news of the world

ing to decide how I feel about the demise of the News of the World...

There is no denying that the downfall of the gutter rag is a victory for sense over sensationalism, there is only so long that you can try to appeal to the lowest common denominator without becoming it yourself.  

There is a certain poetic beauty to the scandal master Murdoch being brought down by the greatest media scandal since the last one his company caused, but there is a certain degree of public hypocrisy that also needs to be addressed. At the end of the day, it’s all about where we focus our attention.

A newspaper’s primary objective is to sell newspapers, and therefore it stands to reason that they would never have reason to go to the immoral lengths they do in order to achieve their aim if our societies esteem was higher and needed better views.

I am by no means condoning or reasoning with what they have done, I’m simply arguing they were doing what they always did; going to any length to create a story and form mass hysteria around it. They truly achieved their aim.

The grapevine whispers of the NOTW replacement, a rose by any other name could easily grease the Murdoch media machine back into action, but I’m not so sure. This was the News of the World, a giant in the world of sex scandals, celebrity-based smear campaigns and nationalist populist views.

It was established in 1843, taken over by Murdoch’s media firm News Ltd in 1969 and transformed into a tabloid in 1984. It survived the royal phone tapping scandals of 1997 (among many others), and in 2010 sales averaged at 2,812,005 copies being sold a week while a pay wall was placed on their online copy.

In Feb 2011 the MET re-opened investigations into “phone tapping” allegations, over 7000 people were thought to have their voicemail messages intercepted. The true public outcry came when it was uncovered that among those were victims of 7/7 bombing and the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Advertisers retracted in droves from the News of the World and News Corporation holdings, even their proposed takeover of BskyB was shelved. Litigation could be estimated to cost £40million.

This is more than a flash in the pan. But what truly interests me is this: how far can the public be pushed before they cry out?  How did the News of the World become so popular?

This was a newspaper that thrived on making other peoples lives a misery, stalking “celebrities” exposing privacies and in the name and shame scandals, ruined the lives of many innocent people. It did this because its readers loved its scandal.

Our news industry is built on negative reportage; we don’t pay reporters to go to peace zones unless something really bad has happened there. There is no public interest in hearing the phone messages of people having a good time – or so the News of the World thought, or it would be getting ready for deadline right now.

While we may feel compassionate for victims, we make victims of those we envy such as celebrities, A-list or otherwise. Very few can resist a peak into the lives of those who have jobs entertaining us on silver and flat screens. Most people think that a job description such as Film Actor almost has a written in clause that states being stalked and being in the public eye now means the same thing. The NOTW was simply providing a service to nosey needs.

Now the NOTW is a victim of its own making, I can’t help but reflect on why our media is so negative and why so few can resist tuning in.

As a nation we are conditioned to focus on all that could possibly go wrong, we are taught to be realistic (which is just another way of saying stay negative so you aren’t too disappointed when shit happens). We feed on other peoples discomfort every time we watch the news, find a new person to blame every time we read a newspaper, and then revolt when something like the News of the World scandal evolves before us.

Social esteem in this country, and in this world, is suffering. We could blame those in charge of the media, but the media is a tool. Just as money is not the route of evil, evil is an intention that can never be held by a piece of paper or plastic. It is people and how we are conditioned to use these tools that is the problem.

 Instead of searching for right and wrong, truth and lies, it would be more appropriate at this time to find our honesty. The world is a negative place because of our making, believing is seeing, and perception is everything. It is time for the media to start looking at its audiences differently, to release the need to sell through sensationalism and look for a different way to educate and inform us all.

As an audience, it is our right to demand this.