News of the World

Before I start, I don't buy newspapers, be they daily, Sunday, weekly, monthly whatever. I don't even get the freebie Metro 77 people assault you with as you walk to work in the mornings in Cardiff. Generally I tend to use a blend of a few websites to gather whatever daily knowledge that I'm needing.

Partially this is because websites tend to update as things happen, while once a paper is printed, that's as up to date as it gets. Partially as I don't want some jumped up journalism graduate pushing his bosses OTT political views down my throat, expecting me to believe them as fact just because they're in print.

But primarily it's because the vast majority of the British press is of a very low quality. Actual news stands aside for bullshit 'celebrity' news (it escapes me how people like the '3am' girls and Dan Wootten have jobs and well paid jobs at that, where in a less obsessive society they'd be branded nosey or stalkers), sensationalist crap (Daily Mail I'm looking at you), self indulgent pointless filler (we won the election... did you fuck) and downright made up stuff (Sun Hillsborough story immediately comes to mind).

Possibly the worst at this has always been The Sun, and of course it's Sunday sister paper the News of the World. Over the last few days I'm sure everyone is aware of the allegations against the Sunday waste of paper, in that they have been responsible for hacking into the phone of missing girl Milly Dowler, quite what they hoped to achieve by this god only knows, but hopefully he'll get the chance to judge them soon enough.

Off the back of this (they've hacked many a celebs/MPs phone before, looking for the dire shite excuse for stories that populate their pages) it's come to light that this may well have been common place in such things as missing persons cases and they may have done it on other occasions. It's absolutely sickening. I've always thought these papers were low, doing whatever they could to appeal to a pretty low common denominator but this is new depths.

Problems are, so much of the media has a common owner, things like this will get about half the coverage of Prince William having a cold or a photo up some celebs skirt proving she's a 'slut' or something that the photographer had to lay in the gutter to take (easy to get shot then). Let's be fair the gutter is where the papers (Sun/NotW) and everyone who works for them and condones these actions (I see silence or brushing over as condoning) belong.

No action will ever be taken against the likes of Rebekah Brooks (editor) the actions were probably fully supported by everyone at the paper at the time. They'll be quick to look after their own no matter what hurt and concern they've caused other people. People, probably the same people, will still buy the papers regardless of meaningful content, just because there's a picture on the front that Cashley and Cheryl Cole were in the same postcode last Thursday, which of course proves that Diana was murdered as she was pregnant with Hugh Grants child following some sort of alien link.

If there was no demand for the gutter press these nobs provide, they'd be out of a job, but as long as there's demand they'll continue to exist and do more of the same. Occasionally overstepping the mark (as they have done now) with no real consequences, but for the most part, just feeding the public's obsessions. With a bit of luck this could start to change peoples attitudes towards papers like the Sun, but I doubt it.