# Why is the Financial Times pink? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648 "2004-07-30T21:13:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/1 "2004-07-30T21:13:01Z")
Well it’s actually more of a peachy-pinky-salmon color. Why? It’s hard on my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/2 "2004-07-30T21:41:21Z")
The answer the question [themselves](https://www.ftnewspaper.com/cgi-bin/ftusa.cgi/fess/framework?embed=newspaper_faq2&title=About%20the%20FT) - basically it’s been that way since its inception, and was plainly and simply a way to stand out from the crowd. (WAG - pink was also probably a relatively cheap colour to use) ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/3 "2004-07-31T04:19:08Z")
How about the same question for the New York Observer? ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/4 "2004-07-31T11:34:20Z")
The Economic Times, here in India, is also printed on pinkish paper. Or at least I remember it being pinkish… nowdays, it’s somewhere between pink and light brown. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/5 "2004-07-31T12:16:05Z")
\ Being a distinctive colour probably also gets it bought more by people who want to just carry it about, and have passersby and coworkers think “Look - pink! It must be a financial times. That frood is so hoopy.” If it was a normal colour, people would have to spend a lot more time manouvering it so the title was obvious, or, God forbid, actually know something about finance markets so they can hold an intellegent conversation instead of just carrying a fruity paper 😃 \ ---
**Author:** ![sagi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@sagi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sagi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/6 "2004-07-31T16:22:09Z")
its a matter of standard. times were the first ---
**Author:** ![richardb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@richardb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richardb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/7 "2004-08-01T01:45:19Z")
I know nothing about the Financial Times, but the first thing I thought of when I saw this question was that it is pink to prevent photocopying and distributing copies for free to your friends. I know that a dark red colored paper with normal black type is virtually impossible to photocopy on a normal office copy machine. Perhaps with a color copyer you could filter out the red, but this was typical high-tech anti-piracy technology in the good 'ole days. Not sure if your color pink in this case is the same thing, but if you must pay a subscription fee to receive The Financial Times they must have an interest in preventing copying. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/8 "2004-08-01T01:59:53Z")
> [@richardb](#): > > I know nothing about the Financial Times, but the first thing I thought of when I saw this question was that it is pink to prevent photocopying and distributing copies for free to your friends. > > I know that a dark red colored paper with normal black type is virtually impossible to photocopy on a normal office copy machine. Perhaps with a color copyer you could filter out the red, but this was typical high-tech anti-piracy technology in the good 'ole days. > > Not sure if your color pink in this case is the same thing, but if you must pay a subscription fee to receive The Financial Times they must have an interest in preventing copying. Serendipity as far as they are concerned, since they’ve been doing it since 1893. May I hijack, and ask if any other paper besides the San Francisco Chronicle ever published their sports section on green paper and called it the “sporting green”? They also used to print their arts and entertainment section on pink, and refer to it as the “pink section”. I don’t believe they are still doing that - I haven’t seen a Chronicle in a while. Supposedly, they quit doing the sporting green because color photos didn’t come out very well on it. And some of the newspaper’s detractors might consider pink an appropriate shade for the entire thing, or at least the editorial page. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2004, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/9 "2004-08-01T08:04:20Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > May I hijack, and ask if any other paper besides the San Francisco Chronicle ever published their sports section on green paper and called it the “sporting green”? We’ve a local sports paper that used to be green - and is still called the “Green 'Un” ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/10 "2004-08-01T11:44:54Z")
The sports paper in my home town of Coventry was printed on pink paper and it was always called " The Pink". As a trivial aside the Tour of Italy Cycle race ( the Giro ) is sponsored by the famous sports paper \* La Gazzetta dello Sport \* , printed on pink paper That is why the race leader wears a pink shirt and not yellow as in the Tour de France ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-financial-times-pink/257648/11 "2004-08-01T22:26:20Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > May I hijack, and ask if any other paper besides the San Francisco Chronicle ever published their sports section on green paper and called it the “sporting green”? They also used to print their arts and entertainment section on pink, and refer to it as the “pink section”. I don’t believe they are still doing that - I haven’t seen a Chronicle in a while. The Chronicle’s Sunday “Datebook” section is once again pink due to public demand. According to [this site](http://www.mistersf.com/new/index.html?newpink.htm), the Sporting Green stopped being printed on green paper in 1987, and the Datebook stopped being pink in 2002 but resumed its pinkness in November 2003.