On Tuesday I was refusing to join many of my friends on Twitter in being outraged about what the News of the World was doing 5-10 years ago; I was refusing to join a boycott of a company of which I wasn’t a customer of anyway, and I was refusing to badger other companies (which I’m not a customer of either) into withdrawing their advertising from it.
Mock-up final NOTW front page by Adam Westbrook
With yesterday’s announcement that the News of the World is going to be printed for the last time this coming Sunday, now I’m outraged.
There’s a disgusting irony in that the closure of the paper – with the loss of 200 direct jobs – has been prompted by the sustained campaigning of the political left; the people who have a political mission to save jobs have caused a whole bunch of jobs to be lost. Not just any jobs, though – innocent jobs. Remember, the phone hacking scandal took place 5-10 years ago – none of the people who are losing their jobs this weekend were responsible for what took place back then, indeed, of the people losing their jobs this weekend only about five of them (according to the News of the World’s outgoing political editor) were even working for the paper at the time of the scandal. 200 innocent jobs are being scapegoated in order for The People of Twitter to feel like they’ve secured an historic victory, sticking it to The Man.
Yes, 200 innocent jobs – one thing I missed out of my post on Tuesday was my increasing cynicism about being told to be outraged by Twitter; more often than not (and I’ve been guilty myself), when Twitter tells me to be outraged about something on the Monday, information which comes out by the Wednesday reveals that there are other important aspects of the story which put a different slant on the outrage. So whilst this Tuesday, Twitter was effectively calling for the News of the World to be shut down, once it secured its victory we learn that different slant. Whilst the chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, the editor of the News of the World at the time the criminal activity started who must surely have not only been aware of what was going on, but must have signed off on it, escapes (so far, at the time of writing) completely free.
The 200 jobs which are being lost on Sunday were not responsible for the phone hacking scandal – those 200 jobs were the people responsible for uncovering Sarah Ferguson’s flogging time with her ex husband Prince Andrew to people hoping to gain business advantages as a result of such meetings; they were the people who proved corruption within FIFA and who uncovered the corruption within Pakistani cricket.
As an educated middle class left-leaning person, I’ve never been a fan of the News of the World’s editorial style or stance, but one less newspaper for sale on Sunday is hardly of benefit to our society. Much as my hyperlocal blogging friends like to see themselves as plugging the gap left by the gradual withdrawal of the mainstream media from local journalism, a few possible high-profile examples aside, keen amateurs simply don’t have the skills or resources to undertake the kind of sustained investigative journalism needed to keep those in power accountable to those who aren’t – and to those who are calling for more statutory regulation of the media, do you really think a State-regulated press is healthy for democracy?
There’s also the question of the wider effects of the News of the World’s closure – although a mere 200 people were directly employed by the paper (some of whom may get the opportunity to apply for other jobs within News International), the paper has been reported as being the most widely read newspaper in the English language; as well as the direct employees, there are also the indirect employees – the paper suppliers, the distributors, the newsagents and other shops – who will lose a significant portion of their livelihood overnight.
So, do we feel proud of ourselves?
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