IT HAS come to this column's notice that some news is available only to media organisations prepared to come up with the readies. At the time of writing I have £1 and nine pence in my pocket. I wonder what sort of news such a sum buys these days?
Perhaps I might secure an exclusive sample of the sand on which Geri Halliwell did those show-offy yoga poses, although such a story would run up against this column's aversion to having to type the words 'Geri' and 'Halliwell' in the same sentence. Or maybe a handful of David Beckham's shorn hair would be within reach, though frankly the Manchester United footballer and his glamorously diminishing wife do not excite a lot of interest in this vicinity.
The trouble with trying to buy stories is you can't just nip down to Sainsbury and look on the shelf just before noodles. You have to go out and hunt for them or ring Max Clifford, the publicist so often to be found rubbing his hands at the heart of big news stories.
I have an old-fashioned attitude to news, believing it to be something new that has happened and is available to whoever has the nous to go and find it. Sadly many stories are now bought up and kept away from non-paying eyes.
Gracie Attard arrived in this world as a Siamese twin and now goes forth as a baby with a price on her head. The little girl, originally known by the pseudonym Jodie, lived while her sister Rosie died during the operation to separate them. The story of Gracie's survival has been bought in a cross-media deal brokered by Max Clifford.
Gracie's parents took her home to the Maltese island of Gozo last weekend, shielded by news organisations in on the deal.
The Attards are reported to have already made £200,000 from a television interview, and are said to have signed a new deal worth £350,000 with ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald, Now magazine and two Sunday newspapers. Syndication deals could push the family's earnings to £1 million.
Making money out of newspapers ties in with our compensation culture.
If something happens to you, there is a price to your tragedy/discomfort/ agony/and or/heartbreak (delete where applicable and fill in the attached blank cheque).
Newspapers who pay up encourage the idea that news has a price. Such deals are done to boost circulation and to rub rivals noses in the dirt, which is much the way it's always been.
But I have a suggestion here. Where a story is sold to one newspaper, we should decide that the story no longer interests us. We should take no notice and move on to something else. Siamese twin survives, parents strike money-grasping deal. The story can then be shoved in the memory drawer marked "read that once, forgot it". So don't read the News Of The World and don't watch Sir Trevor's "exclusive" when it is shown.
I have already tried this approach, completly ignoring Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey, whose nuptials were apparently supported by a chocolate bar and OK magazine. David and Victoria's OK-sponsored wedding was easily avoided too and I somehow managed to survive without ever seeing how many wedding snaps £1 million can buy.
We've been here before and we'll go there again. As long ago as 1986, Max Clifford was behind the outrageous Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster headline in the Sun. And in 1996 he brokered a News Of The World deal for Mandy Allwood, the woman who eventually lost the eight babies she was carrying.
That story resurfaced this week as Clifford and Allwood faced each other in court. Ms Allwood alleges breach of trust, Mr Clifford is counter-claiming. And so the story rolls on, this time without money changing hands.
All that and I've still got £1 and nine pence in my pocket.
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