Newspapers are mental. After two years (yes, it’s been that long) of media-related ‘scandals’ about vote rigging or Manuel-gate, I think we’ve reached a new low. No, not of broadcast media’s decline in standards but in the barrel-scraping of our print friends.

In the last 24 hours, The Telegraph, The Metro, The Mail, The Sun, and the Birmingham Post amongst others have all reported on the ‘story’ of some DJs on Burn FM in Birmingham having a joke and stating, incorrectly of course, during some, no doubt, hilarious DJ banter, that Des O’Connor’s daughter has acted in pornographic films.

Burn FM, of course, isn’t really on FM and is actually an internet streaming station. My spies tell me that there were only 28 people tuned in on the internet listening at the time of the incident.

So, a load of newspapers, combined circulation of millions have highlighted a silly prank that virtually no one listened to and brought it to a much wider audience, causing, I imagine,  much more distress to the daughter and the national treasure.

The mock shock of the papers (and their gleeful desire to repeat the details) is much worse than the behaviour of some over-excited student DJs.