What the media commentators are saying

Stephen Glover in the Independent comments on the payout for Robert Murat last week and warns that

Murat's victory should serve as a warning to the entire British press

and saying that

Many will note that all the newspapers involved, which also paid damages to two associates of Mr Murat, were tabloids.

But adds Glover

it would be wrong, I think, to exclude the Portuguese police and our so-called quality newspapers from general censure.

adding

I do not deny the tabloids sometimes went further, with the Daily Express probably being the most egregious in its suggestions of a paedophile ring. No doubt tabloid headlines were also bigger and more dramatic. But it is surely undeniable that, albeit in a more circumspect way, the quality papers also implicated Mr Murat, relying mostly on police evidence, but sometimes adding touches of their own. Incidentally, I am sure that some television news programmes also displayed tabloid excesses

In the Guardian Peter Wilby thinks that the media's behaviour was a risk worth taking

The 2007 marketing budget for the Sun was estimated at £16m, that for the News of the World at £5m - and the figures are likely to be higher this year. The budget for the Daily Mail may be close to £20m. When you look at those figures, £72,727 seems like small change. But that is the figure you reach if you divide the collective damages of £800,000 paid to Robert Murat and two others falsely linked to the Madeleine McCann abduction, between the 11 offending newspapers, including the Sun, News of the World and the Mail. Legal fees will probably boost the cost to each paper well beyond £100,000 - but, if you regard smear stories as a circulation booster, you might reasonably treat the overall costs as a minor charge on the marketing budget.

Big Brother comes under a fair deal of scrutiny.Ben Dowell in media Guardian asks

Has the world finally fallen out of love with the show

Almost certainly not in the UK -where This year's series has been averaging only 3.3 million so far - but this looks likely to increase as the contest hots up. In any case, Channel 4 has signed up to the show until 2010 at least and it remains, according to Tim Hincks, chief executive of Endemol UK, a "banker" for the channel ,"just like Wimbledon or EastEnders is to the BBC".

Whilst Conor Dignam in the Indy tells us why,Why Channel 4's next celebrity eviction must be 'Big Brother' itself

Spend just a few minutes watching this year's Big Brother on Channel 4 and it's easy to understand why the show is losing its appeal. It is a format that built its reputation on the ability to surprise, but there are no more tricks in the box. The novelty of the first few series, of discovering characters, is now lost in the predictable casting and the overriding sense that the ambition of everyone in the house is some form of D-list celebrity.

Jeff Jarvis looks at the newspaper industry and thinks

Newspapers are in the wrong businesses.They should no longer be in manufacturing and distribution, which have become cost-heavy yokes. And they should no longer try to be in the technology business - because they're bad at it.