Paper Monitor
11:28 UK time, Friday, 8 February 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's not the easiest of tasks, illustrating a front page lead about Sharia law in the UK. Unless, of course, you work on the Sun - any excuse to wheel out that file pic of a niqab-clad woman doing the fingers is a good excuse.
And when that excuse comes courtesy of the Archbishop of Canterbury... well, it's for a higher purpose (Rowan Williams, incidentally, has never flipped a V at the nation's media; men of the cloth are taught to resist temptation, so he merely looks a bit grumpy in the Sun's chosen mugshot). Aptly, the meaning of the picture caption is open to interpretation: "Fury... woman in burkha". She's angry at the Archbish's comments? At Sharia law's lack of legal standing in the UK?
The Guardian takes another tack entirely, which is equally predictable - the archbishop looking a bit grumpy, surrounded by a halo of orange light. Why orange? It's akin to gold, the traditional choice of colour in depictions of holy halos, but crucially, is not actually gold. Subtext: the archbish is having a rum time of things?
And the Times and the Daily Telegraph simply cover the uproar in words alone, with another story entirely chosen to illustrate the front page. These too are hardly surprising - excited Asian Rooney fans in the former (see below for more on that story) and the Rolling Stones on the latter.
Meanwhile, all week the Daily Mirror has been giving away Mr Men books and today's features Mr Greedy. In a pleasing - and perhaps not entirely intentional - juxtaposition, the front page headline shrieks: "FOR SALE - OUR NATIONAL GAME: Outrage at greedy Premier League plan to hold TEN EXTRA matches ABROAD and rake in £240 MILLION".
There is also the inevitable photo of the troubled star du jour, headlined: "You'll KILL our Britney: Parents' fears." Given the theme of the Mirror's front page, perhaps Paper Monitor can be excused for the words "goose" and "golden egg" springing unbidden to mind.
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