Browsing the news stand yesterday, every paper bar the Sport led with the murder of Benazir Bhutto. This included the Sun and the Mirror, which led with full pages proclaiming “Don’t let them kill democracy” and “The day democracy died”. I wondered how many mentions Bhutto had been afforded in each publication in life.

A quick search of the Sun’s website brought up fourteen mentions in the last year, the most recent pre-death being the fourteenth of November. The Mirror fared somewhat better with sixteen mentions of her in her in the last year, the last of her alive also in November.

For comparison to the broadsheets, the Guardian managed 401 mentions, the last three days before she was shot…

I am somewhat aware that Bhutto’s only mentions on this blog have been posthumous. However we are not trying to sell newspapers, and I can’t help but feel the tabloids are going more than a bit OTT in trying to cash in.