Parent company News International has taken the decision to close the doors after the massive backlash against the paper when it was revealed they’d not only hacked the phones of celebrities and politicians but also those of bereaved families of killed soldiers and the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler; as if her family hasn’t gone through enough recently.
It can be described as many things: disgusting, despicable, heinous, malicious but not surprising. Did anyone hear this story and feel surprised to hear it? The News of the World has been at this for years, even before mobile phones were invented, but it’d be naïve to suggest that it’s just the News of the World that’s practicing this horrid kind of lazy journalism.
Because of the scandal, nearly every advertiser in the Sunday paper withdrew their business: Ford, Vauxhall, the Co-op, Virgin holidays, Boots, Specsavers even the Royal British Legion all cut their ties from the News of the World; seems no one wanted to be linked to the shady paper. There’s a big chance it would have gone bust if it didn’t shut itself down anyway.
The other tabloids have been awfully quiet though, considering their biggest rival has been caught in the act. You’d think they’d be hiring young children to stand on street corners yelling “read all about it!” all over again! Why are they so quiet? Because it’s highly likely the very same thing is happening within their newsrooms.
Tabloid journalism in Britain is awful. With their popularity waning thanks to their medium of news becoming less and less necessary in a world where the internet rules, sales are drastically dropping and they’ve had to evolve into less of a newspaper and more of a daily Heat magazine.
All they offer is sensationalised celebrity gossip. Vital information such as Wayne Rooney’s fetishes and John Prescott’s lunch order. Because of this journalism suffers; there is a massive difference between a journalist at the Telegraph and a journalist at the Sun, one of them is researching real news stories while the other is sat on Twitter seeing what Paris Hilton just said to Justin Bieber. “Wel dun justin I luv ur muzics.” STOP THE PRESS! Get that on page 5 immediately!
As you can probably tell I’m not really bothered to see the back of the News of the World, in fact I’m quite happy about it; I mean, if I were a chip I'd be deeply offended if I were wrapped in the News of the World with all my other chip mates. What I am bothered about though is the standards of journalism in the press on a whole. The Press Complaints Commission resembles nothing more than Hagrid’s three headed dog - play it a lullaby and you can do whatever the hell you want. Police are being paid left, right and centre and David Cameron is having to be dragged kicking and screaming to a microphone to condemn the paper’s actions.
Why is Cameron so reluctant? Well that’s down to the wider issue here: Rupert Murdoch and his News International empire. He wants to buy up the rest of BSkyB, a deal that last week was said to be going through unless something happened that would change their minds. Well I think this has to be classed as ‘something’. In order to save his bid Murdoch has sacrificed the News of the World, a big cash-cow but a mere pawn in the grand scheme of his dark sinister plan.
We’re currently at the moment where the rebels have fought valiantly, the scandal has been revealed and they’ve somehow managed to get a torpedo through an exhaust shaft and into the heart of Sunday’s best selling paper, blowing it up the entire behemoth leading to many a celebration across the land.
However the Empire swiftly struck back, with the revelation that a mere two days before the announcement of the closure of News of the World the domain name thesundaysun.co.uk had been registered. How long then until Emperor Murdoch reveals the new addition to the News International family: The Sunday Sun. It’s like the Sun but on a Sunday! The Death Star reborn! Built with better defences and an established audience that will be craving for Championship footballers’ wives’ diet tips like a rabble of crazy horseflies in an old farmer’s compost shed by then.
This is indeed a problem for us rebels, you blow up one giant giga Death Star and then they just build another one and start shooting at random planets again! What exactly can we do about it? Well very little. The police cant really be trusted given they’re responsible for this too and politicians are scared that if they speak out the paper might call them gay. It seems no one is safe from their invasive and intrusive laser beams.
Labour appear to have taken a stronger stance against News International. I bet of all the people you thought was going to play Luke Skywalker in this ridiculous analogy you wouldn’t have thought Ed Miliband would you, and yet here he is demanding the government start an enquiry immediately so that evidence isn’t mysteriously lost.
Ed Skywalker is right! We need to get a judge on this pronto, the longer we leave this the more chance they have of getting away with it! Evidence will be lost, bungs will exchange hands like they do at FIFA on Christmas Day and the massive outrage will simmer down leaving Emperor Murdoch and his apprentice Darth Rebekah Brooks to buy up BSkyB and rule over the universe with an iron fist!
The very fact Rebekah Brooks is still in employment is a complete joke. Everyone at News of the World loses theirs and she keeps her job even though she is so heavily linked to hacking even Sony are wanting a word with her. She's quite clearly either corrupt as hell or useless at her job. She’s doing a good job as a convenient shield for James Murdoch though.
Of course Brooks, and the bailed Andy Coulson, are doing their best impressions of Hogan’s Heroes favourite Sergeant Schultz, claiming to know nothing about any of it. I’m sorry, but if you’re the editor of a newspaper you know what’s going on, hell it’s your job to know. Surely as experienced journalists they would know how certain bits of material had been sourced, did they put a stop to it? No, they endorsed it by allowing it to continue!
We can’t allow for it to carry on! Celebrities are one thing, but hacking into Milly Dowler’s phone and deleting messages is down-right sadistic! We have to take the fight to them, and lucky for us we’ve found an unlikely hero, just as Luke Skywalker stumbles upon Han Solo in a bar we have stumbled upon our unlikely hero: Hugh Grant - probably in a bar as well. The similarities are all there, he’s a charmer, a bit pompous, befriends Wookies and he’ll start swinging if you rile him just a teensy bit.
Hugh’s been all over the news this last week, as it was he who beat Paul McMullen
at his own game when he turned up to his pub and recorded an admittance of his sins for all of the world to hear. All of these revelations really stem from this evidence so you have to really commend Hugh Grant here, he’s obviously very rich but he cares about things that matter and he’s passionate about the simple human right to privacy.
On Question Time on Thursday he wiped the floor with all who opposed him, nailing Tory MP Chris Grayling, Labour MP Douglas Alexander, and Jon Gaunt to the floorboards as he hit them with the words that everyone else in Britain was thinking! As he rightly brought up, this is a culture issue that needs addressing, we need to sort out the credibility of practicing journalists and regulate them properly. It needs to be done independently, out of the hands of politicians, simply because Murdoch holds too much power over them and they cannot make an unbiased decision.
To be fair to politicians, I know it’s easier to be in opposition at a time like this, but Ed Miliband and the rest of Labour should be commended for taking the stance they have and demanding the government to start an investigation immediately. It’s not an easy stance to make as it effectively cuts their ties with News International which some may say is political suicide. It’s a bridge you must always have, burning it is not the way into Number 10 unfortunately.
But this defiance is a good step towards a better future. It’s a massive gamble from the Labour party but one that would make Britain a better place politically and journalistically. Without Labour’s demands this investigation may never happen, or at least it will end up the same as last time with the police blaming two 'rogue' reporters and giving journalism a clean bill of health. If Murdoch does get his grubby hands on BSkyB then it’s an incredibly long way back for the Labour party but that doesn't detract from the point that the investigation must happen right now.
And that brings me to the judges, who in this analogy are Ewoks I‘m afraid; I should have thought this analogy through really but here I am. Ewoks were the unlikely hero in Return of the Jedi and now the judicial system must be our unlikely hero. These little furry judges must stand tall and not be swayed by the daunting silhouettes of Emperor Murdoch and his frizzy red haired padawan. They must find the rotten apples, dispose of them and restore journalism to the great British institution it once was.
Ofcom’s Ewoks are currently busy reviewing the BSkyB bid again, looking to see if Murdoch is ‘fit and proper’ for ownership; their decision will be crucial. I believe that if Murdoch takes control of BSkyB then he has too much, the press will become unfair and we’ll end up with FOX News UK. A terrifying thought!
At the moment the deal is going through because Rupert says he’ll be a good boy and has assured us all he won’t use his power for evil. And for some stupid reason that seems to be enough. The decision shouldn’t be in Jeremy Hunt’s hands, it should be in the hands of a truly independent body. At the moment Ofcom are dealing with that but once all this is done and the dust has settled we need to have some major changes to the way our press runs here in Britain.
First of all, we need a real ombudsman. Get rid of the PCC who revealed last week News Corporation lied to them. Is that really how they ran their shop? They just asked the newspapers like a father does when asking his son if he’s seen the packet of biscuits left on the kitchen table only for the child to rapidly put his hands behind his back and say “no dad, not seen them.” I mean come on! Do your job! There are crumbs round his mouth and everything!
Replace the defunct PCC with a new watchdog with more power and bigger gnashers allowing them to hold newspapers accountable. They should liaise with the news media on a constant basis and find the ‘journalists’ who’ve been up to no good and ban them from practicing forever. Oh and don’t allow them to regulate themselves either, that just leads to many a packet of biscuits going missing.
As for the News of the World, no matter what happens it’s gone, which can only be seen as a good thing for us all. It leaves us today with the headline “Thankyou and Goodbye.” I hope it is a real goodbye, because if Murdoch does get BSkyB and the Sunday Sun starts circulating then my headline will simply be this:
“Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”
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