The Daily Star, publication of the Covid inquiry report might have reminded people, had a pretty good pandemic before delighting Britain with its Liz Truss lettuce. But it has now taken a step back into the bad old Richard Desmond days with a decidedly odd splash about Gary Barlow.
The tabloid devoted its front page on Wednesday to a snap of the Take That star clad all in black, apparently returning from a lunch in Notting Hill with wine expert Tom Gilbey. The headline ran ‘Black for Good Gary..?’ (a reference to Take That’s 1995 hit Back For Good, m’lud).
Quite why a man going for lunch dressed in black and looking slightly older and thinner than he did in his TT heyday was front-page news will have baffled many readers, although there were clues as to what the paper was getting at inside.
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There, hack Kate Nelson wrote Barlow had admitted the group’s “recent gruelling tour has left him feeling his age” that it “had pushed him to his physical limits” and that, “despite the aches and pains of getting older”, he considered it their best tour yet.
But for a more unambiguous version of what was being hinted at, readers would have had to look at the previous evening’s Daily Mail online, where unnamed “onlookers” – who were not quoted, not even anonymously – had been “surprised to see Gary Barlow looking so tired and drawn as he stepped out for lunch this week” (the Mail story was written by written by two reporters, Olivia Kemp and Amelia Wynne, the same amount as it took to uncover Watergate).
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Noting that the songwriter was “dressed down in an oversized black jumper and loose-fitting trousers”, the website also quoted inevitably unnamed “friends” as saying that “all is fine” with Barlow and that he was “fit for 55”.
That a man looks older than he did when his group had their first hit 35 years ago next month is not news, so presumably they were inviting readers to speculate about Barlow’s health – something the press itself is not supposed to do. The Privacy clause of watchdog Ipso’s Editors’ Code of Practice says in part, “Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life… (and their) physical and mental health.”
While fans of Barlow have registered their displeasure, the question remains whether anyone takes much notice of the front page of the Ooh Aah Daily Star any more. As Rats in a Sack reported earlier this year, staffers increasingly complain their bosses have little interest in the print paper, focusing on a relentless drive on clicks to the website.
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