Cheryl Cole – Press Eats Itself

The amount of copy dedicated to the activities of slebs – any slebs – is exemplified by their following every move of the more photogenic of them. But the case of Cheryl Curl shows not only that the Fourth Estate has an unhealthy obsession with her, but also that they’re absolutely useless with it. This has been demonstrated by her recent marriage – which they all managed to miss.

Cheryl Cole hears that the press needed telling about her wedding, because they were totally clueless

Ms Cole was a member of Girls Aloud. But, so what? Well, OK, but she has also been an X Factor judge alongside Simon Cowell, aka The Black Helmet, and this, together with the press having less hacks and more copy to churn out, has been sufficient excuse to splash her all over papers and websites. Her every move was closely monitored. Except that it wasn’t.

So it came to pass that the Sunday Mirror yesterday splashed “Cheryl Cole ready to MARRY new French boyfriend Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini after 3 months dating”, putting key words in CAPITALS because readers might need to be TOLD what is IMPORTANT. “She might have had a difficult end to her marriage with Ashley Cole, but the X Factor judge is ready to say I Do again” it told.

What? There was new sleb goss to be had? The competition had to have a bit of that, so the Express, always on the look-out for lifting other papers’ copy, thoughtfully added “besotted” to Ms Cole’s range of attributes, and talked of “walking up the aisle with her new man”. There was even a mystery friend to tell “Cheryl is absolutely smitten with Jean-Bernard and hasn’t felt like this in a long time”.

And, if the Express was lifting the story, so must the Mail. “Cheryl Cole is all but ready to walk down the aisle for a second time, this time with handsome French boyfriend Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini who she has been dating for three months”. Yes, they were also going to “walk down the aisle” in this version, too. Moreover, she was both “besotted” and “smitten” in this account, too.

However, and in this case there is a significantly sized however, there was a minor problem: Ms Cole was not “ready to marry” anyone. This is because SHE HAD ALREADY GOT MARRIED six days before the Mirror ran its splash. To add insult to injury, the press only got to find out that they were too late ... by Ms Cole letting them know via Facebook. And nobody had “walked up the aisle”.

But is the press downhearted? Not a bit of it: the tabs have even been joined by the increasingly trashy Telegraph, telling readers “As Cheryl Cole marries her French boyfriend after just three months of dating, we speak to a man who fell in love at first sight, and a marriage therapist who says it’s better to wait”. Whatever next, someone who saw Ms Cole speed by while waiting for their bus?

The papers can’t even keep up with the slebs. So what chance real news?