How much will Rudd wreck? The Daily Telegraph is certainly nailing its colours to the mast with its latest dingle, a take on the Disney cartoon Wreck-It Ralph. Last Saturday Gemma Jones’ story on changes to the fringe benefits tax carried the logo, while today it was government frontbencher Penny Wong losing her Commonwealth car — which we’re fairly confident Kevin Rudd had nothing to do with …
Sporting chance for best political blog. There’s really only one story this morning, at least as far as election watchers are concerned. Psephological guru Nate Silver has been poached from The New York Times and will be joining the Disney-owned sports channel, ESPN. Sports forecasting and analysis was actually Silver’s original speciality; he first came to public attention for his work on baseball. But what really made his name was when he turned to politics and with his blog FiveThirtyEight produced strikingly accurate predictions of the 2008 presidential election.
In 2010 Silver was signed for a three-year contract by the Times, and became famous as a hate figure for Republicans during the 2012 election when his patiently analytical method of looking at the evidence contrasted sharply with their magical anti-Obama thinking. Silver, of course, was vindicated by the result, and on the expiry of his contract this year is pretty much able to dictate his own terms. Disney, with its vast media empire, will give him scope that not even the Times could provide.
Few details have been announced, but it appears that Silver will still do some political analysis, while broadening his work more into sports and other areas. He will also feature regularly on American ABC News, another Disney-owned operation. But to the extent that he devotes less time to politics, Silver will be missed. — Charles Richardson (read the full story at The World Is Not Enough)
Baby watch: splash before the birth. The royal baby hadn’t been born when Australia’s newspapers went to bed overnight — but with Kate in labour that didn’t stop them from producing souvenir editions on the presumptive new arrival. Thank goodness everything went well. Of the News Corp tabloids, The Daily Telegraph won the day with seven pages of baby-mania — ahead of The Courier-Mail‘s six (though it did colour its masthead for the occasion) and five in the Herald Sun and The Advertiser …
Front page of the day. But nothing could top Fleet Street for baby splashes — and nothing was going to top The Sun, which ran with the birth certificate and changed its own name for the occasion …
Expect the worst from the Toolagraph – that way they’ll never let you down.
But no Murd-jokes about Edward’s lack of ‘air?
Sorry “William’s”.
[(he does look like his uncle)]