Paper Monitor
11:53 UK time, Monday, 17 September 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
So there's turmoil in banking. The queues are lengthening as people demand their life savings in cash. They are not going to be dispelled with an It's a Wonderful Life-style plea for people to calm down. Not when they've read today's Sun, anyway, which brings us "a man with a squeaky voice" who "has been barred from accessing his bank details by phone - because staff keep thinking he is a WOMAN". Things are obviously much worse than we feared.
You might have seen reports that FHM was censured by watchdogs last week for featuring topless pics of a 14-year-old girl. The magazine said it didn't know how old she was. Today's Guardian wonders why no papers other than itself reported the story. "There was not a word, for example, in the Sun, whose editor Rebekah Wade, has always been such a sturdy opponent of paedophilia. That wouldn't be - would it? - because the red-tops fear they might themselves be caught out one day?" asks commentator Peter Wilby.
As chance would have it today's Sun does however find space to report the "fury" that a 12-year-old girl is modelling "a string of revealing outfits" at fashion shows. Hmmm (finger placed thoughtfully on bottom lip) how can one illustrate that story? How about a picture of said girl in bikini? Cause anyone at Sun Towers any problems? Apparently not.
Elsewhere in the Guardian there is a real spat between TV historians. Last week Tristram Hunt criticised genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?, and this week Alex Graham of the production company hits back in style.
Contrasting styles of show, Graham accuses Hunt of having prejudice in favour of "the middle-aged (or in his case prematurely middle-aged) presenter..." Biff.
Correcting Hunt's report of the order in which two TV shows were broadcast, he says: "Call me old fashioned, but I expect professional historians to at least get their dates right..." Kapow.
Comparing the ratings for Who Do You Think You Are with Hunt's own programmes, he says: "My message to Tristram is that there's room for both of us in the schedules. He can have his audience. We're more than happy with ours." Ouch.
Now that's a spat. Best draw a line under it here, boys, otherwise someone will resort to rhyming slang and that won't be pretty.
(Today, in a bid to restore audience trust, Paper Monitor presents some clarifications and declarations relating to today's entry. Firstly, the bank involved in the "We won't speaky to Mister Squeaky" story in the Sun was not Northern Rock. Secondly, this website was among those media organisations which did not report the Press Complaints Commission criticism of FHM magazine, though we are fairly sure that this was not because we feared being exposed as having published nude pictures of underage girls. Thirdly, there was an allusion in the final paragraph to an inappropriate rhyme and we would like to apologise.)
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