Paper Monitor
11:25 UK time, Wednesday, 26 January 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The shock 0.5% shrinkage in the UK economy dominates the front pages of the heavies. As might be expected, they all offer a slightly different nuance on the news.
The Financial Times emphasises that the Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, still supports the government's cuts. A plunging standard of living is the Daily Telegraph's top line.
The Guardian speaks of the coalition's refusal to change tack. While the Independent goes for a big moody picture of Mr King. The dreaded phrase "double dip" appears on the Times.
But how does the Sun convey this disastrous economic news to an anxious readership. With a fluorescent yellow "frowny", of course. In the Daily Star, the news is relegated to page 15.
By that point Star readers have already found out that Justin Lee Collins accidentally exposed himself in a dance class, that a drunken Korean man faces jail for groping a firefighter's breasts and that a row of occupied houses was wrongly demolished in Zagreb.
All of the redtops lead on the sacking of Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray in the sexism row. The Daily Star relishes the fact that the latest developments involve a blonde former glamour model. Pictures of her, scantily clad, go on the front and page five. The Sun opts for a more sensibly dressed shot.
But for the pithiest take you have to turn to the Star's celebrated Text Maniacs page. There a couple of texters suggest that Loose Women on ITV is every bit as sexist as anything said by Gray or colleague Richard Keys.
But the best text is from "EILSEL" who says: "Neanderthals KEYS & GRAY wud not av bin insulting if girl ref had bin wearing stockings."
The Daily Mail has been applying the hatchet as no-one else can. They ripping into Gray's personal life.
The reporter delivers the following barb:
"As a young man he was cursed with a face only a mother could love; a sallow, greasy complexion which led to acne well into his 20s, topped with a curly mop of hair so unruly he was surely grateful for the early onset of male pattern baldness."
Ouch.
The 
