So, the Daily Mirror. My dad actually asked why I didn't read this in my last experiment, the reason being simply that I only had room for one red top in first experiment, and The Sun has far more readers, thus I considered it more important that I give my opinion on that. Still, I did want to see what the Mirror was like, which is a big reason why I started Phase 2. It's notable for being the only British newspaper to consistently support Labour in every single general election since 1945, and for having sold The Sun to Rupert Murdoch, a decision they have almost certainly regretted many times since.
Now for the actual paper. The headline today is "STRICTLY EXCLUSIVE ALESHA: I WON'T QUIT" (all capitalization and colouring present in the original) with a sub-headline of "Judge hits back at TV storm". Which is unfortunate because that means this is a 'celebrity story'. I think 'celebrity stories' represent everything that is wrong with modern journalism. I hate 'celebrity stories'. Especially when presented as front page news. Nonetheless, I shall soldier on.
Fortunately, I already know what all this is about. On BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, couples (one generic celebrity no higher than D-list, one professional dance partner) dance on the show and are judged half by a panel of four judges and half by viewers phoning in. It's profitable light entertainment that I try not to watch. For previous series the judge's panel consisted of three men and one woman, 66 year old Arlene Phillips. For this series, Arlene has been replaced by the much less experienced Alesha Dixon. Who (and the BBC are insistent that this is purely coincidence, it has absolutely nothing to do with ITV's The X Factor consistently beating Strictly in the ratings war) is a very attractive 30 year old. Yeah.
Moving on, we have Kerry Katona with a load of hideous tattoos, a boy dead after being crushed by a huge rockfall, and Ronnie Biggs still not dead after being let out of prison. Further on things pique my interest somewhat as they have a go at George Osbourne (the shadow chancellor), indicating that maybe the Mirror really is going to support this failed government (they stuck with them through worse though, Winter of Discontent anyone?), then talk about how they managed to get Channel 4 to tone down the swearing ([Insert swearing here, because I couldn't think of anything good]), and a story about how the difficulty of limping all of the time is giving Hugh Laurie problems playing House on the series of the same name (which is a story about a celebrity I'm actually interested in, as I like that series).
Next is a story about Nick Clegg's new policies and the seeming inability of the Liberal Democrats to take advantage of what is surely a golden electoral opportunity (But seriously Mirror writers, "the chance of both Labour and the Tories failing to get an Commons majority is the highest in decades"? What planet are you living on?), then '3am' with more vacuous celebrity gossip that I'm going to skip over now, then a story about how much local councils are spending on celebrity appearances, then another fucking celebrity story (there's you're swearing you uptight cunts), is anyone else seeing a pattern here?
I think at this point it would be best to skip over the Mirror's pathetic attempt to imitate The Sun's nationalism and some mediocre TV reviewing to get to stories I actually like. Such as the story of size 12-14 models being used recently a fashion show. Reportedly, Mark Fast's choice caused one other designer to walk out, which just shows how much this was needed if size 12-14 models (I'm anywhere from size 10-14 depending on the specific clothes myself) are considered 'too fat' for modelling work.
I would think the letters to also provide some solace given the example The Sun set, though the main issue is about the recent postal strike, where the readers seem more worried about keeping Labour in power than solving any actual problems. The letters about how long we're really going to entertain the idea of replacing Trident (really, we don't need any replacement, scrap the whole thing and spend the money on schools and hospitals instead!) and there not being much difference between SDTV and HDTV (I've got a good eye for this, and while I can see a definite improvement, it's hardly mind-blowing stuff).
To finish up, the look forward to today's TV is actually decent and informative, the comic strips are all either parts of plotlines I'm not following or feel incredibly dated, and my horoscope for today appears to be telling me I should've bought The Guardian instead. A remarkable insight. The newspaper costs 45p and stretches to 59 pages + another 20 for their 'Mania' football supplement (which I'm not even going to open).
What did I think then? Well the celebrity stories dragged on and on (you may be able to see me getting angrier about this as the article goes on) and the whole paper shows a strong partisan bias towards Labour as I expected, though even the Mirror seems to be losing the will to go on at this point. But this is another newspaper where I can see why it's doing badly. 45p (15p more than The Sun) got me a load of bland celebrity stories, some third-rate political stuff, readers that are somehow still partisan for a dead government, and some football stuff that is surely inferior to what The Sun has. Unless you really are obsessed with 'celebrity culture' (ugh) I see no reason to buy this.
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