Paper Monitor
12:38 UK time, Tuesday, 15 April 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Let's start with an observation from the bizarre and arbitrary world of image pixellation, or "blobbing" as it's known in the trade.
The Sun pictures troubled chanteuse Amy Winehouse downing a drink while carrying, in her other hand, a baby. Over at the Mirror we get almost the same picture but this time the baby's been blobbed – and what a scary blobbing it is, with the child's eyes resolved to large black rectangles.
Returning to the Sun, Paper Monitor fears the paper may be losing its edge, after news that former Page 3 stunna Melinda Messenger is splitting up from husband and "struggling musician" (nicely phrased) Wayne. It was, after all, the Sun (with the help of an unidentified plastic surgeon) which catapulted Messenger to the level of mediocre stardom that allows her to launch various charitable initiatives and front numerous PR launches (see some of the best here). So did Messenger's manager get on the blower to the Sun's newsdesk to give them the exclusive?
Nope. Turns out the story only surfaced after someone spotted Messenger wasn't wearing her wedding ring during an interview on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Breakfast sofa. Paper Monitor is only left wondering (and let this not be a determinant for those who speculate on Paper Monitor's gender) what sort of person notices such a thing.
Limited time tends to restrict rummaging into the further reaches of the Daily Telegraph, but stray beyond the opinion columns, the letters page, the latest instalment of the Thatcher hagiography and you'll settle on a gem of an idea – Su Barking's A-Z of Eth!cal PR (written with the guiding hand of satirist Craig Brown). A snippet…
"Terminal 5: Via-a-vis our clients Heathrow Terminal 5, we can honestly say that, despite one or two minor blips, the launch went off as smoothly as we hoped, with a minimum of mid-air crashes […] a huge majority of customers declared themselves 'not immediately suicidal' or 'deferring legal action'."
Last of all, the distressing story of teenager Natasha Farnham who, at 14, became the youngest person in Britain to suffer liver failure because of binge drinking. The story's everywhere today – the Mirror, Mail, front page of Metro… But where did it come from? Like many hacks, Paper Monitor cut its teeth in the local press and so when it sees a story that originated in the locals it feels duty bound to name check the little guys. So well done Bath Chronicle for on Miss Farnham, from Monday last week.
And for those who've had enough of the story already, rejoice (briefly) at this memo which has shuttled around the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ: "Natasha Farnham, the youngest patient ever treated for liver failure because of alcohol abuse, has been signed up by a magazine and won't be speaking to other media outlets until next week."
The 
