Generalising

BBC News:

Sachin Tendulkar created history with the first double century in one-day internationals as India thrashed South Africa by 153 runs in Gwalior.

The Guardian:

…the accolades that poured out of Gwalior after Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to score a double hundred in a one-day international, to lead India to victory over South Africa by 153 runs.

The Telegraph:

…the news that Sachin Tendulkar has scored the first double-hundred in one-day internationals.

…and, judging by Google News, around a thousand other journalists saying pretty much the same thing.

Of those thousand news stories, however, only one – the Independent Online in South Africa – manages to actually include a small but salient point:

…while Tendulkar is the first man to reach the magical number, [Belinda] Clark did it 13 years ago, against Denmark in the Women’s World Cup in India in 1997.

For those who follow the sport (unlike me, I admit), there’s an interesting article here on cricketing firsts which were actually first obtained by women.

Front page, top centre, of yesterday’s Telegraph, a large colour photograph of a man and a woman, with the prominent title “Premier League boss’s brothel visit”.

It takes until the middle of the text underneath – there’s no caption as such, and it’s below the fold – to clarify that this is him “pictured with his wife” rather than, say, photographic evidence for the story. Not the most well-thought-out move, there.

I’ve just dealt with a pile of today’s and yesterday’s newspapers.

The Guardian, the Times and the Independent, both days: large full-colour photograph of Haiti on the front page as the main headline story, four inside pages of coverage (six in today’s Independent, and a few more in the second section of today’s Guardian) plus a scattering of editorials or leader articles.

The Telegraph and the Financial Times, both days: Haiti prominent, but other headline stories as well. One or two inside pages; the Telegraph also runs a background feature on Haiti’s history.

And, then, the Daily Mail: two inside pages each day, no front-page mention. The stories that displaced it, you’ll be pleased to know, were Gary McKinnon getting judicial review, and some research on a possible Alzheimers test; the front-page photographs were of Kate McCann and Beyoncé.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but, really. The only element of it that doesn’t seem like self-parody is that neither story was about Labour incompetence causing a crash in house prices.