Newspapers generally exist to report on current events that might be of interest to their readers. This is a fairly obvious and widely-known assumption, right? Well, take a look at the front page of today’s Daily Express:
A free beach towel, free haircut, more “revelations” of Princess Diana’s death and Robbie Williams getting married.
It’s been 12 years, 11 months and 7 days since Princess Diana’s tragic accident and the Daily Express still considers every tiny development, no matter how inconsequential, to be worthy of a front page mention.
So great is this obsession with the late Princess, that on the day when other newspapers’ main stories were the execution of Saddam Hussein, the Daily Express’ was “SPIES COVER UP DIANA ‘MURDER’”.
The obsession has been put down to Richard Desmond’s close relationship with Mohamed Fayed, who lost his son in the Paris crash too. If this is truly the source of the affinity, then it’s fair to assume that the Daily Express is more interested with acting as a mouthpiece for Desmond than a service to cater for its readers.
If this too is true, then what other Express obsessions (Muslims, for example) are shared by Desmond?
I have no way of knowing what this constant reporting of Princess Diana’s death does for the Express’ circulation figures (which appear anyway to be in the terminal decline), but I can’t help thinking that even long-time, die-hard Express readers must be tiring of it by now.
The World’s Greatest Newspaper indeed…