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Guilty Pleasure: Daisy Sampson On Popbitch

Interview,Sophie Morris
Sunday 24 July 2005 19:00 EDT
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It's an utterly scurrilous service, an e-mail den of iniquity. It's full of awful stories about celebrities and most of it is so libellous. You know when you're reading it that at least 50 or 100 per cent is not true. It's so far-fetched it couldn't be. Then every so often they'll break a proper story like Madonna having a baby and Beckham having a baby, and you realise they do have good contacts.

I think it comes out on a Thursday and if I've got time I'll look at it immediately, or even worse I'll print it off and put it in my handbag for a quiet moment.

It exemplifies the modern media at its very worst. It's the McDonald's of the media: you try to forget it as soon as you've eaten it. I guess that's part of the attraction, thinking: "Ooh, can I be clever and work out who it is?" Which is awful. I absolutely shouldn't. Popbitch does have some political stories so occasionally I can convince myself that I'm working. I think it was Popbitch who first said that Natalie Imbruglia was going out with Liam Fox and David Lammy was going out with June Sarpong.

I should be much more sensible and realise that it's not only full of rubbish but also immoral but I just can't help myself reading it.

Daisy Sampson is ITV's chief political correspondent

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