Give the public want they want

It's that time of year and Peter Wilby takes a look at the past 12 months of the national press in the Guardian this morning.

Under the headline,Don't blame us - it's the readers' fault,Peter asks whether the press are simply providing what the public want

As other stories failed to meet expectations, the year was dominated by a four-year-old child.

says Peter.adding

Almost everything written since then has been based on speculation and, dare I say it, invention. When their inventiveness dried up, the papers fell back on asking themselves why they were so interested in the case - "commentary on the commentary", as Matthew Parris called it in the Times last week.

Until taken over by the missing canoeist that is.