Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Workplaces across the nation are starting to wind down operations for the annual festive hibernation but at Monitor Towers it is business as usual... despite a rising sense of panic at the gifts still to be got AND remembering to call-screen in case it's Cap Comp and Punorama ringing from the bar.
Anyway, to work. The Daily Telegraph has obviously not let the pleasures of the season distract it from the task at hand, managing to shoehorn in not just one story (a la the Independent), nor two, three or even four onto its front page. It has (deep intake of breath) six articles, five promo boxes, three charity appeal banners, two news graphics and a big picture story.
And, as befits the season of excess, it covers a mish-mash of Telegraph interests. Politics. The Christmas get-away - and its cost to the economy. The three kings. Call screening. Venerable actress check-by-jowl with Guantanamo detainee. Shaved legs. The cost of a stamp. How to turn out the PERFECT Christmas dinner. And, last but certainly not least, a royal baby. It's all there.
Over at the Sun, it's also noses to the grindstone, albeit on just the one story - alleged "grubby antics" at the Manchester United Christmas party. For it is a Sun story through and through, an opportunity to mix moral outrage with prurient interest.
Whereas yesterday's Times painted a picture of young women "not in their normal jeans, but in short skirts", the Sun spares not a horse in its own descriptions. But they wouldn't, would they?