Paper Monitor
12:19 UK time, Tuesday, 1 April 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor goes a-April Fool huntin' (With believability star ratings out of five).
"Calling Carla: Brown enlists first lady to give Britain style"
As purveyors of the finest Fleet Street April Fool - a 1977 spoof about the fictional island nation of San Serriffe – the Guardian is acutely aware of its 1 April reputation. It delivers a slick little number about Carla Bruni being appointed by Gordon Brown to spearhead a government taskforce on putting more style and glamour into British life. With its politics and policy overtones, this is pure Guardian. Believability rating: **
"Docs to stretch small Sarkozy"
It's no surprise that the Sun sees April Fools Day as a chance to re-run a picture of Carla Bruni. In credability terms it's a non-starter but even for the most gullible, this paragraph seals its: "The method, Stature Augmentation Treatment, was developed on guinea pigs by Israeli academic Professor Ura Schmuck." BR: *
"Mobile phone 'sniffer' sees through fibs"
The Times cashes in on the Facebook phenomenon with its story about a new online application to track the movements of loved ones using their mobile phone. The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (Sniff) is said to work on the triangulation technique of locating a mobile phone signal through three location readouts. Its credibility is enhanced by an online crumb trail – the company behind Sniff, Useful Media, has a web presence. But if it were true, the government might as well host a public shredding of the Data Protection Act. Paper Monitor sniffs a rat. BR: ***
"What have they done to Big Ben?"
Any April Fool worth its salt treads a fine line between plausible and preposterous. The Daily Express, however, shows nothing but contempt for this convention, plumping for a story that is so ridiculous that were it true it would be probably have precipitated a motion of no confidence in the government. Big Ben, we're told, has gone digital. Disregarding the axiom that merely competent Photoshop maketh not a Fool believable, there's even a picture. BR: *
"A fool and his money…"
The Daily Mail shows all the others how it should be done with a blurry but utterly convincing "picture" of Chancellor Alistair Darling doing a lottery scratchcard. The picture credit, to Rolf Liopa (an ominous anagram if ever there was one) might as well have been to Alison Jackson. Beautifully executed. BR: ****
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