Paper Monitor
14:04 UK time, Thursday, 17 June 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Welcome to a vuvuzella-free Paper Monitor - that's not an easy prospect given the Sun's sublime headline for its front page picture of Desmond Tutu and Prince William both grasping the aforementioned instrument.
Instead, its attention has been attracted by the picture of the owl chick that alighted in its den. It's a pairing that lends itself to a very obvious headline, as evidenced here:
The owl and the very big pussycat - Daily Mail
The owl and the pussycat make friends - the Independent
Owl and the very big pussycat - the Sun
The owl and the (very big) pussycat... - Daily Express
The owl and the BIG pussycat.. - Daily Mirror
The Guardian is alone in doing something different:
Animal magic: the odd couple
Finally, Kelvin MacKenzie's column in today's Sun marks a significant erosion of that old bedrock of understanding between newspapers that they never attack each other, at least not overtly.
MacKenzie devotes the lion's share of his column to knocking the Sun's arch rival, the Daily Mirror, and specifically Sly Bailey, who is the chief executive of its parent company Trinity Mirror.
MacKenzie notes the success of ex-Mirror editor Piers Morgan and pits it against the falling fortunes of his former employer.
If there was any doubt whether MacKenzie is gloating, check out this sentence: "When [Bailey] was hired the circulation of the Daily Mirror was two million a day. Today it is a lamentable 1.2 million, almost a third of the Sun's."
Ouch. Paper Monitor wonders if this is revenge for when the Daily Mirror laid into James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks for shouting at Indy editor Simon Kelner. The Mirror even depicted the temper tantrum in cartoon form.
If so, it seems red-top revenge is a dish best served cold (that story was in April)... and eaten with a runcible spoon perhaps.
The 
