Monitor; All the News of the World The Sunday papers comment on the ethics of the tabloid press

THE RED tops, as the down-market tabloids are known, particularly the News of the World and The Sun, have expressed little remorse. In just four days they exposed the England rugby captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, the infidelities of Lenny Henry and Ian Botham, and then rounded it off with Miss Rhys-Jones. There was not the slightest concern for the wretchedness that the first three stories precipitated and that is because the red- top press is at base vacant of all humanity and morality. (Henry Porter)

The Sunday Telegraph

THE EDITOR of the News of the World defended his investigation into Dallaglio as in the public interest. If the Press Complaints Commission decides to rule against him, it will have to frame its judgement so as not to prejudice other investigations in which the public interest is less disputable. Any such wording is likely to be impossible. Similarly, any law trying to differentiate between "good" and "bad" entrapment is impossible to draft.

The Observer

OUR CRITICS, most of whom never read the News of the World and despise our readers, complain we should have let Dallaglio and his indiscretions pass. In other words, expose the sink estate dealers, the night club peddlers and the street corner pushers. But not the England rugby captain. But a newspaper that shies away from exposing those who can't fight back is a sham, a coward and a bully.

News of the World

ONCE PROPRIETORS were themselves at the mercy of the bailiffs and the courts. Now we have a world where Rupert Murdoch seeks from his counterparts an agreement that his own personal life will not be looked into; where David Montgomery, in his days at The Mirror, fights to gag those who question him as he expects his own reporters to question others; where Murdoch's lieutenant in London - the man who said The Sun should print the Rhys- Jones pictures - is also the chairman of the committee drawing up the code of conduct of the PCC.

The Independent on Sunday