Mail ogles 18yo in bikini - in close up

The Mail website article Twilight New Moon actress Kristen Stewart courts controversy in a marijuana leaf bikini has several classic Mail features.

One: it's got a pic of a young actress in a bikini.

Two: it's got a drug angle.

Three: the 'controversy' is mainly in the Mail's head.

Four: there's no news in it whatsoever.

And that fourth point would be true even if this picture of Kristen Stewart in a bikini was new. But it's not. As the story acknowledges - the pic is from July 2008 and appears (from a Google search) to have been widely available on the internet since February 2009.

So why drag it out now?

Partly because the new Twilight film is currently doing good business at the box office and the Mail is desperate to boost visitor numbers by doing an article that mentions it.

And partly because the Mail is increasingly obsessed with celebrity flesh. So they begin with the pic:


There hasn't even been proper research done for this because although they claim in the caption that the man is a 'male friend', the comments say he is actually her brother.

But they could run that pic, if they really had to, and leave it at that.

There is absolutely no need whatsoever to zoom in on Stewart's breasts for this second image:


Is MailOnline Editor Martin Clarke going to try and pretend this is about something other than an excuse to have a perv at a teenage girl's breasts?