Paper Monitor
12:15 UK time, Tuesday, 4 December 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Tough to think what to write about today - chemical war apparently brewing in Syria, riots in Northern Ireland, instability in Egypt or Dec's thing for Ashley Roberts. Let's see...Oh, there's only one story in town.
As Times columnist David Aaronovitch tweets: "Baby versus possible chemical war. Tough news decisions."
The baby wins hands down. We speak, of course (Paper Monitor has involuntarily adopted the royal we), of the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy.
"We're expecting" shouts the Times. There's rather less decorum from the Telegraph:
"A nation's joy, a husband's nerves," trumpets the Daily Mail. "Reports pages 2-14".
The Mail is in such a hurry, it's decided to imagine the baby has already been born. For there on page three is a full page picture of Wills holding the baby. It must be a computer generation of what the baby will look like! Erm, no. On closer inspection it is a baby he held in... 2006. "Paternal instincts: William cradles baby Sina Nuru in 2006, at the reopening of the neonatal unit at St Mary's Hospital."
The Daily Express does an almost nugatory five pages in comparison. : "Royal baby: it's all down to coconuts...and plenty of Brussels sprouts!"
The news travels far and wide. announces the Oxford Mail, keen not to miss out. "Yesterday's announcement was followed by warm words from the Rt Rev John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron and the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, Tim Stevenson." Always good to have the Oxford angle.
Zoe Williams in the Guardian offers invaluable tips for journalists. "Kate Middleton's pregnancy: ". They include "how soon Pippa Middleton will want to get pregnant", "an imaginative reconstruction of how Diana would take the news" and "any article headlined "Dilatey-Katey".
However she misses one out - baby computer generation. Too late! For yes - two slightly Martian-looking children have appeared. "The boy shares William's thin hair and ears, but also his blue eyes and Kate's darker colouring. The girl shares Kate's beauty with a heart-shaped face, striking blue eyes, and long dark hair." So that's that settled.
Oh wither Andreas Whittam Smith's Independent. A colleague with a better memory than Paper Monitor, remembers how the Indy - in those days a broadsheet - announced one of Fergie's pregnancies: in a Nib at the bottom of page two. Now that's what one calls high brow.
For a moment, it looks as if the Guardian has taken up the mantle. "VAT loophole 'costs more than Olympics'" is the splash. But eyes to the right and our Kate is smiling back.
There's no escape. Where's the FT?
The 
