Paper Monitor

12:39 UK time, Wednesday, 8 November 2006

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Forget the mid-term US elections, the voters are clamouring for information on the latest line-up of I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! And the papers oblige with partisan profiles of the contestants.

The Daily Mail and the Sun both have full-colour runners and riders guides. But it’s the Sun that is much more crushing in its profiles. In the Mail, David Gest is billed as the "Minelli Mister”, while the Sun calls him “mad bloke who was married to Lisa Minnelli”.

The Mail demurely describes Jan Leeming as “the news headliner”, while the Sun pitches in with “posh bird who used to present the news”.

And the Mail can’t resist the political spin for Lauren Booth, billing her as “the PM’s nemesis”, while the Sun opts for “Cherie Blair’s much less famous sister”.

The Times takes another bite at the racist poem story, following up the “some of my best friends are Asian” defence used on such occasions. The paper spoke to one of the real-life Asian friends of the Tory councillor and found him to be unamused.

The Times also has an intriguing survey on its front page about the huge gap between our public commitment to green issues and the very different way we behave in practice. And it has the ring of truth about it.

For instance, almost two-thirds of us claim to buy energy-saving light bulbs, but in practice, only one in five bulbs sold is energy saving. A worthy 54% “make a conscious effort to take fewer flights” and, yep, airline passenger numbers rose by 27% last year.

But will it stop the rising tides of eco-stories? No, these have already become a staple news diet. Even if we’re not going to do anything about the solution, the problem makes for a riveting read.