Paper Monitor
11:31 UK time, Tuesday, 8 May 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Just when Paper Monitor felt it was something of a lone voice in the championing of daily printed media, it discovers a like-minded cohort - the rather more grandiosely titled .
As acronyms go, WAN doesn't exactly inspire confidence (the Penguin English Dictionary defines the word as "suggestive of poor health; pallid; lacking vitality") but what it lacks in awareness of the complexities of the English language it sure makes up for with deep pockets.
WAN appears to have lavished several tens of thousands of pounds on taking out full-page adverts in Tuesday's press - the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph among them - promoting, well, er, the press.
"You're one of 1.4 billion people in the world reading a newspaper today. More than ever before, the well-informed are deciding it's silly not to."
Paper Monitor couldn't agree more, but wonders who is behind this elaborate act of self-justification.
Just when it was minded to pin the whole thing on some sort of socialist job-creation exercise, it spied this almost hidden text running down the side of the ad: "This advertisement was conceived and produced for the World Association of Newspapers by The Dukes of Urbino.Com."
Is this what Bo Duke has spent his
It all sounds a tad Bilderburg-ish to be honest, but given said Dukes' obvious largesse, Paper Monitor would be happy to know more. Perhaps it might involve an expenses-paid trip to the rustic Italian-sounding Urbino.
The 
