The Observer is to close three of its monthly magazines and become a four section paper as part of a redesign that will hit newsstands next year.

Guardian News & Media’s redesigned Sunday title will have four weekly sections – news, sport, an expanded Review section and the Observer magazine – and the award-winning glossy supplement Observer Food Monthly. The other three supplements, Observer Sport Monthly, Observer Music Monthly and Observer Woman, will close.

Business and personal finance coverage will move into the main news section of the paper, while travel coverage will be incorporated into the expanded Observer magazine. Steve Busfield, The Guardian.

Not before time, I can only describe Woman supplement as appalling and the others at best as dull even the “award winning” food supplement.

Two posts on the state of journalism well worth reading, one from Jim Bliss in which he takes to task The Guardian’s music writer Steven Wells who defends the right of American Jazz magazine Maxim to review the latest albums of the Black Crowes and Nas without hearing the complete albums, but just one song. As Jim writes

I’m not suggesting that the reviewer should have forced himself (or herself) to listen to the entire thing, just that they should be honest; “having listened to one track from the forthcoming album by The Black Crowes, I was unable to bear any more. I guess if you’re a fan of dull, generic stoner-rock then this might interest you, and you’ll probably want to check it out if you liked their previous stuff. Me? I’m going to boil my head instead”.

As Jim also points out, can we actually trust the reviews in The Guardian, certainly not those of Steven Wells.

The second post, this time from Bristling Badger reports the appalling treatment the press dished out to Heather Mills-McCartney with particular reference to the stories that Mills suggested we drink rats milk. What Mills actually meant was drinking cows’ milk was as unnatural as drinking rat or dog milk; she was clearly implying we should drink none of these things. Bristling Badger quotes Juliet Gellatley director of vegetarian pressure group Viva!

The reporters who filed this story about Heather advocating rats’ milk knew it was untrue because I amplified on what Heather had said. One actually admitted that he understood precisely what she meant but the “drink rats’ milk” claim made a damned good story. What this reveals is an utter lack of any integrity in most of the Press – sadly not just the tabloids but the so-called quality papers, too.

Every event I have attended with Heather has been grossly misreported by the Press and has involved spiteful and vicious personal attacks on her integrity and her sanity. The irony is that one of the most common accusations about Heather is that she is a fantasist and a liar – by people whose stock in trade is fantasy and lies.

Reading these two posts and you’ll also find out how much more of a berk, than you ever thought possible The Daily Mail’s political editor Benedict Brogan is.

It’s probably an uncomfortable point to make, however at Obsolete, Septicisle doesn’t shy away he compares the press coverage the disappearance of Shannon Matthews has received and the press coverage the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has and is still receiving.

After one week Shannon Matthews’ case has all but disappeared form the front pages of the press. Why is that? Septicisle speculates.

Could it possibly be because this is a distinctly working-class family, where the father and mother have split up, and where the mother is, not to put too fine a point on it, not as aesthetically sympathetic as Kate McCann was/is? Or that this has happened up in the sunny climate of Dewsbury, a classic Yorkshire town, which simply can’t compare to the attractions of Praia da Luz for the travelling hacks?

Thursdays Express when Shannon Matthews had been missing two days, rather sums it up when Madeleine McCann’s supposed sighting in France makes the front page.