Paper Monitor
12:25 UK time, Friday, 22 February 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor makes no excuses for shimmying round the mountain of grim news in today's press, in the hope of finding something that will bring some weekend cheer. But before reaching the glorious open road of frivolity, just time to stop and note the Sun's treatment of the Gazza-being-sectioned story. The paper, of course, has troubled form on this front, what with the whole "bonkers" Frank Bruno story a few years ago. Sure, the terminology surrounding mental illness is tricky these days... crazy, mad, nuts, barmy are all words that are innocuously bandied around in casual conversation, but in print they take on a greater seriousness.
So at first glance, the Sun's "I'm Mad" headline for Gazza might seem a return to bad habits. But it has a get-out clause – Gazza had scrawled the world "mad" on his head. So it’s a quote (albeit a quote from a mentally disturbed person) rather than a verdict. And that's all right.
Good, now that's out the way let's power this baby up into fifth gear and head off into the weekend sunset with some vapid and infantile observations.
1. Facebook fatigue – for months the papers – qualities in particular – have been falling over themselves to tell us about the "Facebook phenomenon". So hats off to the Times for reporting the backlash, and noting too that usage of MySpace ("owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times") has fallen.
2. Myleene Klass – excuse the oh so passe Facebook lingo, but Paper Monitor knows at least one "friend" who would jump a off a cliff rather than hear another word about Myleene Klass. Not a sentiment shared by the Daily Telegraph though. Although Ms Klass professes in the interview to having no special talents, Paper Monitor wonders if anyone else has ever turned so much text from normal to italic type thanks to the myriad TV programmes, books, albums, songs she has put her name to in her relatively brief career... not to mention her fondness for animated speaking.
3. Pixelating – the Times illustrates its story on boys being twice as likely to be killed on the roads as girls with a stock picture of a young boy cycling out in front of a moving car. But if it's a stock picture (ie posed by models) why is the number plate pixellated out? Look closely, the driver of said vehicle is sitting on the left and the pixellation is clearly masking a foreign number plate.
The 
