THE PRESS

Sunday sag

BILL GRUNDY

The past week or so has not been entirely devoid of important news. There have been two reports on broadcasting, a subject which is of interest to practically everybody in the country. There has been a report on Lace relations, a subject which in the past at any rate was deemed important enough to be covered on occasions. There has been the highly significant performance of that cele- brated Parliamentary Duo, Sunny Jim and Gerry Mander. There has been constantly with us the inconstant moon. And there have been many other things of worthy memory which now shall die in oblivion.

Not, therefore, a silly season, when nothing is happening, or so they say, and stupid stunts are blown up high to fill the vacuum those children of nature, news editors, so obviously deplore. But what did the Sunday Mirror give us for our week- end delectation? A full-page, out-of-focus picture on Page One. Of whom? Let the screaming headline shout it at you: `MARIANNE FIGHTS FOR HF.R LIFE'. The cap- tion below was worthy of Peg's Paper. `The ordeal of Marianne Faithfull,' it said; . . an exclusive picture from the bedside of the stricken actress . . . ' (Good word `stricken'. I can't remember the last time I heard it used outside a newspaper, though.) The Mirror was clearly proud of the picture, though perhaps less so of its writers, for it

went on: 'It shows more graphically than any words could the struggle that the English actress—girl-friend of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger—has been waging since she was rushed to hospital last Wednesday'. I thought it was an extraordinarily bad pic- ture which told me nothing that a few better words wouldn't have done better.

The Mirror's style continued unchanged. 'Mick Jagger,' we were told, 'was at Mari-

anne's bedside today to resume the vigil he has kept—interrupted only by filming— since she took an overdose of drugs.' I like the idea of a vigil interrupted only by film- ing. On page five, devoted almost entirely to the affairs, literally, of the Rolling Stones, there was another Faithful! picture, telling us she is 'in a coma', just in case we'd missed the front page, and one of Jagger saying . . hospital vigil'. By it was an account of how 'Jagger makes plane dash to be near Marianne'. I found this one deeply touching. It included a description of how nuns of the Sisters of Charity order were saying prayers for her—according to page one, they call her 'Dear little Mari- anne'. Well, nuns are like that, I suppose. I just wonder why news editors have to be like that, too.

We were given the whole story of Keith Richard's little bundle of joy, expected in August apparently; of Brian Jones's relation- ship with the happy mother-to-be, and pic- tures of her with both of them, touchingly entitled 'Love declared . . . Keith Richard with Anita Pallenberg. Love forsaken . . . Anita with the late Brian Jones'. We were, in other words, just about brought to break-

ing point, although perhaps not in the way the Sunday Mirror intended. I've never really been a confirmed Luddite, but I would have thought there was a strong case for a bit of machine-smashing at the Mirror last Sunday.

Especially when you consider the other goodies they gave us. The story, for example, of how Jackie Kennedy used to spend a lot of money. It took three pages of extracts from Mary Barelli Gallagher's memoirs to tell us this fact. I wouldn't have thought it unusual that rich people spend a lot, but then I don't mix with any so I couldn't be too sure. There was a Hairy old article about nudity on the American stage, and on the back page there was a story about a mother who had breast-fed

her baby at the Investiture. By doing so, the Sunday Mirror said, she 'set Britain

talking'. Take it from me, she didn't. I travelled a lot around the country last week and not a soul did I hear sounding off on the subject. This could be because, to most people, breast-feeding is not a specially newsworthy event. As the mother re- marked: 'I was breast-feeding Rose because she was hungry. It was as simple as that'. Ah, but it wasn't as simple as that, Mrs

Rainey. Not to the Sunday Mirror. For

don't you see, you're the daughter of Lord Harlech, 'the peer who carried part of the Prince's regalia during the ceremony at

Caernarvon Castle'. And there's another thing which the Sunday Mirror didn't fail

to point out: 'Mr and Mrs Rainey have been described as members of the "hippy" set'. Oh no, madam, it wasn't as simple as that at all.

So all in all I put my copy down this weekend a sadder and not a wiser man.

Sadder because I've always admired the

Mirror formula, both daily and Sunday. I've admired it even more, recently, as it

has tried to come to terms with the new, better-educated audience everybody says is

out there with its money at the ready, wait- ing for the new serious tabloid that is just around the corner. Sadder because this week's imbalance seems to debase standards that the Mirrors have recently been trying to raise. And sadder because, despite it all, the circulation estimates out this week sug- gest that the Sunday Mirror has lost more, compared with this time last year, than any other Sunday paper. There must be a moral somewhere.