There is much wisdom in Peter Wilby's column in today's Guardian about the media treatment of the mothers of Madeleine McCann, Shannon Matthews and Scarlett Keeling.
He writes: "Verily, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a woman to meet the standards required by the British press."
On the £550,000 damages award against the Express group for its libelling of the McCanns, he writes: "[It] is no more than the four papers would need every year to employ three decent reporters each who could dig out stories instead of inventing them."
The Independent's press commentator, Stephen Glover, also touches on the "unique" Daily Express coverage of the McCanns. It "has been obsessed to the point of insanity", he writes.
"Other newspapers do not repeatedly insist that house prices are going up when they are going down, or that Diana, Princess of Wales was murdered. The once great Daily Express has created a crazy alternative universe all of its own that has nothing to do with the rest of Fleet Street."
It is a relief to know that I am not a lone voice on this matter. I just wish they had joined me in calling for a boycott, as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post. It's the only way of bringing a rogue proprietor (Richard Desmond) and his rogue papers to heel.
