Stephen Glover

Trivia is all well and good, but a few facts wouldn’t harm the broadsheets

Trivia is all well and good, but a few facts wouldn’t harm the broadsheets

issue 31 January 2004

As I write, I have in front of me page three of last Monday’s Daily Telegraph. The headline is ‘Outlook steamy as celebrities land in the jungle’. One large photograph shows the ‘model Jordan’ (a woman with freakishly enlarged breasts) standing with the ex-pop singer Johnny Rotten, who is holding a koala bear. An even larger photograph shows the rest of the so-called celebrities, who have fetched up in the Australian jungle for the delectation of television viewers. And below these smiling faces is a story, written without a trace of irony, which pays homage to the whole ghastly crew.

There is a question we should ask ourselves. How it is that a great newspaper such as the Daily Telegraph can run on page three a feature as vulgar as it is trivial, as well as, on the same day, carrying an enormous photograph of the actress Joely Richardson, and a smaller picture of the interior designer Kelly Hoppen, on its front page? How on earth could this have happened? The question is not directed at the Daily Telegraph in particular.

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