Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It was only a matter of time.
From the moment Royal Mail announced it was going to be taking on 30,000 casual workers to relieve the effects of the strike, Paper Monitor was counting the days until the first undercover journalist surfaced with a tell-all account of life inside a sorting office.
So well done to the Guardian's . (On Saturday, the Daily Mail's Ryan Kisiel also .)
Morris managed to fool Royal Mail chiefs into giving him a job in one of its temporary sorting offices, as did Kisiel in Bristol.
In truth, there doesn't seem to have been much subterfuge involved on Morris' part. Had the post bosses simply Googled his name, their suspicions might have been roused by the second link.
Steven Morris | guardian.co.uk
Steven Morris is a reporter for the Guardian. ... 1-15 of 2355 for Steven Morris. Latest from global. Most viewed; Latest; Most commented. Last 24 hours ... [and so on]
Another click and they would have been treated to a picture of this aspiring postal sorter.
Ditto for Kisiel.
Morris delivers some juicy nuggets of behind-the-scenes shenanigans - DVD Frisbee, courtesy of all those online movie rental outfits (though Morris omits to mention whether any of the frisbee'd discs were from the Guardian's own online rental offshoot, Sofa Cinema) and something called "no look basketball". For those who have recently entrusted a parcel with Her Majesty's postal service... you're better off not knowing.
Paper Monitor can't help but wonder how many other hacks are, at this moment, desperately trying to disguise all signs of their Clerkenwell selves as they go through the motions of wanting to be a minimum wage temporary postal sorter.
It keenly awaits a slew of revelations in other papers.