Paper Monitor
11:36 UK time, Thursday, 24 April 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Last week it was Happy Monday dancer Bez, this week it's Coleen McLoughlin who lists her profession as journalist.
But is she? This question posed in the Guardian's G2 may have Fleet St veterans coughing into their morning ciggies, followed by a short, sharp "NO!" but long-time hack Roy Greenslade gives the young lady - and the times we live in - a fair hearing.
On the wedding banns posted at Crewe register office by Ms McLoughlin and her beau Wayne Rooney, her profession is given as "journalist" rather than the more immediately obvious options of, say, clotheshorse or TV presenter. (His, the Sun points out, reads "proffesional" footballer. The Guardian, needless to say, doesn't pick up on this misspelling.)
"I can imagine the thin smiles from veteran reporters as they question her credentials. How many doorsteps has she been on?" Greenslade writes. But journalism is a far broader church than when he started out 40 years ago. "In the old days one possible route to fame was becoming a national newspaper columnist. Now, in the age of celebrity, it's fame that lands you a column."
And the OED defines a journalist as "One who earns his living by editing or writing for a public journal or journals" and that is indeed what Ms McLoughlin does, raking in a reported £100,000 for penning a few hundred words on what she's bought in the past seven days for Closer magazine. Plus a bit of pin-money from other sources.
The Daily Mirror's Brian Reade notes that whereas he used to struggle to give advice on how best to get into the profession, thanks to Coleen it's now easy.
"In future I will let it be known that the best way to become a journalist is to date a Mr Potato Head and be seen leaving the hairdresser's with big curlers in your hair."
Paper Monitor is clearly not the only one wearing the green cloak of Dame Envy.
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