Media: The Word on the Street

much unhappiness has broken out between The Daily Mirror and its so-called sister title The Daily Record. The two newspapers share wire services and last week Martin Clarke's Daily Record ran a story pulled from a Mirror wire that Mirror editor Piers Morgan (right) was saving for the following day. Morgan tried to stop it appearing but Clarke needed the story. Now full-scale war has broken out, with Morgan insisting that the Record gets no more agency copy or feeds from the Mirror. If that happens Clarke is likely to withdraw co-operation with the Scottish Mirror - meaning reporters just desks apart will be buying the same articles twice. Last time a spat like this broke out it cost Mirror Group over pounds 100,000 within a few days.

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the property pages of the current Harper's and Queen are as usual instructive of how the other half live - or rather the top 5 per cent, to be accurate. However, this time around they are more instructive than normal, containing as they do an advert for Elisabeth Murdoch's house, which is up for sale. She's moved to Notting Hill, but unlike the more intrusive breed of newspaper we won't be identifying her old passion pad. Come to think of it, neither will the more intrusive breed of newspaper.

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bbc producers are outraged at plans by the corporation to hold onto any cash they don't spend on programmes. In the past if a producer kept his programme under budget the money saved could be used as development money for the next programme proposal. This is to be ended. BBC bosses were apparently convinced the money was being used to send out for beer and pizzas. What they don't understand is that beer and pizzas is development money.

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you might think that The Daily Mail would fulminate with rage at Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After all it is chock-full of blotter acid, mescaline, quailudes, cocaine, grass, tequila and ether, and that's just the first page. Yet obviously the Mail's marketing department is a hot bed of liberalism compared to the editorial floor. For the Mail is the proud sponsor of the Edinburgh Film Festival's Galas, which includes Fear and Loathing and Welcome to Woop Woop by Stephen Elliot. Fortunately it is also sponsoring a film starring both horses and Kristin Scott Thomas, a Daily Mail fantasy if ever there was one.