Paper Monitor
10:51 UK time, Monday, 10 December 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Before launching into Monday's fare, can we just kick off with this Telegraphian gem from Saturday – a big front page picture of Paper Monitor's ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ colleague Kate Silverton. Were ever there prizes for most spurious reason for running a photo, this might well walk off with the honours. There's no story as such, just a caption that invites readers to "take a leisurely look at this photograph". Why? Well, La Silverton starts presenting a 90-second news bulletin on TV and, er, that doesn't give viewers very long to appreciate her talents. Hmmm.
On to today's papers, and that thorny old question of when is an exclusive an exclusive in Tabloid Land presents itself. For nigh on a week now the Mail and Mirror have been battling it out over the best line on the Darwin story and today's there's not a hair's breadth between them. Yet neither is willing to admit it.
The result is a bizarre spectacle of parallel worlds almost, but never quite, colliding. The Mirror trumpets its "exclusive" of "canoe wife arrest" while the Mail claims that it "brings canoe wife back to face police".
With reporter Natalie Clarke "on board flight Delta 64" for an interview with Anne Darwin, the Mail tells us "she managed to get through her chicken in-flight meal and flicked through a magazine. She was calm and didn't fidget, she sat quietly in her seat. She even slept a little."
By way of independent verification, the Mirror tells us she "flicked through a magazine, gazed out of the window and even managed to snatch a few moments' sleep".
Poor Mrs Darwin. Whatever she might have done or not done, the thought of spending an entire flight from Atlanta sandwiched between two hacks, scrutinising her every facial tick and yet stubbornly failing to acknowledge each other's presence is probably enough to send even the steeliest character into a fit of air rage.
And what's this.... the Mirror's man "on Delta flight 64" tells us Mrs Darwin only "nibbled at a couple of meals".
When does a mere nibbling turn into a full-blown "getting through" a meal? Questions, questions, Mrs Darwin.
The 
