Magazine Monitor

Paper Monitor

• Posted on Wednesday at 12:25 UK time

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

How rude is too rude? It's a question that has long exercised press barons and broadcasters alike, and is being addressed anew by the Daily Mirror's Stop the Swearing on Telly campaign.

On Monday the Mirror gave Jamie Oliver a carpeting for using a very rude word indeed; today it's those equally cheeky chappies, Ant and Dec.

As a model was forced to eat testicle in the Australian jungle - an animal's, Paper Monitor hastens to add - the pair made repeated gags about a dog's, a kangaroo's and a crocodile's private parts. With liberal use of a word starting with b, eight letters, ends with s. At 9.28 in the evening!

"The TV favourites laughed as they shocked viewers with their language," sniffs the paper, so offended that it reprints the word eight times - albeit starred out - in speech bubbles and the accompanying article.

As Paper Monitor ponders its ranking on the rude-o-meter, the Mirror and the Daily Telegraph provide an answer: "the eighth most offensive word in a study commissioned by the BBC and ITV".

Which does rather beg the question, what is at number seven in the rankings?

• Link to this post

Paper Monitor

• Posted on Tuesday at 12:32 UK time

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Never mind the myth of record debt, dearest Magazine, Paper Monitor is more concerned at this juncture in the day with the myth of the non-iron shirt/blouse (note sartorial gender neutrality).

Moving on. It's rare that the Guardian and the Daily Mail show a united front when it comes to giving page one exposure to a story of little national consequence. But it seems that a cri de coeur from Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Philips has further inflamed what Mrs Merton was wont to call a "heated debate".

At the centre of the controversy is former BBC political correspondent John Sergeant, who despite being not a very good dancer has avoided ejection from this contest which, ostensibly, sets out to find good celebrity dancers.

Ostensibly, because, really if this show was just about dancing and not about personality, then why doesn't it just draw its contestants from the morass of non-celebrities out there? Because then no one would watch it, of course.

What Ms Phillips and her irked colleagues fail to appreciate is the British public's glorious bloodymindedness when they feel they are being pressed into a corner. Vote for another grinning, pearly-toothed, lusciously tanned, nimble-footed generi-celeb? No thanks - we'll have the "dancing pig".

Paper Monitor is reminded of the popular mandate given to H'Angus the Monkey, when the government thought it would be a good idea to have locally-elected mayors.

So the coverage accorded to Ms Phillips' comments on the fronts of the Mail and Guardian (the latter, it should be said because Ms Phillips accuses Sergeant of sitting around and reading the Guardian), not to mention the Daily Express, look destined to endear Mr Sergeant to the public even more.

Metro exhibits a similar streak of reality TV ennui (cri de coeur, ennui, get with the French, readers) by staging an Independent-style campaigning front page contrasting contestants eating bugs in I'm a Celebrity... with a boy in Zimbabwe who is subject to a similar diet.

"Sometimes the injustice of this world really sticks in your throat" runs the headline. Wow, it's a bit early in the series to be burning bridges with the I'm a Celebrity publicists. But principles come above all else, right Metro?

Turn to page 15 "First bungle in the jungle as I'm a Celebrity star asks... will eating testicles make me pregnant? Nicola McLean feared she could be pregnant..."

Wrong.

• Link to this post

Paper Monitor

• Posted on Monday at 12:26 UK time

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Earlier this month, in the wake of "Manuelgate", ITV boss Michael Grade spoke out against the "unrestrained" use of the F-word in TV shows.

The Daily Mirror in particular fell on his comments, launching a "Stop the Swearing on Telly" campaign. With Gordon Ramsay uncharacteristically off-screen for the minute, its chosen whipping boy is another TV chef fond of salty language.

Announcing its campaign on 4 November, the paper blasted Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food show for using the F-word 23 times in 50 minutes. While Ramsay has since promised to tone it down, Oliver's boss at Channel 4 has said he won't allow "cultural conservatism" to dampen his star performer.

And so the gloves are off. "When an ex-teacher complained to Jamie Oliver about his swearing on TV, the reply was a foul-mouthed e-mail. MINISTRY OF RUDE," reads today's headline after an ill-advised message from one of Oliver's team.

But wait, this is St Jamie, whose latest campaign is to teach recipes to people who feed their kids takeaways. The Mirror LOVED him back in 2005 - "a £17m original Mr Nice Guy" - when he tackled school dinners, and threw its weight behind his healthy eating campaign.

Which is worse - chips with everything, or salads sprinkled with swear words? And is this a backlash against Jamie and his messiah complex, or a witch hunt against bad language?

Meanwhile, the red tops bid farewell to another cheeky chappie, Reg Varney of On The Buses.
"Reg, our favourite bus driver, is dead at 92" - Daily Mail
"I'll cremate you, Butler" - the Sun, playing with Inspector Blakey's catchphrase "I 'ate you Butler"
"I'll miss you, Butler" - the Mirror, adding Varney was the first man in Britain to use a cashpoint machine.

• Link to this post

Paper Monitor

• Posted on Friday at 11:26 UK time

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

After yesterday's Guardian morphing with Hello! magazine, whatever will today bring? It is Prince Charles's 60th, and whose coverage will most closely mirror that of a glossy society magazine?

At first glance, the Daily Telegraph looks to be in the running, devoting a large portion of its front page to his louche-looking official birthday photo. But inside there is very little else. The couple divorcing over Second Life cheating gets more words and bigger pictures.

The Guardian, meanwhile, has the portrait - complete with a cut-out-and-keep guide to all that hardware on Charles's chest.
A timeline of his life and times - complete with topless polo pic.
Pull-quotes of his best lines - including that infamous assessment of the BBC's royal correspondent, "I can't bear that man".
And not one but two extensive think pieces.

The Daily Mail is far more interested in whether John Cleese's shiner at the royal show was real or fake, but later in the paper there's a Mac cartoon in honour of the big day.

Any Independent reader wishing to doff a cap in honour of the royal birthday has to wait until page 17, where a mere handful of words mark the occasion, alongside briefs such as Hendrix's drummer dying and something about shrimps.

And the Daily Express, champion of Diana (although some may not see it that way), runs a big feature on past heirs awaiting their turn on the throne.

"On his 60th birthday, Prince Charles today becomes the longest serving and possibly most inspiring Prince of Wales, a title that has seen its share of braggarts, playboys and wastrels."

Is this what is known as faint praise?

• Link to this post

Paper Monitor

• Posted on Thursday at 12:34 UK time

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

What's going on? In a completely out of character way, the Guardian's G2 today has a profile piece on "Britain's most influential couple", Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud, which is more reminiscent of a Hello photoshoot (although in this case the ratio of words to photographs is reversed) than that of a left-leaning broadsheet Berliner newspaper.

"Inside the court of London's golden couple" starts with a couple of yachts, a private jet, billionaires and tycoons not to mention a viscountess thrown in for good measure, and that's just page one. There's constant reference to parties, parties, parties throughout. But don't imagine that it's all about the glitz and glamour. "When Cherie's out of town, Tony Blair often turns up in his jeans to their house in Notting Hill." A regular Ramsay Street then....

The accompanying collection of photos show Freud with the great and the good, including the obligatory snap with Bob Geldof. (Will there ever be a time when the very idea of the great and the good doesn't refer to himself and Bono, who is also featured?)

Once the feeling of nausea has passed, Paper Monitor is left puzzled. Some of the phrases used, and in fact the entire piece, surely go against the Guardian grain. It's particularly bizarre when you consider that Elisabeth is the daughter of a rival - media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, mention of whom is that of an "adoring father" figure. What's next in the British media love-in? Paul Dacre praising the BBC?

By the way, when reporting the sorry story of a man killing his neighbour's cat, the Daily Mail uses the word "catricide" to describe the sad episode. Can you see what they did there? Is there really such a word? Or is the Mail simply trying to confirm its tabloid status alongside the usual kings of the pun, the subs over at the Sun and Daily Mirror?

• Link to this post