Gordon in the morning: Chipping in

The Press Complaints Commission, so wishy-washy in so many ways, is very clear about the children:

Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

With that in mind, there must surely be some other reason that the Beckham parent's fame for Gordon to run massive, long-lens shots of Cruz Beckham in a chip shop this morning?

WORDS I never thought I’d write – here’s POSH SPICE going into a chippy.

VICTORIA popped into the takeaway in London with her youngest lad CRUZ.

She could easily fit a family-sized order of saveloys in that bag.

Ah, yes - speculation about the number of sausage products a parent could fit into a handbag. That's clearly a justification under the PCC code.

Gordon in the morning: A grown man of at least thirteen

Seriously, Gordon, have you reached puberty?

BUXOM Beyonce takes the plunge in a series of gaping suit jackets for her latest video.

Foregoing a bra, the superstar shows off her cracking cleavage in the glossy promo.

And she narrowly avoids a pair of black eyes as she performs a high tempo dance routine.

You're writing in something almost like a national newspaper and using that platform to go "hur-hur she ain't wearing no bra and her BOOBIES JIGGLE".

Elsewhere, there's a really creepy long-lens shot of Harper Beckham, which I make is about the two millionth time Gordon's column has ignored the PCC rules about not running photos of children just because they have famous parents. That self-regulation really works.

Gordon in the morning: The child in focus

Does nobody police the Press Complaints Commission code of practice any more? Has the rotten performance of Buscombe And Her Editor Chums been so dispiriting they've even stopped pretending they're keeping an eye on thing?

For why else would Gordon be running a picture of Elton John and David Furnish's kid, which is there for no reason other than his parents being famous?

Oh, there's a horrible joke, too. The child is wearing a lifejacket, and the Bizarre team have come up with this headline:

Don’t let the son go drown on me, Elton

It's a great pun. It's just, being based around the idea of a small child dying, it might be a bit off-colour for a "family" newspaper.

Gordon in the morning: The Press Complaints what now?

Once again, Gordon Smart breaches the Press Complaints Commission code of practice, particularly this bit:

Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

Why else would 'David Banda goes to watch a football match' - with a photo - be in the paper were it not solely for the fame of Madonna?

Given that the PCC code is as weak as a lemony drink, you'd think that Smart would at least be able to comply with it. Given that he ignores it so often, you'd think that something might be said.

Gordon in the morning: Back to work

Like a large swathe of the world, Bizarre returns to the daily grind today, with Gordon running a non-story about the Beckham kids, complete with large photo. Does it contravene the PCC rules, or is there some other justification for the piece than the fame of the childrens' parents?

VICTORIA BECKHAM tries to go incognito under a trilby - while son BROOKLYN proclaims his name on his tracksuit bottoms.

No justification at all, then.

Back to the daily grind.

Sunday People follow Church

In this photo Charlotte Church seems to have spotted the paparazzi, and taken steps to try and hide her child from them. (Almost as if she has no faith in the papers to stick to the Press Complaints Commission code.) And yet The People still run it.

So they have a photo of a woman clearly trying to stop a person photographing her daughter, and they run it, with a caption saying 'look, she's trying to stop people seeing her daughter'.

They must be very proud.

Darkness at 3AM: It is always 3AM now

The desperate attempt by the Daily Mirror to spin the 3AM column into Britain's answer to TMZ has had its on switch flicked. Understandably, they've only soft-launched; there was no big fuss. It's not like this is the launch of a new computermybob for comparethemeerkat or anything.

So, what's it like? It's written by someone who speaks Imperial Period Smash Hits, but only as a second language:

Like duh, you need to log in.

It has all the veracity of those black-and-white movies from the late 60s where elderly scriptwriters tried to write in youth argot. Like having a section called "chinny reck-on", you can see what they're trying to do but in a bid to give the site a personality, they've fallen short. Instead they've given the site a comedy jumper and a repertoire of silly voices.

But what of the content?

A headline boldly announces this picture of Posh demands to be analysed to death. It's a picture of Posh with a hat, carrying a teddy bear and walking one of her kids through an airport.

The 3AM team then, indeed, does analyse the picture, working through seven possibilities, of which this is the least weak:

5. That's not a teddy bear, that's David. She bought a book of love spells and turned him into a toy so that he can never leave her.

To be fair, they do come up with this possibility:

3. She's just a mum, like any other mum, going about her mumsy business, and we should give the poor woman a break and stop tearing apart her every movement.

But they never got to point eight, which I'm betting would surely have been "as a newspaper site and thus working under the rules of the Press Complaint Commissions, this picture appears to feature a child simply because his parents are famous, and as such shouldn't have been published, so perhaps Victoria is trying to avoid drawing attention to herself in order to save ourselves from once again showing certain parts of the UK newspaper industry can't be trusted with the concept of self-regulation."

Elsewhere, there's this cheerful opening to a story:

Since we know that Peter Andre is a fan of our site, we think it's only fair that we write stories that will make him chuckle. The latest bad PR for his dear lady ex-wife is that she's been accused of threatening to run over a young fan with her ridiculous pink horse box.

Ah, yes, what could possibly be more chucklesome than the mother of your children being accused of threatening to run people over? Let's hope the 3AM team start writing a sitcom soon.

One last jarring note: the stories don't have links to "read the full story". It says "Care? Read on."

Daily Mail reminded to think of the children

You'll recall the Daily Mail doesn't run paparazzi photos any more. Not since the death of Diana, when their team decided that it was beneath the title to pay people to poke long lens into people's affairs.

Mail leads the way in banning paparazzi pictures

That was the headline.

Oddly, though, one or two such pictures do sometimes slip in. Like recent photos of Take That's kids.

Not only was this a breach of the Mail's pledge to the memory of the late Diana, but also contravened the rules of the Press Complaints Commission. Oh, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Two breaches, strictly speaking, as they ran photos of Gary Barlow's kids and Mark Owen's as well.

The result has been a stiff legal letter emailed to Paul Dacre and his Sunday equivalent Peter Wright, asking the paper to perhaps think about obeying the law and not running photos of kids without any reason.

In a lovely bit of attention to detail, the Take That solicitors point out that for some reason the paper had elected to pixelate out the faces of Mark Owen's kids, but not those of Gary Barlow's.

Happily, the solicitor's intervention seems to have reminded the Daily Mail of its obligations under the law and as a member of the Press Complaints Commission, and the offending pages have been replaced with a 404 error.

All's well that ends well, eh? And certainly it's unlikely the Mail will make the mistake of publising pictures of kids just because their parents are well known, that's for sure.

Oh... hang on... what's this?:

Melanie Brown's daughter, 2, shows off some zig-a-zig-hair with new Mohican crop

By Chris Johnson
Last updated at 4:19 PM on 23rd July 2009

She may be only a tender two years old.

But that certainly does not bar Melanie Brown's younger daughter Angel Iris from making a style statement.

Quite what mothers of similar aged toddlers will make of the eye-catching Mohican - which clearly involved an early introduction to the razor - is another matter.

Well, I guess the photos from the Splash agency only show the back of the two year old child's head. And, presumably, the Mail believes that the question of how a child's hair cut is a matter of serious public debate. Because how dare someone who was in the Spice Girls decide on her kid's hairstyle? Doesn't she think how it will look when the Mail puts a long lens photo onto its website?

Gordon in the morning: Revisiting a bad idea

I think everyone had assumed that Gordon Smart had quietly dropped his vaguely homophobic tent-based scoring "guydar", but, oh no: It's back today. Apparently, somehow, having implied sex with Paris Hilton triggers 80% on Gordon's pink triangle scoring system. Somehow.

Still, all credit to Gordon for pushing forward with the sort of idea that lesser men would have dropped long before it ever reached the newspaper.

Meanwhile, well done to Virginia Wheeler and the entire Bizarre team for running a long lens photo of Mercy James as she arrived in London. I suppose if Malawian officials have decided that adoption law doesn't apply to the child, it's not surprising that Gordon and his gang have decided that the Press Complaints Commission ban on running photos of children without very good reason somehow isn't in action, either.

Wheeler shows how well she's kept up with the story she was sent by the Sun to cover:

WIDE-eyed Malawian orphan Mercy James gazes at the hustle and bustle of London yesterday...

To be fair, the first word is right, Mercy was wide-eyed. And, yes, she was Malawian.

But wasn't it established quite swiftly that, having a father who actually wanted to keep her with her family, Mercy wasn't actually an orphan?

Gordon in the morning: Fill in his blanks

Clearly, running with a long lens snap of Gary Lineker in his swimshorts and the headline on an Agyness Deyn story shows that Gordon is tired right now.

In their natural Agytat

So very, very tired.

So perhaps it's not surprising that Gordon is asking for help from his readers to slap a name on Deyn's friends:

But how to refer to the herd of TV folk, models, designers and pop stars? Readers, it’s up to you. Email biz@the-sun.co.uk with your ideas.

If you'd like to join in, you'd probably need to know who's in that herd:

Look carefully at the wee beasties in this street scene and you can spot a PIXIE GELDOF, a NICK GRIMSHAW, the Ag and a HENRY HOLLAND at play. There’s even a lesser-spotted REMI NICOLE lurking in the background.

Yes, he did just call Agyness "the Ag". So very, very tired.

I think Gordon might have overlooked that there's already a term which covers this group of people with little talent and no philosophy: "members of the public".

Elsewhere, Gordon runs a photo of Chris Martin at Disneyland under the headline:

Speed of sound, Chris?

Which makes no sense, as the picture is of him standing up and there's no reference to speed, or movement, or even riding, in the story underneath.

Gordon does point out what a good man he is:

Rock ’n’ roll stars are taking some time off too. CHRIS MARTIN has been treating his two nippers, APPLE and MOSES, to the ultimate childhood trip in Disneyland, LA. The COLDPLAY frontman hates his kids having their picture taken, so I’ve left them off the page.

How generous of Gordon. You wonder why Martin and Paltrow's kids get this treatment when everyone elses' are considered fair game - would it be too cynical to bet on there being some sort of letter on headed notepaper from a professional warning papers to lay off Apple and Moses on pain of privacy complaints to the PCC?

Still, it does mean that Gordon has run a photo of a man standing, apparently on his own, in a queue this morning. Quite a scoop.

Gordon in the morning: Young people

To be fair to Gordon, the piece about Lourdes Ciccone dressing a bit like her Mum isn't by him - it's by Erica Davies - but he features it as part of Bizarre smorgasbord this morning.

The 'article' is nothing more than pictures of a twelve year-old girl run alongside photos of her mum. Mum, of course, is Madonna. It's hugely unlikely that the Sun would have run these pictures of any other twelve year, but this is Madonna's daughter. On the other hand, that can't be the case, can it, what with the PCC code strictly injuncting:

Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

Elsewhere on Bizarre this morning, again without Gordon's little photo in his borrowed suit, there's a breathless piece about the new Take That video:

Here is the first look at the boys in action from the expensive video — shot from a helicopter.

Not from a helicopter? But I thought those crazy craft only existed in sci-fi stories and top-secret military compounds. Where did Gary Barlow lay his hands on such aline technology?

Actually, it's not really that the Sun gets over-excited by helicopters; the mention of it, it turns out, is merely to set up the knob gag in the headline:

Take That get chopper out

If I didn't know better, I'd bet they're using the MusicBiz banner rather than the Gordon photo byline banner on that because he was afraid he'd be mocked mercilessly if his face appeared next to that headline.

Gordon in the morning: Who says the Press Complaints Commission is a toothless old hound?

I'm not sure that it's even worth asking why Gordon Smart has run long-lens photos of Gary Barlow's kids ("Daniel, who is eight next month, and six-year-old Emily", as Gordo helpfully points out), because the PCC rules about children are pretty clear:

Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent.
[...]
Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

So there must be some strong reason for this intrusion into the preeteen's privacy, right?

Erm... their mum is pregnant. Well, you can see why you would want to ignore PCC rules on children and privacy under those circumstances - who can enjoy the prospect of an expanding family without having creepy shots of their kids taken from across the street being slapped alongside Sienna Miller's topless hugs, eh?

Gordon in the morning: The what complaints commission?

Oddly, considering how certain Gordon was that Amy Winehouse had abandoned Blake and was moving on, he seems equally certain that she's paying a thousand pounds a week for "protection" for him in prison. And:

A source said: “Blake has people who look after him.

“And he gets crack and heroin. Amy pays for it outside.”

But didn't Gordon insist that Blake was buying the drucks with signed photos of Winehouse?

It's almost as if Smart's running any old rubbish that any old lag turns up and offers him.

Still, at least he's on safer ground with Halle Berry, as it is scientific fact that pregnant women's breasts can grow.

More seriously, Smart has a photo of one of the Beckham's kids - a horrible, grainy long lens shot to show that, erm, he's drawn on his arms. We'd love to hear how that fits with the Press Complaints Commission's rules on not running pictures of kids simply because they've got famous parents.

Gordon in the morning: Innocent victims

It's not much, but Gordon tries gamely to make a story out of Pixie Geldof leaving a shop with a dress she hasn't paid for.

Rich people like Pixie don't shop in stores where alarms go off when you carry stock out; it's probably why those who do pay end up paying such ridiculous prices for their trousers.

Peaches, apparently, had confused the dress with a scarf:

[S]he then returned with her tail between her legs, explaining she had picked the dress up by mistake because it was the same colour as her scarf.

When she brought the dress back the next day it had the label ripped out. But to make up for the misunderstanding, generous Peaches decided to keep it and paid up.

Presumably the label was ripped out as she sought to discover how her scarf had somehow turned into a dress.

Oddly, Gordon runs a series of pictures of Madonna's children because, erm, they went for a meal.

We're not quite sure how that fits with the Press Complaints Commission code of practice rule 6.v:

v) Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

I'm sure we're just missing the justification here.

Desmond sues Heat over Spears

Richard Desmond's OK magazine is launching a legal against Heat over chunks of an interview with Jamie Lynn Spears they maintain was lifted from their publication. It's about pride, rather than money:

"OK! magazine has established its reputation in the UK, the USA and throughout the world by the relationship of trust it builds with celebrities," said OK!'s group editorial director, Paul Ashford.

"We take pride in handling their stories and pictures in a positive and responsible way. We go to all possible lengths within the law to protect these exclusives and safeguard the interests of the celebrities and of our own readers."

Ah, yes. OK should be justly proud of its positive and responsible handling of stories and photos.

This would be the same OIK Magazine whose "positive and responsible" outing of a person attending Alcoholics Anonymous was this described by the Press Complaints Commission:

It was clear that the magazine had published private information about the complainant. Taken together, the photograph, its caption, and the information in the article constituted intrusive material about her attendance at an AA meeting. The fact of her treatment was not in the public domain, and there was no public interest reason for publishing references to it without her consent.
The defence advanced by the magazine – that there was no breach of the Code because readers might think the complainant was at the meeting only to provide moral support – was clearly without merit. The fact was that the magazine had stated that she had attended the meeting and published a photograph of her outside it. It did not know whether she had been there for treatment herself, and took no care in its presentation of the material to avoid a possible intrusion into her privacy. This was reckless in the circumstances, as shown by the subsequent revelation that she had indeed been at the clinic for treatment. It was also regrettable that the magazine had not engaged with the complainant’s solicitor when a complaint was made directly to the publication.

Yes. Breaching someone's privacy when they're vulnerable, making up spurious justifications and ignoring their victim when they try to seek an apology. You can see why OK would be rushing to court to protect their reputation for "positive and responsible" handling of stories, can't you?

Bizarre not that bothered

Back in February, John Coles, a helper on Victoria Newton's Bizarre column, had an article in The Sun which attempted to sneak an invasion of Charlotte Church's privacy. The paper had been told that Church was pregnant:

Mr Melton said that the newspaper had told Ms Church’s PR agent that it had received firm information that she was pregnant.

The paper was told in response that such information was private and would not be commented on. Ms Church’s representatives did however confirm that she was ‘not more than 12 weeks pregnant’ and said that if she was pregnant, no statement would be made until after the 12-week scan or when a doctor said it would be safe to tell family and friends.

Understandable. Not only is the first trimester full of risk you might not want to undergo in public, the Press Complaints Commission is very clear on this sort of thing:

The Commission has recently made clear that newspapers should not reveal the fact of someone’s pregnancy before the 12-week scan without consent and when the information is not known to any significant degree.

So, since they were refused permission to publish what they knew, Coles' name (and, interestingly, Newton's photo byline) went out on a story which reversed the usual Bizarre way of doing things - it reported facts, pretending they were speculation:

CHARLOTTE Church snubbed a boozy 21st bash for a quiet family party — sparking rumours she is pregnant.

The chat show star and singer has finally quit smoking and pals have noticed she has put on a bit of weight in recent weeks.

Church complained to the Press Complaints Commission, which asked The Sun to provide evidence of these 'rumours'. The paper was unable to, and the PCC upheld the complaint. The paper prints the adjudication this morning but - in what we're sure is an oversight and in no waya thumbing of its nose at the PCC - the original story is still online at the moment.

Remember that time we thought you were pregnant?

Madonna has got into a right old "two and eight" as her duff-cockernee-wannabe-spouse would doubtless put it over Heat magazine's front-page claim that she's with child. We can't see why she's so pissed off at this one - phantom Maddy pregnancies date right back to IPC's short lived The Hit in the mid-80's, after all.

Unless she's not sleeping with Guy at the moment, of course. Anyway, Madonna has trumpeted off the to Press Complaints Commission to rage against this invasion of her privacy. But we wonder if the tarnished Queen of Pop has realised that she's got another useful area to attack the OK-its-for-some-reason-okay-to-like on?

Only the Tv adverts for Heat featured an explicit shot of the 'Madonna's Pregnant' front page. if it's really that bad, will she also be sending letters to the ITC and BSC?