It won't surprise you to learn that I don't dash round the corner every morning to pick up the Daily Mail -- mainly because it's a spiteful and bigoted rag.

Therefore it wasn't until today that I was alerted to this typically non-partisan piece of bile from yesterday's edition:

BBC invades US: From Daily Mail - 19/10/2004
RICHARD KAY

AS BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson has promised to be careful with the Corporation's public money - he has ordered its news division to slash 20 per cent off its budget this year. So no doubt he will be thrilled that to meet his strictures, the BBC are sending a mere 200 staff to cover the presidential election in America next month.

'I mean it's not as though there is a need to be all over the country - there are only two candidates, for Heaven's sake,' says one insider at Television Centre. 'Our main gripe is the number of programme editors who seem to find it necessary to be there.

'It's outrageous. None of them has got any particular American expertise and it could be argued that editorial decisions would be better made in London.

'There is a general feeling that this is completely over the top.

'I hope HM Customs swoop on them when they return to Britain like they did with Wayne Rooney's girlfriend, because half of them will have only gone to the States to do their Christmas shopping!' Among those executives scheduled to make the trip are Mark Popescu, the head of News 24, and Kevin Bakhurst, editor of the Ten O'clock News.

The BBC tell me that the number of people going to America is 'under 200'.

A spokesman says: 'It's a crucial international news event and we believe we have the right number of people in place to provide the authoritative, comprehensive coverage our audiences have come to expect across BBC TV radio and online.'

In case you weren't aware, the Daily Mail's parent company, Daily Mail and General Trust plc, also owns a 20% stake in rival news broadcaster ITN -- home of the laughably amateurish ITV News Channel.

I'd also point you to the ITV Network Statement of Programme Policy 2003-2004 which tells you everything you need to know about ITN's commitment to in-depth foreign news coverage in these changing times:

"All major international stories will be covered with reports sourced from specialist correspondents and dedicated foreign bureaux in the key newscentres of the world: Washington, Jerusalem and Brussels.

There are currently also news bureaux in Moscow, Johannesburg and Bangkok. It may be necessary to review the bureaux ITV News maintains abroad, adapting resources to meet changing editorial requirements."

So...ITN operates a grand total of six foreign bureaux -- and even these are facing the axe.

The BBC operates...44.

And while I'm on the subject of the Daily Mail, it's ironic to note that the paper's former star columnist Lynda Lee-Potter's death from a brain tumour is being treated with more reverence than she herself lavished on a fellow tumour sufferer, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam.

When Dr Mowlam gained weight as a result of the same condition that killed the so-called "First Lady of Fleet Street," Lee-Potter described her as resembling "an only slightly effeminate Geordie trucker".

Rest in peace, Lynda.