Blog readers will know that I have repeatedly criticised the British press over the last year and the News of the World has regularly featured in this criticism, not least for applying different standards to investigating itself and enlightening the public as to its own wrongdoings as it has done to other targets who have been mercilessly hounded and vilified. I must admit I did not see the closure of the paper coming even though I regularly commented on its policy of using distraction techniques to direct attention away from the ever-growing army of hacking victims who were seeking compensation through the courts. Its comical in a kind of pathetic way that the rest of the British press kept off its back until its closure was announced, then felt collectively brave enough to wade in with the boot. No doubt partly fuelled by the desire to get their hands on millions of readers who would be looking for a new paper to buy. As I have reported previously the press seem to have an unwritten law that they don’t attack each other. So whilst they are generally free to behave in a totally amoral way, they vilify others deemed to have failed to meet their own pseudo-standards. Interestingly the press focussed their attacks on group owner Rupert Murdoch rather than the actual journalists responsible for encouraging and paying for the hacking. Well I suppose Murdoch is not British, he’s an Australian with lots of money and businesses in different areas of the world and already a bit of a bogey man to the anti-multinationalists. Therefore he is seen to be an acceptable target whilst their fellow journalists are spared the unwelcome attention. There is little doubt that it was generally known in the corridors of power that the phone hacking was not just restricted to one or two isolated cases but was in fact endemic, as the ever growing number of costly pay-outs was clearly indicating. I am sure that the newspaper was closed in part because of the financial implications of thousands more victims being unearthed in the re-opened investigation with the costs now possibly going over the billion mark as opposed to the 15 million that the newspaper put aside to pay its first known victims. So what lit the blue touch paper?
Undoubtedly the revelation that they hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler blew the ship out of the water. Suddenly those in the know in the corridors of power could no longer be seen as part of any cover-up or in any way associated with anything that might be seen to link them with this repulsive act. It would be political suicide! Further revelations about hacking the phones and email accounts of fallen soldiers made an intolerable situation even worse. The scramble to distance themselves began big style and the rodents began deserting the sinking ship, the resignations began and the politicians desperately sought to run for moral high ground by demanding public enquiries etc.
Why wasn’t the NOTW brought to book earlier? The evidence was clearly there!
Quite simply because the press in the Uk has too much power. It can decide who succeeds and who fails; who becomes prime minister and who doesn’t! It decides who gets slaughtered for their indiscretions and who is spared etc. The press has lived above the law because those who make the law are afraid of upsetting it because it can destroy them with impunity, so they seek to court it, flatter it and get on its ‘good’ side. Those who should be kicking the press’s proverbial ‘ass’ become its lapdogs instead and seek to prosper from its patronage.
Having said all this I am not happy for the NOTW to be closed down. It was a very entertaining paper with lots of light-hearted stuff to read and plenty of sports coverage to pass away lazy Sunday mornings. It also exposed a good deal of criminal activity and that was of benefit to the public good. But it went too far and ignored the effects of its houndings on the children and families of its victims. People who wish to be famous for being famous, tip off the press pack as to their every appearance and go to any lengths to be in the public eye are fair game and deserve what they get, but most of the NOTW’s victims did not fit into this category, they were simply people who were well-known for being good at sport etc.
