After 168 years, this Sunday will see the last edition of the News of the World come through the printing press, and end up in your newsagent. I won't bore you with the details; you're bound to have seen it plastered all over every news and media outlet in the UK, and around the world. The phone-hacking scandal under investigation by the police has exploded, and News International, who own NOTW, have decided that the best course of action is to completely wind up the organisation, and cease operations.
Now, I'm not going to write reams and reams of endless jargon today - that's not my job. There will be plenty written about this for months. But this is just farcical.
Rebekah Brooks, the former Editor of the NOTW, and now Chief Executive of News International, has managed to scrape through this with her job, but without her dignity. Brooks was the Editor when this phone-hacking supposedly happened. Remember, we still have nothing confirmed bar a private detective's word...
Brooks apparently announced the news that NOTW would be dissolved today 'in tears', and after immense pressure from the public, 'offered her resignation last night.' Now I don't believe that in the slightest - I think it's a very shrewd, quite vulgar move by Rupert Murdoch to keep a close ally near.
The compulsory redundancies from Brook's defiance in staying in her role have led to even further repercussions within the News International group - the Sun's sub-editors are rumoured to have walked out and asked the NUJ for advice on strike action. What Murdoch is about to force through will destroy the very essence of why he is so successful.
I've been Tweeting alongside the news all day, trying to keep on top of the industry that I wish to enter. But I really do fear for the print media industry now - especially tabloids. A lack of advertising within newspapers in which scandals takes place will kill them off. Web journalism will sky-rocket over the next few years as the print media industry realise that a dying art will inevitably crash.
That's why Murdoch launched The Daily.
Brook's should not be an employee of News International this evening. News of the World should still be in existence. To save herself, she's just demolished the livelihoods of families up and down the country. She's ruined lives.
Nothing can take that away from her now.
Taken from General Musings of an Idiot: http://www.gmoai.com
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