Paper Monitor
11:08 UK time, Friday, 25 May 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor is feeling a little unfocussed today, and the papers reflect this. Every single one has a different story as its lead, and their choices are entirely predictable.
The Daily Telegraph leads with the biggest divorce settlement in British legal history, in which an insurance magnate has been ordered to pay £48m to his wife. No surprise there, the paper aims to be the reading matter of choice for the mega-rich divorcing classes.
Equally unsurprising is the Independent's decision to plough its own (sustainably farmed) furrow. Its poster front page is a graphic of the eco-house of the future. And it and the Guardian alone relegate the last photo taken of Madeleine McCann to the inside pages.
But not the Sun, which leads with Maddie.
The Daily Mail, with its eye firmly on Middle Britain, knows that anything to do with carting away refuse gets its readership hot under the collar. "After fortnightly collections and microchips in your wheelie bin... NOW PAY FOR YOUR TRIP TO THE TIP".
Ditto the Daily Express, except it leads with "DUSTBINS: NOW WE FACE FINES AND TAXES".
The Times hedges its bets between no alcohol in pregnancy, and its exclusive interview with the £48m divorcee. The Guardian has its own exclusive on the government knowing the HIV risk of importing blood.
The Daily Mirror, perhaps mindful that Big Brother starts next week and it is ever anxious to beat the Sun on telly matters, reports on "repeated bust-ups" between the show's makers and Channel 4.
Sigh. Expect acres more on BB - the civilian version - in the coming months. If Paper Monitor gets sucked in, it'll feel as dirty as if it had read the collected works of Mr and Mrs Liz Jones.
The 
