Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Come on, come on… it’s Paedoceleb

I was certainly wrong about most newspapers today. Almost all have a prominent photo of Christine Ohuruogu - though there are a couple of exceptions, as we'll see. The other tabloid obsession today appears to be Gary Glitter.

Anyway, you can see what's going on if we head from the broadsheets downwards.

Telegraph:

Grauniad:

Indy:

That's a lovely photo, but it's also the first sighting of Glitter as well. But here's the Express, which made me laugh out loud:

Brilliant. Some spurious 'eating something will kill you/not kill you' story, which is bound to be utter bollocks when you actually look at it - after yesterday's spectacularly hilarious

which turned the front page of a national newspaper into Harry Enfield's stroppy Kevin, today's is just as bad. It's almost as if there's some sort of secret campaign from within the Express by disgruntled employees to make it an absolute laughing stock. Either that or they're dogshit-bad at their jobs.

Anyway, Glitter's there on the front again. I don't really understand the obsession at all. Are they just hoping that the combination of two of the tabloid totems - paedophilia and celebrity - will create a super hybrid being Paedoceleb, who will drag in the readers like never before? But... I really don't get it, and I'm trying to understand. This man has been convicted of crimes abroad, has served his sentence, and now he's returning to Britain. What's so newsworthy about that? Sure, I was born a little too late to really get a handle on exactly how popular Gadd really was, but is he that much of a celebrity now? I don't think so. And obviously he'll be treated by the NHS - even paedos pay their national insurance stamp. I don't see what the big scandal is.

Let's press on, with the Mail:

A huge picture of Ohuruogu there, which is nice to see. But it's the kind of messy front page that is trying to compare two very different things. Ohuruogu has just won: Glitter has just been released. If he'd been convicted on the same day, I could understand it. But he's just been released from jail, is all. It's not as if we've suddenly had the shock of his vile offences revealed to us; we've known about it for a long time now. I find it odd to say the least. I just don't see why people are going to be so interested in Glitter. Yes, he's coming home - so what? Is he a danger to kids? I bloody doubt it, given that he's the most recognisable fiddler in the entire country. I don't see any public interest in this at all.

The Mirror tries an even more spurious angle on Glitter:

Wealthy man in 'flies club class' shocker!! There should be a separate 'paedo class' on the wings, should there? Who gives a shit what class he flew? But compare the Mirror's positioning of Uhuruogu with the other two red-tops.

Sun:

World exclusive, is it? Clearly you haven't seen any of the other newspapers in Britain today, then. I can only imagine this is Rebekah Wade's paedo obsession from her News of the Screws days carrying on at the Sun. Ohoruogu wedged away in a little inset next to Chris Hoy, there.

And the Star. Now I know the star isn't a proper newspaper, concentrating on tits and Big Brother (both of which are handily packaged together in a one-stop shop today) but it also has relegated Ohuruogu to a mere token photo:

So, overall, better prominence for Britain's successful track athlete than I had expected, which is a good thing, though the Sun and Star chose to relegate her to a mere headshot. What I fail to understand completely is why anyone should give a shit about Gary Glitter.

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