Why is mainstream media sinking into sleaze?

       Amazing what passes for news these days. In one popular daily, featured prominently among a host of nude celebrity selfies, a young woman is pictured with her trousers round her thighs as she urinates in the street – apparently caught short by her bladder and an ever-ready smartphone! 

       Elsewhere in the same newspaper, there’s a graphic shot of someone’s earwax - thought to be the biggest ever lump of candle grease ever fished out from a lug-hole. This after weeks of unedifying pus being popped from enormous pimples! 

       Hard to know which ‘story’ has been the most gut-churning. Was it the scandalous tale of a pretty blonde who, having failed to flush away her poo from her new boyfriend’s lavatory bowl, hid the offensive matter in her handbag? (Obviously, the girl was embarrassed, but not so overcome with shame she couldn’t share the experience with millions of readers. She was even willing to pose without a brown paper bag over her head!) 

       Or could it be yet another earth-shattering shot of a Kardashian bottom? The biggest blackhead in the world, perhaps? Or intimate details of a reality star’s underwear? 

       So what’s going on? Why are activities that should only take place in private now being paraded by leading newspapers and magazines? Why are images once confined to top-shelf sleazy rags being devoured with the Kellogg’s at breakfast? 

       It’s not just the nudity or the steamy revelations of (in)famous affairs. It’s the smallness of it I find offensive. It undermines human dignity and lowers our standards. It’s the sniggering kind of smut that passes for humour behind school bike sheds. It’s childish and demeaning to all concerned. 

       So come on dailies - Clean up your act!!