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How Mirror could breathe new life into the Express

18/3/2015

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Picture
The Mirror and Express have more
in common than 
might be imagined
- including a concern about statins
The Daily Express has been dying a slow and painful death for almost as long as I can remember. It's as though it's fallen victim to a combination of the ailments and concerns that dominate its front pages - failing mental powers, pension problems and always contemplating the storms ahead.
Richard Desmond has tried withdrawing sustenance, but still the old girl clings on, so now he's thinking of putting her in another home. That could be the best news for half a century - if she can get on with her new housemates.
Are the Trinity Mirror negotiations serious? Is the Star included in the package? What about competition considerations?
If the Star were part of any deal, then Trinity Mirror would own four national dailies and four Sundays (including the Daily Record and Sunday Mail) on top of big-hitting locals such as the Liverpool Echo. That's quite a lot. Even Rupert Murdoch maxed out at three dailies and two Sundays in the old days of Today's brief life and again with the freebie London Paper.
One imagines that should the talks get that far, the key for the CMA would be what Trinity intended to do with the papers and whether there was any prospect of another buyer appearing.
When Murdoch bought Today there was much huffing and puffing, but it came down to a straight choice between sale to him or closure. The general feeling has tended to be we're better off with a newspaper than seeing it fold. The Express and Star newspapers are still in profit - hence the NUJ's horror at last year's cuts - so there is no immediate reason for them to die.
It would probably be best all round if a new player came into the market to take over the papers, but there doesn't seem to have been a rush since Desmond started seeking a buyer at the end of last year.
beaten woman
So, if Trinity did seal the deal, what would - or could - it do with the Express? The first policy decision should be to stop the cuts and stop overloading the remaining staff with extra work. Trinity's regional network gives it an excellent fund of stories that may not be picked up by other nationals. We have seen this occasionally with the Mirror - this case of the Liverpool woman, pictured, who was beaten and held prisoner by her husband  for three days is an example - and this could benefit the Express. If the paper were allowed to recruit smart operators (or encourage existing staff to reach beyond the save-get headlines), there are plenty of good human interest stories out there to give it a different voice from the rest of the Street. 
There is little point in worrying overmuch about what "Express readers" would or wouldn't like. There are still half a million buyers, which is not to be sniffed at, but they are a dwindling band. Instant radical change would be foolhardy, but a long-term transition to a new home on the political spectrum, leaving the strident right-wingery to the Mail, would be great for everyone. 
We could really do with a slightly left-of-centre (dare I say Blairite?) whitetop with the middle-market instincts of the Mail, but with an understanding that most women don't have the luxury of being stay-at-home mothers who spend the day baking cakes for shiny diligent children who call them Mummy. The i almost meets this market, the Mirror is an out-and-out redtop, and the  Independent counts as a broadsheet in this context.
In the short-term, with the expertise of Mirror staff to hand, there is no reason why the Express couldn't be turned into something slicker relatively quickly. It's all about changing the mindset and giving the staff freedom to express themselves. Go cold turkey on the health stories, leave weather forecasting to the Met Office, and soft-pedal the politics. 
For those who think there is no way the Express and Mirror could live side by side, maybe the collage below of the two papers' coverage of one particular subject last year will demonstrate that there is at least some common ground. 

Madeleine papers
Madeleine McCann
This photograph appeared on the Express front page 24 times last year and on the Mirror 15, but the Mirror was the more enthusiastic Madeleine splasher, leading on the hunt 15 times against seven for the Express papers, three of them in the Sunday paper.
The Mirror has also offered what could be seen as an early sign of solidarity with a big puff yesterday on another of the Express's favourite subjects: the safety or otherwise of statins.
All this said, though, the ideal would still be for an  outside buyer to come forward and take over the Madeleine McCann house journal. There is one organisation that has been vociferous about the failings of the mainstream Press over the past five years, an organisation that has the support of (and is probably influenced by) Kate and Gerry McCann. Maybe it would be the ideal owner for the Express. 
Step forward Hacked Off. Why not put your money where your mouth is?

Daily Star
PS: I hate the insular "British resources for British people" attitude, but
hurrah for the Daily Star, whose splash today asks a question that has been troubled many of us for years. Why has a contingent of London police officers been assigned to an investigation that is entirely outside their jurisdiction? Even without the financial considerations, the notion that British officers are bound to do a better job than those on the scene in Portugal is offensively imperialistic. 
Of course the recovery of Madeleine McCann would be the biggest story of the year, but the McCanns, the Met and the media need to get real. It's unlikely to happen. It's time to call a halt to this pantomime.

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Thank heavens the Star's watching Big Brother

30/1/2015

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Daily Star Jan 28-30, 2015
The Daily Star should have been having a little lie down to recover from the shock of finding a real news story in Celebrity Big Brother on Tuesday night. 
How the never-underexposed Katie Price managed to get this far in her pink fur-edged career without her son's taxpayer-funded school run arrangements becoming known is a mystery. It's an issue worthy of consideration and more serious papers were happy to set their minds to it yesterday.
But the Star's CBB vigil is neverending, so it has moved on from Ms P to deliver the troubling news that housemates suspect that the show's producers have rigged the series so that Perez Hilton would win. Not only that, but police are apparently to question Hilton about an alleged "sex attack" on housemate Katie Hopkins.
According to yesterday's splash:
Picture
Celebrity Big Brother faced a “fix” storm last night after hated Perez Hilton’s explosive return to the house. Housemates were in uproar saying the showbiz blogger is being set up to win by TV bosses convinced his attention-seeking antics are ratings gold...they claimed hated Perez has already been secretly decided as winner in a stitch-up by producers who love his wild behaviour.
And today..
Picture
Police are poised to haul in Perez Hilton over his "sexual harassment of Katie Hopkins if he is evicted tonight. The bitchy blogger, 36, launched himself at the mother of two and licked her face. 
Perez also suggested the 39-year-old journalist and former Apprentice star should perform a sex act on him. In scenes not shown by shocked producers he thrust his hips at Katie...
Police could be forced to quiz Perez about his X-rated behaviour after viewers demanded action. 
If there were awards for loyalty, the Star would surely scoop the lot. Even now that there is no in-house (corporate, as opposed to BB) imperative after Richard Desmond's sale of Channel 5, the Star has not wavered in its devotion.
And how is it repaid? With disappointment after disappointment. If you can't trust reality TV, what can you trust?
Daily Star Jan 24 and June 9
This time last year the Star was reporting that the show had been fixed for Sam Faiers to win.  The source of this claim was the much admired Mail feature writer Liz Jones, the first to be evicted. Towie Sam was taken ill, treated and returned to the show, but failed to make the final, which was won by Jim Davidson.
Come the summer, even with the World Cup distracting attention, the Star remained focused on the house - this time populated with "unknowns", who on this occasion included a woman "known" for allegedly having a fling with Wayne Rooney. Helen Wood was not, apparently, a popular house guest - and when she was given a "free pass" to the final, the Star reported viewers' dismay: 

Picture
Big Brother fans have accused show chiefs of fixing a win for Wayne Rooney’s ex-lover Helen Wood. This is despite causing mayhem in the house and turning off viewers.The move is unprecedented in BB history and has led to claims Helen is being favoured by producers...Some are convinced she is being kept in to maintain high ratings for the show.
Sound familiar?

Ms Wood was duly crowned, the house was spring-cleaned and by August a new set of celebs was ready to move in. They included the Star's favourite benefits claimant White Dee, the former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney and a 70-year-old American called Gary Busey. 
Wouldn't you know it, come September, the paper was again concerned for the probity of the voting system.
Daily Star Sept 10 and 13, 2014
Picture
"Flasher Gary Busey is the unstoppable favourite to win Celebrity Big Brother – despite his housemates hating him. Bookies claim TV bosses are “fixing” it for him to triumph even though the others have been trying to get him booted out. The Hollywood star, 70, has infuriated rivals with his revolting behaviour, rows and wild mood swings. But last night a betting industry source said... "All the money is going on him and our information is that he cannot be beaten.” Gary has been turned into a fans’ favourite by producers because they believe shocking footage of his appalling behaviour is “TV gold”.
And yes he won. But the celebrations were short-lived. Later that week the Star reported:
Picture
Hollywood star Gary Busey walked out the Celebrity Big Brother house last night as the winner and straight into a police probe about his indecent exposure on the show. Viewers voted for the Lethal Weapon actor - who had been the bookies favourite for weeks - to be champ even though all the housemates hated him, found him rude and a nightmare to live with. However his victory may be short lived. There is mounting pressure for him to face a police investigation for flashing his privates at the celebrities. And even the cops admit: "There could be a case."
I suppose we should be glad that, with all the spending cuts and the pressure of spying on journalists' phone calls, the police are now able to respond in one day where it took three in September. Progress?
Maybe, but the Star is the newspaper that never rests. It's not only Big Brother that is cause for concern. During the brief period that show is off air, the D-listers head off to Australia and the Star is on their (bushtucker) trail. And guess what it discovered even before the first episode was aired last November:
Daily Star Nov 10, 2014
Gameoldgirl's Notebook: Another Sunday editor bites the dust
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From job cuts to job ads: a tale of two newspapers

23/12/2014

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English National Ballet
There's never a good time to lose your job, but sympathy levels rise when the axe falls around Christmas. 
Being sacked in December is guaranteed to put a dampener on the festivities, but if execution is stayed until January, chances are there'll be an overloaded credit card to add to the worries.
Express Newspapers announced in the summer that it wanted to reduce its 650-strong editorial workforce to 450. Staff were invited to apply for redundancy and told that if too few came forward by the end of August, sackings would follow. 
In October, parent company Northern and Shell issued annual results showing that it had turned a £5.6m loss to an operating profit of £37m. The print and publishing arm had seen a threefold increase in profits to £33m, but the redundancy programme - which should have been completed two months earlier - would continue.
A further deadline for applications was set at December 15, but that day came and went with the company reportedly still well short of the 200 volunteers it wanted. Journalists now have until January 1 to decide whether to jump or risk being pushed. Should make for some interesting conversations over the turkey.

While Express journalists seem eager to stay aboard, picture staff at the Times appear to be more than willing to jump ship.
Last week's Gorkana jobs register included listings for a news picture editor, two assistant picture editors and a picture researcher. The ad for the top job offers a "competitive" salary for whoever ends up leading a department that is made up of "professional, energetic and creative journalists".  It continues: 
Picture
As news picture editor of The Times, you will be responsible for creating outstanding picture packages for the news, foreign and business sections of the paper, as well as on tablet, smartphone and web. You will ... be required to build working relationships with desk heads, photographers and agencies, while inspiring a team of picture editors and researchers to deliver visually compelling editions across all platforms.
The Times news picture editor will be part of a back-bench team whose aim is to lead the news agenda with great journalism and stunning pictures.
To see such a plum Fleet Street job advertised is unusual, to see four senior posts in the same department up for grabs suggests carelessness somewhere.
The desk was pared down in the redundancy round at the end of 2011 and the past few months have seen the departures of a stream of professional, energetic and creative journalists, including the award-winning photographers Chris Harris and Pete Nicholls.
The picture editor Sue Connolly and her deputy Lizzy Orcutt were invited to apply for redefined jobs, which resulted in Orcutt's departure. Connolly is now also an ex-Times journalist, as are commissioning editor Paul Bellsham, online picture editor Elizabeth Hanna, and several staffers and regular casuals who worked on the home, business and foreign desks. 
SubScribe understands that editor John Witherow has firm ideas about pictures and that his choices can be expensive. If the department were to remain in budget economies had to be made elsewhere. Desk staff were asked to reapply for their jobs - with cuts of up to 30% in their salaries. Several decided to walk rather than go through such a process. Hence the recruitment flurry.
The management approach sounds harsh, but it has created openings that may embolden some talented and creative people to take the Express payoff and head upstream from Blackfriars to London Bridge. For those who are more hesitant, the Times ad offers further reassurance:
Picture
News UK is a great company full of talented, dedicated and creative people. We are a company which has journalism at its very heart. Our newspapers and associated websites are some of the most powerful media brands in the English speaking world, reaching 30 million people each week...
News UK is a company which thrives on pace. Our people stretch themselves on a daily basis, challenging the status quo to produce the best service possible to our readers and customers. We embrace creativity and initiative and we have some of the most talented people in the industry.
If you want to work for one of the world's most exciting, challenging and creative media organisations then News UK is the place to build your career.
And just in case you were tempted to scoff at the predilection for woodland scenes and ballerinas, it's worth remembering that The Times is the one paper that is putting on sales month by month. It has also emerged from the first half of the awards season with its arms full of trophies.
So it must be doing something right. Even if it's not wo/man management.
As one long-serving journalist not known for a positive view of life in the newsroom said: 
Picture
The spirit of co-operation between news gathering and news production is better than at any time in my 20 years. I think it's a better paper than when it was filled with dull pics of politicians in suits and pie charts, and the care that goes into assembling it night after night is a credit to all who labour long hours to make it so...
It's a collaborative effort, for which we are well paid (although we'd all like more). We all knew about antisocial hours and tight deadlines before we signed up and have no right to bleat about it afterwards. It's the job. It's what we do. We try to produce the best paper we can within the constraints that all media endure and more often than not, we succeed.
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Dear Mr Desmond, if you don't love it, let it go

25/11/2014

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Express
star
Gameoldgirl had a rare morning away from the laptop today. Up and on the train to the big city while it was still dark, it was a strange experience. Not getting up at 5.30am. Not paying a quid a mile for the journey from Essex into Liverpool Street (ouch!). Not even coming home with a piece of glass that now sits proudly on the piano.
No, the strange thing was that, while most people in the carriage had with strings in their ears and were playing with tablets and smartphones, there was a man in his fifties standing reading a newspaper. And it was the Daily Express. 
This website and its predecessor blog has had many a laugh at the Express's expense. This bit of nonsense from last year remains one of the most well read, and last month we had some fun with its little sister the Star and its mission to scare readers half to death.
There have been more serious concerns: women bulging out of bikinis on the front page of the Star are largely responsible for Tesco's decision to redesign its newspaper displays so that pre-school children are not confronted with body parts they should not be encountering for at least another decade. The jungle/Big Brother obsession is unfathomable - especially since Richard Desmond has divested himself of Channel 5, which broadcasts BB.
And then there's the Express and immigration, which is a real worry. It can write about statins and dementia and diabetes forever and it probably won't do any harm, but the poison on Europe and migrants is unpalatable.
Gameoldgirl has always rather fancied editing the Express. Yes, it's a fool's errand. But never mind that, it's not going to happen. There's something irresistible about taking over a team at the bottom of its game; where's the fun in inheriting a successful model? Ask David Moyes.
Returning from London, the editor of this website discovered that the sports blogger had gone all independent and written about the demise of the Express sports staff - and a sorry read it is, too.
The big question in all this - as the NUJ keeps asking the proprietor - is "If you don't love it, why don't you let it go?"
It's unfathomable. Money isn't in short supply at Northern & Shell after the sale of Channel 5. If he's not going to invest in his papers, why is he clinging on to them? Is it greed? Does he think that newspaper proprietorship automatically equals political influence?
Just imagine if he could be persuaded to sell and just imagine if a liberal, Centre-Left owner could be found to take on the Mail and the Telegraph and increase the diversity of Fleet Street at a stroke.
I think I'll put it on my Christmas wish list.
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It's 3-1 against the Star on Coldplay Chris

29/10/2014

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Star
Jennifer Lawrence has been househunting in Islington and has told estate agents that she's eager to find a "cosy pad" with Chris Martin. 
She apparently loves England and can't wait to put down roots. She's also cleared all her stuff out of her former boyfriend's flat when she was in London earlier this month "to symbolise the start of her new life with Chris.  Buying a house together in London is the icing on the cake."
Awww, sweet. After the heartbreak of the conscious uncoupling with Gwyneth Paltrow, it's all going to turn out all right for Chris. 
Or so the Star told us in its showbiz lead yesterday.
Picture
But the Mail and Sun had different ideas. They spoilt the fun with news that the couple had split after a four-month romance.  Jen dumped Chris "a few days ago", after he had been out to a family dinner with Gwynnie, according to the Sun. They've gone their separate ways, said the Mail, attributing the report to the website E! News.
Today the Mirror's US Editor weighs in with a page 3 lead that adds flesh to yesterday's Mail and Sun stories.
He reports that Jen was fed up with Chris's continued closeness to Paltrow, who was apparently spotted tenderly stroking his face at that dinner, "while a glum Jennifer was pictured elsewhere in Los Angeles having dinner with a friend".
Sources close to the Hunger Games star said: "Jen felt there were three of them in the relationship and didn't feel comfortable..She is one of the most desirable women in Hollywood and quite rightly deserves to be leading lady for any man and not play second fiddle."
So what we'd really like to know now is...
How long had that estate agent story been sitting in the Star reporter's notebook? If only they had got it into print a day or two earlier...
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Bank holiday punday

26/8/2014

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#454140686 / gettyimages.com
Subs are the forgotten tribe of the newsroom, unloved, blamed for writing in mistakes, blamed for failing to spot mistakes, blamed for rewriting rubbish copy, blamed for not rewriting rubbish copy. 
They toil in the ungodly hours of the night and morning. Where once their sole concern was the words, now they are checkers, typesetters, coders and who knows what else.
They work more Sundays and bank holidays than they have off, while reporters and desk staff expect to turn in for no more than one in three or four.
And they don't get expenses.
Maybe, then, there was a dash of shädenfreude at work last night as they prepared the bank holiday paper. For they served up a crop of punning headlines that hadn't been seen a thousand times before.
I'm not saying they were all box fresh, but they were nowhere near as tired as some of the headlines produced in the mad heat of the modern newsroom.
The Express came in with "dank holiday", the Star "bank brollyday" and the Mail "the sopping hill carnival".
I'm not saying these are examples of genius, but they do show a level of enthusiasm beyond the old "bank holiday washout".

No plaudits, however, for the Mail with its puff and feature head: "Dearest Dickie, so fizzing with passion he even called Mrs T darling!" No. If he did call Thatcher darling it's because he called everyone darling. It was a verbal tick, as meaningful as "like" as in "I was, like, standing at the bar and, like, this bloke came up to me and he said, like..." In other words, it was the very reverse of passion. Apart from that, it was a good read.

Talking of dear Dickie, the Times gave him two full pages of obituary. The Register, however always starts on a right-hander, so it was split into two single pages. Couldn't that travel ad have been pushed back for once, so that Lord A could be afforded a spread that would have looked so much better?
Attenborough obit
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Fleet Street is ahead of the game on Moyes

22/4/2014

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moyes back pages
moyes puffs
The writing has been on the wall for months. It has been painful to watch the disintegration of David Moyes as he stumbled in Alex Ferguson's shoes like a toddler trying on Mum's high heels. 
The parting of the ways finally came at 8.30 this morning when Manchester United tweeted that Moyes had left the club.
For the Press it was just as well: the sacking-to-be was the lead in every sports section and the splash in the Daily Mirror and the Manchester Evening News. Every front page, apart from the Financial Times, had at least a puff. 
Besides the splash, the Mirror gave the story a spread on 4-5 plus four pages in sport. There were seven pages in the Mail, five in the Sun, Times and Telegraph, four in the Independent, three in the Guardian, Star and Express and two in the i.
Remember, these reams of newsprint were devoted to a story that hadn't happened.

There was a lot of axeing and a few "the ends". The Sun produced the worst heading of all with its toe-curling non-pun on the front. 

There were some good spreads - notably from the Express,top right, and Star - and a nice clean graphic in the Telegraph, below.
Telegraph graphic
Express spread
Star spread
Scotsman
Overall the coverage was fairly sympathetic. No turnip heads here. But there will be many who look at the papers and wonder at the amount of effort being put into this story in comparison, say, to the Korean ferry disaster. 
This is not only football, but also very big business, so who manages Manchester United does matter. But there are far, far more people who don't care about United than do. This was demonstrated on Twitter with tweets showing people how to cut anything to do with Moyes from their streams.  
Unfortunately you can't cut off bits of the radio and television broadcasts that you don't want and still see or hear the rest, and plenty were protesting about the amount of time given over to the story on the Today programme and World at One.

And supposing he hadn't been sacked? Well, there was at least one paper - the Scotsman, above - that would have been happier than it probably is today.
For those who are interested in the development of the story, here's Andy Dickinson's rather splendid Storify of the day: 


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A royal baby that isn't and the exclusives that aren't

13/4/2014

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For Kate's bump, read Kate's bumpy ride.
If you had suffered morning sickness as badly as the Duchess of Cambridge did when she was expecting Prince George, would you go bouncing down the river in a jet boat?
If you were regarded as an international role model for motherhood, would you be photographed drinking wine when pregnant?
I think we can assume that the Duchess will not be producing a sibling for George within the next nine months.
Yet this morning the Star has a white-on-purple ROYAL WORLD EXCLUSIVE above the splash heading  "Wills: baby no2 is on the way". 

kate winetasting
On the way, that is, in the sense of perhaps there'll be another baby sometime. There is no attempt to hold up the  "Kate's expecting"  pretext  conveyed by the heading beyond the front page. 
The third of the three pars on page 1 says: "It's the clearest clue yet that Wills and Kate are already trying for a brother or sister for eight-month-old George".
The hint came in a remark the Prince made to a woman who made a shawl for George: "You might have to make another one soon" - and the "soon" is disputed. 


Eight words are enough to drive Fleet Street into a frenzy.  Far from being exclusive - as the Express, Mirror and People also claimed - the "story" appears almost everywhere. Only the Independent on Sunday and Observer ignore it. Kate is the front-page picture for the Telegraph and Sunday Times - and both refer to the hint in their captions. 


In the end, they all accept that the most they've got is a hint. So why go so far over the top with the headlines? And why claim as exclusive a story that patently isn't? If Kate had been pregnant and the Star had got the story to itself, would it have diluted the front page with the promise of a free box of Maltesers and four other puffs (one of which points to yesterday's Sun splash)?
If it was exclusive, why did the Mirror make its readers wait until pages 14-15 for the story, the Express to page 5 and the People to pages 12-13? 
Hats off here to the Sun, which didn't even make it a page lead, but used it as a picture story on 15.


The Independent on Sunday may shun the royals, but it, too, comes a cropper on the exclusive front. Its splash on GPs is shared with the Telegraph, and its leak from the UN's latest climate report is not only shared with the Observer, which leads on the story, but less detailed and doesn't even include its title. It's a shame, because the paper is looking good in spite of its shortage of resources.

People front 13-04-2014
The People boasts of an exclusive not only on the baby that isn't, but also on Peaches Geldof and on its splash "Violent rages of Costa killer".
(By the way, the quotes are not necessary on the word killer, since Mayka Kukucova has admitted shooting the so-called King of Bling Andy Bush, but claims that she was acting in self-defence).
In this story Bush's 19-year-old daughter Ellie describes Kukocova as obsessively jealous, like a child who couldn't control her anger. Nick Dorman reports that on a shopping trip Kukocova had been upset that Bush wouldn't buy her things she wanted. “She went into a blind rage, screaming and threw a handbag at him.  She did it to purposefully hurt him and then stormed off. We didn’t see her for a few hours, it was a common thing.”
 “She stamped all over his laptop, then put it underneath a tap and put it back in the case. When we got back to England he realised but he tried to ignore it. He thought he could change her."

mail ellie bush
But look here, at pages 24-25 of the Mail. Ben Ellery in Spain and Nick Craven in London write about Ellie Bush and her opinion of Kukucova. She's like a child, apparently, and can't control her anger. There was a shopping trip and a thrown handbag, and a laptop held under a tap. And it's not only the quotes that are  virtually identical: both papers illustrate the story with the same photograph - although the Mail flips its version (naughty!) 
If this was a catch-up job, it was a supremely slick operation even by the Mail's high standards.

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No, Chloe isn't the Australian Maddie

11/4/2014

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chloe campbell
madeleine mccann
A three-year-old blonde girl with a big-brimmed hat disappears from the room where she was sleeping with her siblings. The story makes the splash in the Daily Star, the puff in the Express and finds a home in all the tabloids.

It's not hard to see why - and it's not because the papers are concerned for the welfare of little Chloe Campbell.


Would this Australian story have made even a filler without  the opportunity to liken it to that other famous vanishing child and the similarity of this photograph to the one of Madeleine McCann in her floppy pink hat?


This, they wrote, was a "copycat abduction". For the Star, (in spite of the absence of any evident link between the two children) it was:  "Maddie shock: new victim snatched". 


Chloe "vanished" from the sitting room of her home in Queensland on Wednesday. The window was open and there were "adult footprints" on the car parked outside. This afternoon - nearly two days after she was first reported missing - the little girl wandered back home.


Joy unconfined.  


By this stage our tabloids' websites were in overdrive - a live blog on the Mirror, constant updates on the Mail and Star (the Sun doesn't seem bothered) and all, naturally, say that Chloe has been "dubbed the Australian Maddie". By whom? By them of course.


It was clear from the start that this was no "copycat abduction", but the obsession with the McCann story is such that any opportunity to revive must be grasped without delay - and definitely without thought.


Chloe has now been reunited with her "delighted", "relieved" parents. But there are too many oddities in this story for comfort. Let's hope tomorrow's celebratory stories don't look too misguided in a few days' time
.
Picture
 Maria, the "Greek Madeleine"
 Missing: an opportunity
 Madeleine still missing 


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    Liz Gerard

    Liz Gerard

    New year, new face: it's time to come out from behind that Beryl Cook mask. 
    I'm Liz Gerard, and after four decades dedicated to hard news, I now live by the motto "Those who can do, those who can't write blogs". 
    These are my musings on our national newspapers. Some of them may have value.

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