Tabloid Tales (BBC1): AS WELL as attracting huge viewing figures, the recent I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! did much to bring an ex-Page 3 model, described as "a really huge pair of bouncing boobs with a woman attached", to a wider audience.

As someone remarked in this programme, love or hate her, people want to read about her.

The big question is, who's exploiting who? On the evidence, I'd say that Katie Price - Jordan by any other name - has the upper hand. She's shown herself a prime manipulator of the media. She's survived name-calling ("slapper" being a favourite), a cancer scare, her son's blindness and an affair with Pop Idol runner-up Gareth Gates.

I'm still slightly wary of having a tabloid editor, The Mirror's Piers Morgan, conducting an investigation into who's using who - especially as he's forever being filmed walking around a suspiciously empty newsroom. Are they always down the pub?

He wants to ingratiate himself with his subjects to get a scoop, although Jordan had his measure. "You're all the same," she said, referring to the red tops.

She has "reigned" for nine years and her £1m house is an indication of her financial success in her chosen field of beating the tabloids at their own game.

That she's in charge of her own destiny, not to mention publicity, is obvious from the sour grapes displayed by tabloids who've seen her give scoops to their rivals. These are the same people who posed as her doctor in order to get her medical records from hospitals, and used hidden cameras to snap men leaving her hotel room.

She may have wild ways, a gobby mouth and enormous breasts, but since turning her back on Page 3 - which is the right way to be facing if you want to be known for more than your boobs - she's carefully filtered her life into the papers and magazines.

Her manager David Read admitted that he didn't have to teach her anything about manipulating the media. "She knows how to play the game," he said.

Ex-boyfriends were interviewed in a bid to establish her sexual credentials. References were made to other alleged lovers. "I wish I had slept with all those men. They think I have, so I might as well," said Jordan. "I know people think I'm a slapper. I know what they think, so that's cool by me. I know I'm not like that."

Others are less proficient at playing the game. Gareth Gates denied he'd slept with her, only to admit it later. He emerged from the whole episode looking far more foolish than she did.

While pictures and stories about Jordan continue to sell magazines and newspapers, editors will continue printing (and paying for) them. I hate to agree with Vanessa Feltz but she applauded Jordan for her honest approach.

"She's in full command of what she's doing," she said. Which is more than you can say about Morgan the TV interviewer.

Published: 04/03/2004