Paper Monitor
08:59 UK time, Friday, 6 April 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The world would have stopped turning if it had been any different, but it is just as expected - the Telegraph has gone Easter crazy. Yes, we are truly spoilt. We have a green masthead with a daffodil at one end and an oh-so-cute bunny at the other. Inside there's an Easter quiz and 101 things to do over the holiday weekend.
Only criticism is about the shade of green used for the masthead, bit too minty and not grassy enough. It may sound as if Paper Monitor is being overly fussy, but standards must be maintained - especially in Telegraph Towers.
Saying that, the paper gets top marks for effort. One of only two other papers to mention Easter on their front page is the Sun. It invites readers to win "Keeley's Easter treasure chest". It's not obvious what it's all about as the picture accompanying those words is the afore-mentioned young lady in a bikini. Turn to pages 12 and 13 and all will be revealed - a nationwide Easter egg hunt. Thank God, Paper Monitor was getting ready to swiftly avert the eyes.
Easter aisde, the Middle East still dominates the papers. Most front pages juxtapose the joy of the freed Navy personnel with the death of four British troops in Iraq. The Independent sums it up in its headline: "The free and the fallen."
But now the 14 sailors - held for nearly two weeks in Iran - are safely back in the UK the papers gets really stuck into the story. If you're the Daily Mail that means getting stuck into the former captives.
"We're they just too co-operative?" it asks, saying former senior commanders think they should have been more dignified and called their behaviour "a bloody shambles". Mail columist Max Hastings adds his voice to the debate, criticising their "cring-making antics". Anyway, welcome home .
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