Publish and Be Dammed
I am sure I am not alone in my lack of sadness over the demise of the News of the World. It is a paper I last bought in the 1970’s and somehow it seems to have stuck there in my mind as a relic of an age gone by. No longer relevant to the times in which we live.
Not so for many of its readers I am sure. Indeed it managed to remain the UK’s best-selling Sunday paper. Maybe I am the weird one.
More interesting for me is the way in which the Murdoch Empire has been prepared to walk away from the publication and its 400 employees in an attempt to distance the group from the deplorable behavior of the journalists who appeared to be prepared to do anything to get the story.
The agony created by the underhand way the vultures (anyone who watched Spitting Images will find it hard to hear “journalist” without thinking of pigs or birds of prey) treated many politicians, celebrities, and most hideously the Dowling family, had to create shock waves across the entire Global communications industry.
Strategically this concussion has created a much bigger problem for Murdoch, particularly with his now defunct but much-publicized attempt to take over BSkyB, which was already under great scrutiny within the political and business fraternity.
His tactical walk away from the News of the World was in my opinion an attempt to protect his more important objective of the seat at the top table in world-wide broadcast media. It clearly was not enough.
As the revelations continue to unfold it will be interesting to see how far Murdoch is prepared to go. His claimed, and highly emotional, priority of protecting Rebekah Brooks will be sorely tested in the upcoming weeks. Maybe Mrs Brooks will be the next concession Murdoch trades to restore his reputation.
Timing in this case is everything. Certainly Mr Murdoch’s daughter who said th