The Mirror, for instance, featured the cosmetic surgery of film star Catherine Zeta-Jones last Wednesday, while the election was no where to be seen. The Sun has led on a story about a woman with eight children from various fathers, the death of comedian Bob Monkhouse s son, and the England football manager s bonus. But the Daily Mail s coverage has been the most intriguing so far. So, on the day after the election was declared the Mail did not even lead with the news on its front page, preferring the drugs death of bright student - a tragic story, but a classic Mail subject, striking fear into the heart of middle England while fostering a sense of declining moral values. The Mail s first significant coverage of the start election race was on page 6.
Initial returns show newspaper sales following the usual pattern.
The Mail, Telegraph and Mirror each rose fractionally in the first week of the campaign, but the other broadsheets were flat and the Sun fell slightly. All the Sunday papers suffered except for the Sunday Times, which lured its readers with a free CD of Elvis Presley songs, the Independent On Sunday, which slashed its cover price, and the Sunday Mirror, which offered a free Robbie Williams magazine. During the May 1997 election campaign, which saw nearly two decades of Tory rule come to an end, sales of all the daily broadsheets fell. Desmond on a forward roll despite strike fears IF IT were not for the small matter of a potential strike at his newspapers, Richard Desmond would be on a roll. Group chairman played pivotal role in one of newspaper world s great success stories.