NOTW, News International and the Future

Right from the moment the News of the World's position became untenable (it was all that stuff about Milly Dowler, if you're interested - you can't create lynch mobs against child abusers and child killers then be perceived to be hacking into the phone of a missing child and potentially disrupting the ongoing police investigation) I knew that News International would somehow survive. I just wasn't quite sure on the source of my certainity. Part of it, I suppose, is the sheer size of News International. Here, NOTW is an iconic brand and a clear money-spinner for the company, but it is not the only highly successful brand that the Murdochs own. But that alone was not enough - I knew there was another reason. And then Murdoch Minor closed NOTW. That was it - that's what, if anything, will ensure the longevity of News International, not just through this scandal but well into the future. The Murdochs are prepared to be utterly ruthless if they have to in order to make their business survive.

Will this apparently bold, sweeping action be enough to slow down or stop the damage being done to the Murdoch empire? Well, we live in the era of symbolic gesture politics, so I suspect it might be. It doesn't matter that the Sun on Sunday (a tagline for NOTW if ever there was one) is waiting in the wings. Nor does it matter that Andy Coulson is currently having his collar felt by the long arm of the law. No, what matters here is that News International can claim that they have taken bold, decisive action and the closure of an iconic, if largely repellent, paper backs that up. It won't matter than they could, and should, have lanced this boil a long time ago.

And if it doesn't work? Well, Coulson's been (rightly or otherwise, and I think it will probably be shown to be the former) fed to the wolves, and I don't doubt that the Murdoch clan will be happy to sacrifice others if the situation demands it. Brooks has, for reasons that defy understanding, been protected thus far, but she should be under no illusion that her head will roll as well if Murdoch needs it to.

But whatever happens, this scandal will peter out with News International wounded, but only on the surface, and the Prime Minister embarrassed - at least until the next time the utterly awful Leader of the Opposition opens his mouth and attempts to communicate with the people he wishes to rule. Very little will have changed. Journalists won't be hacking your phones anymore, but that won't stop the less ethical ones among their number finding a new way to fuck you over. And, as DK points out, nothing happening right now will change the fact the state and its employees can invade your privacy when they want and with seemingly very little in the way of negative consequences (for them at the very least). So all I can say, in what is becoming a mantra for this blog, plus ça change plus c'est la même chose.

Journalists: Do Your Job

Like everyone else who doesn't slavishly believe that that everything the failing Leader of the Opposition does is solid gold (should any of them still exist), I had a lot of fun laughing at that Ed Miliband interview. Come on, you know the one I mean - the one where he comes across like a political speak-your-weight machine, unable to change what he is saying in any meaningful way. For Ed Miliband, spin is king, and he doesn't mind coming across as an unthinking, arrogant bore in order to get his facile soundbite across.

But there is a wider problem here, and it is revealed in the journalist who conducted the interview's own words:

If news reporters and cameras are only there to be used by politicians as recording devices for their scripted soundbites, at best that is a professional discourtesy. At worst, if we are not allowed to explore and examine a politician’s views, then politicians cease to be accountable in the most obvious way. So the fact that the unedited interview has found its way onto YouTube in all its absurdity, to be laughed at along with all the clips of cats falling off sofas, is perfectly proper.

Afterwards, I was overcome with a feeling of shame. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

But before I dried up completely, and had to be led out of Westminster with my mouth opening and shutting, I had an opportunity to ask one last question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. `What is the world’s fastest fish?’ `Can your dog do tricks?’ `Which is your favourite dinosaur?’ But, of course, this was a pool interview, and I had no wish to feed out the end of my television career to Sky and the BBC.

I realise now, of course, the perfect question to ask, to embarrass him and to keep my job. I should have asked was whether the strikes were wrong, whether the rhetoric had got out of hand, and whether it was time for both sides to get round the negotiating table before it happened again.

Because that was the only answer I ever got.

In a sense, he's right - if journalists are only allowed to get soundbites from politicians, then politicians cannot really be held to account for what they believe and what they propose to do/actually do. But who can avert this, I hear you ask. Well, journalists. They should man the fuck up and actually interview people properly. Ed Miliband just feeding you the same, banal line? Well, call him on it. Say that's what he's doing, and ask him to actually answer the questions you put to him. Yeah, he might get hacked off and he might not want you to interview him again. But at least you will have done your job, and your company will have evidence of Ed Miliband - soundbite man. Yes, it might be difficult and yes, it might be uncomfortable. But seriously, if you are looking for an easy profession, you chose the wrong one my friend.