Revolt against the Hack King

After years of criticising PR people for trying to manipulate the media using sneaky tactics, suddenly the journalist finds themselves in the dock. The News of the World has this week been accused of the most unimaginable corruption that not only goes against basic media ethics, but makes a farce of their own campaigns. In the wake of revelations that Murdoch’s clan tapped the phones of murdered schoolgirls Millie Dowler, Sarah Payne and countless war widows, News International’s support for Help the Heroes and NOTW’s notorious anti paedophile movement seems nothing short of a sick joke.

It appears that a few journalists may have misplaced their halo and temporarily fallen out of favour with the public. The Murdoch Empire reportedly lost around £600m when lucrative advertisers pulled out, but this proved to be just pennies to the media mogul as News Corporation announced the heckled publication was coming to an end just moments ago. The fact that they can so swiftly pull one of Britain’s bestselling newspapers off the shelves in the blink of an eye speaks volumes about how insignificant that one media title is to the Murdoch Empire. While the masses have successfully boycotted the newspaper in disgust it seems we are all forgetting a few key details. News of the World is owned by News International, which is of course owned by News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch but his power doesn’t stop there. His ventures span all across the media and in fact the world. A few advertisers pulling out of one Sunday issue is nothing more than a pinprick-- cancelling a profitable paper is merely an inconvenience. If anything the furore surrounding the NOTW will probably increase Murdoch’s readership – place your bets now on how long it will take to launch The Sun on Sunday? The last NOTW edition this weekend will no doubt be its best selling issue.

It’s a sad truth but people will flood towards the corporation’s other newspapers as though these appalling acts of insensitivity and criminality never even happened. It’s likely that the newspaper ‘watchdog’ the media funded Press Complaints Commission will get off lightly too, even though they’ve proved themselves to be so toothless they need dentures.

Sitting in a Media Standards Trust lecture last night about the dangers of ‘Churnalism’, where ‘Press Release’ is branded a dirty phrase, we can’t help but wonder about the naivety and supercilious attitudes of some of the journalists at present. The world’s most dominant media Empire is accused of tampering with evidence in a murder inquiry and hacking the phones of grieving families but the alleged villain of the evening, at this conference anyway, is the PR exec. Perhaps the one saving grace of this whole murky affair is that the journalist is no longer the hero. Only a few might have been dragged kicking and screaming from their pedestal but its high time we saw the industry as a whole in a new light, flaws and all. We’re pretty sure ‘democracy’ doesn’t involve a private detective with a penchant for ear wigging, expensive advertising contracts that limit reporting on important news, or an unrestrained media Empire.

The time is right for politicians, businesses, regulators and the public to finally feel brave enough to pick a fight with the guy who buys ink by the barrel and puts tits on page 3.