed the print paper. Especially because the contents of the articles were fairly dense, and I was able to take notes directly on the page. The visual presentation of the print version was superior and having the articles be packaged together led me to read many stories I would have otherwise entirely overlooked. The "Why is it so difficult to run the BBC" stands out as an example from the ones discussed. I am usually interested more in current events than any other type of news article, but learning about the history of the BBC, and some of the unique challenges it faces was very interesting. However, as you have probably noticed from my discussion of the articles, in a strict content sense it is pretty much abjectly inferior. Most of the articles has significant amounts missing, and there is a large amount if supplementary material in the online versions that just isn't possible in print. Price is also an interesting factor to compare the two by. They offer a wide range different subscription plans for both print and online versions. The print versions are offered in a "Digital Edition" tier, a weekend only tier, and full print tier, and each tier includes the tier below it. The digital edition is an interesting product from FT. It is full scans of the printed version of each paper, as well as all of FT's magazines. It is accessible through a dedicated app, as well in its own reader online. It is priced at $12.99 a month, $35 a quarter, or $119 a year. Next we have the weekend, and full print tiers. The only difference between these two is weather you get the weekday editions of the paper. The weekend print is priced at, $39 quarterly, and $135 yearly with no monthly option available. The full print tier is offered at $75 quarterly, and does not offer monthly or yearly pricing. The online version is offered in two subscription tiers standard, and premium. The standard tier is priced at $45 monthly, $119 quarterly, and $429 yearly. The Premium version is priced at $75 monthly, $199 quarterly, and $719 yearly. The primary differences between the two tiers is that premium includes the digital edition of the print paper, as well as "Lex" FT's daily investment news column. Comparing these prices directly highlights something very interesting. You would normally assume that the print version was the more expensive of the two, but it is actually significantly cheaper than the online versions. Even when factoring in the yearly prices which come with a 20% discount for the online subscriptions, and digital edition. Speaking of the digital edition. It stands out as pretty fantastic value. While you don't get the full online stories like you do with the online subscriptions, you do get the full weekday, and weekend prints of the paper, as well as the magazines. Which is more than you get with the standard online subscription, or the full print paper subscription. The only caveat being the format its provided in. However if you use the app or reader, then you can click on the title of the article and it presents the story with a more traditional online article layout. It doesn't have many of the advantages the physical print paper has, but as a value proposition it is very competitively priced especially for an otherwise expensive paper. Though the print paper provides a lot better value per dollar vs the online version it is worth noting that as a finance focused paper, a lot of the information they provide is very time sensitive. For me same day delivery of the print version was not offered, and it often arrived several days late. This is also an advantage for the online version, as well as the digital edition of the print version. Overall while the online version of the articles consistently have more content, you do pay a premium for it. I think that at the end of the day its going to come down to consumption preference and the specific demands of the user whether the additional cost of the full online subscription is worth it.

 Part 4:Concluding Statements 

Overall I really enjoyed this paper. The Financial Times is a paper I have been interested in reading for a long time. It along with The Economist are some of my largest inspirations for going into journalism. While I would consider myself a bit more of an activist and the FT as more of a center-right leaning paper. They still represent what I view as a pillar of modern journalism. They are a well respected, reliable source of business news with a near spotless track record. I think they embody a lot of elements that we can look to and take from when trying to rebuild trust in American media going forward. I really enjoyed my time taking a deeper look at this paper, and it stood up well to my high expectations. I was surprised by many elements, but never disappointed with the quality of the reporting.