The front pages
Saturday 22 February 2014
It's a sunny Saturday, so let's keep it brief. You'll have heard the Chris Moyles story on radio and TV. It's a cracker, so please read it in full in a newspaper. Great timing, too. It's his 40th birthday today. The only other front page story that really matters is in the Times. The pressure on high-achieving girls to achieve even more is frightening and at last the link with eating disorders and mental health issues has been given prominence.
On the inside pages, the Mail continues with its investigation of Labour MPs' past. This time it focuses on Margaret Hodge's role as leader of Islington Council, whose care homes were once run by paedophiles.
There is also extensive interest in Rebekah Brooks's 'car crash love life'.
The Kiev violence is generally returned to the foreign pages with hopes of peace or at least a truce with the disappearance of President Yanukovych and the prospect of the release of Yuliya Tymoshenko. But there are worrying rumblings to the east of Ukraine and, as my former colleague Tony Halpin points out, the Winter Olympics that have stayed Putin's hand through this violence end tomorrow. He should be writing about this in detail for someone - and this nascent website is not a big enough platform for such expertise.
Finally, do we need to see Simon Cowell changing a nappy? Do we need to see him and his baby any more at all? Come on, Si. Put Eric away until he's big enough to face you from the stage.
On the inside pages, the Mail continues with its investigation of Labour MPs' past. This time it focuses on Margaret Hodge's role as leader of Islington Council, whose care homes were once run by paedophiles.
There is also extensive interest in Rebekah Brooks's 'car crash love life'.
The Kiev violence is generally returned to the foreign pages with hopes of peace or at least a truce with the disappearance of President Yanukovych and the prospect of the release of Yuliya Tymoshenko. But there are worrying rumblings to the east of Ukraine and, as my former colleague Tony Halpin points out, the Winter Olympics that have stayed Putin's hand through this violence end tomorrow. He should be writing about this in detail for someone - and this nascent website is not a big enough platform for such expertise.
Finally, do we need to see Simon Cowell changing a nappy? Do we need to see him and his baby any more at all? Come on, Si. Put Eric away until he's big enough to face you from the stage.
Friday 21 February, 2014
The violence in Ukraine brings home the vast range of our Press. The Independent goes all out on Kiev. The Times dumps the puff but isn't brave enough to give it the whole page. The Guardian, too, has a domestic story in the basement, and the Telegraph is half-Guardian, half-Mail with its huge picture above a splash on the floods. A cop out? Well, yes. But then it does bring Ukraine right forward to 2 and 3.
All the inside coverage is good, with the Independent's the most extensive - and the most elegant. What a shame none of them have woken up to Venezuela, which is given short shrift everywhere. Maybe next week. One foreign trouble spot at a time.
On the other side of the street, the Mirror is proud of its splash which is a picture of a girl aged four holding a rolled up £20 note and a line of cocaine on a photograph of a woman in a bikini. The picture was taken by the pop singer Ian Watkins and the subject has told the paper that she took it to the police in 2008, four years before his arrest for child sex abuse, but that no one took any notice.
The Mail delights in the fact that the Met Office sent councils a three-month weather forecast predicting that this winter would be exceptionally dry. Well you have to laugh. The other three are barely worth mentioning: an office prank, statins help you live longer (isn't that the general idea?) and TOWIE/CBB star has Crohn's disease. It is a horrible condition. But it's not a national newspaper splash.
All the inside coverage is good, with the Independent's the most extensive - and the most elegant. What a shame none of them have woken up to Venezuela, which is given short shrift everywhere. Maybe next week. One foreign trouble spot at a time.
On the other side of the street, the Mirror is proud of its splash which is a picture of a girl aged four holding a rolled up £20 note and a line of cocaine on a photograph of a woman in a bikini. The picture was taken by the pop singer Ian Watkins and the subject has told the paper that she took it to the police in 2008, four years before his arrest for child sex abuse, but that no one took any notice.
The Mail delights in the fact that the Met Office sent councils a three-month weather forecast predicting that this winter would be exceptionally dry. Well you have to laugh. The other three are barely worth mentioning: an office prank, statins help you live longer (isn't that the general idea?) and TOWIE/CBB star has Crohn's disease. It is a horrible condition. But it's not a national newspaper splash.
...and what the commentators say about the churches and welfare
|
Rowan Williams (Mirror) People who use food banks are not scroungers who are cynically trying to work the system. They are drawn from the six million working poor in this country, people who are struggling to make ends meet
Simon Heffer (Mail) It beggars belief that someone of such an elevated moral position and such intelligence as Archbishop Nichols should want a welfare system that rewards idleness, encourages dependency, turns a blind eye to fraud and accepts the exploitation of the majority of tax-paying people who support themselves and their families by working hard |
|
Steve Richards (Guardian) David Cameron's response to the Archbishop of
Westminster was emollient but unyielding. It is quite something for a Tory prime
minister to alienate the top church leaders in the land and yet still be
regarded by some Tory MPs as a leftie
Ed West (Times) Bishops cannot stay silent on political issues, because at the heart of religion is the question of how the community delivers justice. They may sometimes be wrong-headed, but it is a pity that, compared with the 1980s, few people care what they say. |
|
Andreas Whittam Smith (Independent) Churches are well grounded in taking on the Government over welfare and hunger. Their priests and pastors live where the problems are acute.
They don’t commute into work from leafy suburbs, as many heads of social-services departments do. They walk the local streets. Their homes are just up the road from their churches and chapels. They know what they are talking about. |
Thursday 20 February, 2014
The Mail is still on the tail of Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, finding a former policeman to tell them they were silly and should say sorry. It also devotes a spread to asking questions that MUST be answered. (Read more on the background to this here.)
The Independent and Mirror have both been sent open letters seeking action on the plight of a mentally ill man in prison in Pakistan and poverty in this country. The Independent has written about Mohammad Asghar before and is continuing to press for his release. The signatories to today's letter include the shadow justice minister Sadiq Khan and British Asian politicians, academics and human rights campaigners.
The Mirror has a more familiar set of names on its letter urging the Prime Minister to investigate failing food markets and to ensure that the welfare system does not leave people hungry. They include 27 of the UK's 44 Anglican bishops, ten leading Methodists, three from the United Reformed Church and two senior Quakers.
The Times finds joy in women finding work in record numbers, but waits until the second to last line of the front page copy to tell us that those who do find work are being paid less. For other papers, the 10% of new jobs that have gone to immigrants are more interesting.
The Blair-Brooks story (see the top of this page) is obviously compelling for the Guardian.
The Brits are the overwhelming choice for photograph, although the Independent looks further afield for its pop stars and uses a triptych of members of Pussy Riot being whipped by a Cossack in Sochi.
The Independent and Mirror have both been sent open letters seeking action on the plight of a mentally ill man in prison in Pakistan and poverty in this country. The Independent has written about Mohammad Asghar before and is continuing to press for his release. The signatories to today's letter include the shadow justice minister Sadiq Khan and British Asian politicians, academics and human rights campaigners.
The Mirror has a more familiar set of names on its letter urging the Prime Minister to investigate failing food markets and to ensure that the welfare system does not leave people hungry. They include 27 of the UK's 44 Anglican bishops, ten leading Methodists, three from the United Reformed Church and two senior Quakers.
The Times finds joy in women finding work in record numbers, but waits until the second to last line of the front page copy to tell us that those who do find work are being paid less. For other papers, the 10% of new jobs that have gone to immigrants are more interesting.
The Blair-Brooks story (see the top of this page) is obviously compelling for the Guardian.
The Brits are the overwhelming choice for photograph, although the Independent looks further afield for its pop stars and uses a triptych of members of Pussy Riot being whipped by a Cossack in Sochi.
...and what the commentators say about Kiev
|
Edward Lucas (Telegraph) The West should be flexing its muscles to bolster Georgia and Moldova, which may be next in the Kremlin's firing line for moving
towards Europe
Orysia Lutsevych (FT) The EU has inspired millions of Ukrainians with its model of governance based on democracy, rule of law, respect for human rights and a market economy. This vision has fuelled the protests. If the EU now fails to respond in an effective and decisive manner, its international credibility and soft power will take a further hit. Mary Dejevsky (Guardian) Russia needs to see Ukraine not just as an independent country but as a borderland to both east and west. A readiness to join the EU in devising a rescue plan for Ukraine with no political strings attached would do more than the shining venues of Sochi to draw a line under the Cold War. Michael Burleigh (Mail) This is part of a vast geopolitical power-play between the US and EU and a Russian leader who will stop at nothing to keep Ukraine under his control. Given the |
|
combination of Vladimir Putin’s obduracy, a feeble stooge of a Ukrainian president, and the deep divisions in the country, they could yet be the start of something far more calamitous.
...and on Miranda.. Stephen Glover (Mail) David Miranda is a silly young man who carried lethal information he did not understand, acting on behalf of a journalist who has no love for Britain, and paid for by a newspaper which is certain it knows what is best for this country’s security. Yesterday three judges decided in utterly uncompromising language that it does not. Helena Kennedy (Guardian) One person's freedom fighter may be another's terrorist, but David Miranda is very clearly neither. Yet he was detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. That the High Court has now found his detention to be lawful is disappointing, to say the least. Read more from Editorial Intelligence here |
Wednesday 19 February, 2014
The Mail comes out with a real shocker - the alleged links between the old Paedophile Information Exchange and the National Council of Civil Liberties in the 1970s, when Harriet Harman, her future husband Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt were NCCL officials. Read more on this here
There are still benefits to being a broadsheet, as the Telegraph demonstrates with its half-page picture of the deadly violence in Ukraine last night. The Guardian splashes on the story with a horrifying photograph of a protester on fire, and a third stunning picture finds its way to the top of the Times. The Telegraph also has an excellent spread inside.
It naturally prefers to splash on the Prime Minister's response to the Archbishop of Westminster's claim that 'frankly disgraceful' welfare reforms were driving the poor to destitution. It's not a particularly convincing argument and Dave's media managers need a lesson in timing. To produce this for publication on the day your target is off seeing the Pope to become a cardinal doesn't seem sensible.
Dog attacks on children have always seemed to come in batches - it was such a clutch that led to the ill-thought-out Dangerous Dogs Act - and today we have the most horrific that SubScribe can remember. Both the Sun and Mirror use the same building blocks - reverse heading, stock picture of dog of the same breed, head shot of mother Sharon John. Both also surround the story with jolly, glitzy puffs. The results are unedifying.
It is easy to believe that the mother did run into the street crying 'The dog ate my baby's head.' Who wouldn't have been distraught in such circumstances? But the Sun is quite wrong to use that for the heading, particularly bearing in mind the disembodied nature of the photograph of Ms John.
This isn't 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster' - and it's time the Sun could see the difference.
There are still benefits to being a broadsheet, as the Telegraph demonstrates with its half-page picture of the deadly violence in Ukraine last night. The Guardian splashes on the story with a horrifying photograph of a protester on fire, and a third stunning picture finds its way to the top of the Times. The Telegraph also has an excellent spread inside.
It naturally prefers to splash on the Prime Minister's response to the Archbishop of Westminster's claim that 'frankly disgraceful' welfare reforms were driving the poor to destitution. It's not a particularly convincing argument and Dave's media managers need a lesson in timing. To produce this for publication on the day your target is off seeing the Pope to become a cardinal doesn't seem sensible.
Dog attacks on children have always seemed to come in batches - it was such a clutch that led to the ill-thought-out Dangerous Dogs Act - and today we have the most horrific that SubScribe can remember. Both the Sun and Mirror use the same building blocks - reverse heading, stock picture of dog of the same breed, head shot of mother Sharon John. Both also surround the story with jolly, glitzy puffs. The results are unedifying.
It is easy to believe that the mother did run into the street crying 'The dog ate my baby's head.' Who wouldn't have been distraught in such circumstances? But the Sun is quite wrong to use that for the heading, particularly bearing in mind the disembodied nature of the photograph of Ms John.
This isn't 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster' - and it's time the Sun could see the difference.
...and the word from the opinion pages
David Cameron (Telegraph) responds to Archbishop of Westminster's accusation that welfare reform is a disgrace that leaves the poor facing destitution. The Prime Minister says that seeing
the reforms through is at the heart of his long-term economic plan and at the heart of his social and moral mission in politics.
Simon Jenkins (Guardian) Nobody has a clue what ought to be taught in schools. Britain's curriculum, like its teaching methods and school year, is stuck in Tom Brown's Schooldays
Anne McElvoy (Times) We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for our lack of competency in maths – Asia recognises strengths in our schools’ more rounded education.
Mary Riddell (Telegraph) Our shambolic nursery school system is responsible for our youngsters falling behind the standards of other nations. Children's lives are being compromised and politicians should act now.
Quentin Letts (Mail) John Bercow struggles to control the Commons, particularly on big occasions. At PMQs his character has proved lamentably unequal to chairing the weekly squall of partisanship and political knife-play. He dislikes the House? It dislikes him right back.
Read more from Editorial Intelligence here
Simon Jenkins (Guardian) Nobody has a clue what ought to be taught in schools. Britain's curriculum, like its teaching methods and school year, is stuck in Tom Brown's Schooldays
Anne McElvoy (Times) We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for our lack of competency in maths – Asia recognises strengths in our schools’ more rounded education.
Mary Riddell (Telegraph) Our shambolic nursery school system is responsible for our youngsters falling behind the standards of other nations. Children's lives are being compromised and politicians should act now.
Quentin Letts (Mail) John Bercow struggles to control the Commons, particularly on big occasions. At PMQs his character has proved lamentably unequal to chairing the weekly squall of partisanship and political knife-play. He dislikes the House? It dislikes him right back.
Read more from Editorial Intelligence here
Tuesday 18 February, 2014
The Mail and the Express are at one in indignation at new suggestions of age discrimination in the NHS, the Speaker is fed up with the weekly shenanigans at Prime Minister's Questions, the Telegraph is embarrassed that cleaners' children in China are achieving more academically than our star pupils, and the UN is alarmed by the 'Nazi' regime in North Korea.
On top of that, the Mirror is horrified that Army medics are learning their craft by treating live pigs that have been strung up on scaffolds and shot, and in the Star, British cops on Madeleine duty are again said to be dismissive of their Portuguese counterparts.
If all that wasn't enough to bear, the Sun tells us exclusively that lefthand side of Ant and Dec has sliced off the top of his thumb.
In the face of so much trauma threre's only one thing for it - take the Times's advice. Go for a walk and see if your brain's still there.
On top of that, the Mirror is horrified that Army medics are learning their craft by treating live pigs that have been strung up on scaffolds and shot, and in the Star, British cops on Madeleine duty are again said to be dismissive of their Portuguese counterparts.
If all that wasn't enough to bear, the Sun tells us exclusively that lefthand side of Ant and Dec has sliced off the top of his thumb.
In the face of so much trauma threre's only one thing for it - take the Times's advice. Go for a walk and see if your brain's still there.
...and on the OpEd pages...
|
Ross Clark (Express) if Nick Clegg wants to leap into bed with Labour let him. He will find a party
whose supporters are becoming nervous about its anti-business stance and its
determination to soak the rich. The message from Ed Miliband is a world away
from that put out by Tony Blair in the 1990s.
Melissa Kite (Guardian) if Ed Miliband has any sense, he will heed the advice of his European election candidate Will Martindale to "hug a banker". And quickly. Gideon Rackman (FT) Ultimately Scotland and England would be able to find a way to make a peaceful divorce work. That would be best for “the children” of the UK. It would also offer a global lesson in the civilised way to handle separatism. |
|
Alan Cochrane (Telegraph) Alex Salmond is gambling on Westminster backing down on currency union if there's a Yes vote - a gamble that threatens Scotland's economic future.
Angus Roxburgh (Guardian) If the Scots democratically choose independence, then Brussels, London, and all global institutions will accept this and work to make it happen. Not for Scotland's sake, but for their own. John McTernan (Times) Who's the bully? Mr Salmond wants to leave the UK, but he wants to make taxpayers left in the UK underwrite his banks and economy. And if we says no? Scotland will default on its debt. |
Monday 17 February, 2014
Monday is a day for leftovers, and there's more than a hint of that with today's papers.
Nobody has anything special, there's no wow factor: a couple of dry-ish health policy stories, more floods fallout, another salvo on immigrantion from the Express, more non-movement in the McCann case from the Mirror. But the Mail is scandalised - and there's a pretty even split on whether the Baftas or the baby Cowell is the best picture. Read more here
Nobody has anything special, there's no wow factor: a couple of dry-ish health policy stories, more floods fallout, another salvo on immigrantion from the Express, more non-movement in the McCann case from the Mirror. But the Mail is scandalised - and there's a pretty even split on whether the Baftas or the baby Cowell is the best picture. Read more here
...and what the commentators say
John Harris (Guardian) The blame for the four-year absence of what we once called “green issues” from
mainstream politics lies not with pantomime villain deniers, but with politicians who once banged on about its urgency and then suddenly went quiet.
Chris Huhne (Guardian) The Tory climate-change sceptics’ line is changing. Now they are arguing that we should be spending money on adapting, but not wasting it on trying to stop the problem. It is progress of a sort: learning by drowning.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent) The contemptuous disregard of climate change deniers for facts and evidence-based theories should make them irrelevant. Maybe now Britons will pay them less heed.
Kevin Maguire (Mirror) The Labour leader’s beginning to join the dots on austerity and climate change. The Tories accusing him of playing politics are terrified that he is formulating an argument about a better Britain which shows how we could genuinely be in this together.
Chris Huhne (Guardian) The Tory climate-change sceptics’ line is changing. Now they are arguing that we should be spending money on adapting, but not wasting it on trying to stop the problem. It is progress of a sort: learning by drowning.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent) The contemptuous disregard of climate change deniers for facts and evidence-based theories should make them irrelevant. Maybe now Britons will pay them less heed.
Kevin Maguire (Mirror) The Labour leader’s beginning to join the dots on austerity and climate change. The Tories accusing him of playing politics are terrified that he is formulating an argument about a better Britain which shows how we could genuinely be in this together.
Sunday 16 February 2014
A new inquiry into children's deaths at Bristol Royal Infirmary's cardiac unit is welcomed by the People and the Independent. The weather keeps the Express and Mail in its grip. They focus on the human toll of the blast that hit the West on Friday, while the higher-minded Telegraph and the Observer go for the politics.
The redtops are still mysteriously fascinated by Simon Cowell's new son Eric, although the Sun demoted him after the first edition to splash on a new deal that should keep Wayne Rooney at Manchester United forever at £300,000 a week. Everyone's been chasing the story, which has yet to be officially announced, so there'll be some mumblings in the street among the more cautious papers.
Lizzy Yarnold returns to the Independent front for a second day. She is also the Sunday Times's golden girl. For the other broadsheets it's Bafta night and that can mean only one thing - Helen Mirren. It's obligatory.
The redtops are still mysteriously fascinated by Simon Cowell's new son Eric, although the Sun demoted him after the first edition to splash on a new deal that should keep Wayne Rooney at Manchester United forever at £300,000 a week. Everyone's been chasing the story, which has yet to be officially announced, so there'll be some mumblings in the street among the more cautious papers.
Lizzy Yarnold returns to the Independent front for a second day. She is also the Sunday Times's golden girl. For the other broadsheets it's Bafta night and that can mean only one thing - Helen Mirren. It's obligatory.
Join our happy band of SubScribers
SubScribe is not intended as a live news site, but it aims to offer thoughts on the industry, links to key industry players and commentary on what they are up to.
If you would like weekly updates (promise we won't bombard you with emails) please sign up below.
If you would like weekly updates (promise we won't bombard you with emails) please sign up below.
|
|
|
