Apologies to foreign readers who aren't keeping up with UK scandals.

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1759967]

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Addendum: I think they will probably use as an excuse to cut their workforce significantly. So I imagine that a pretty significant proportion of the lowly workers (you know, the ones who probably didn't actually do anything wrong) will not get their jobs back. But the higher-ups? No question.

[andrewducker]

Yup. They just sacked a bunch of journalists - kept Rebekah Brooks, and just punished the people whose fault it largely wasn't.

If they were dealing with it properly they'd have sacked the people who were provably involved, made that a headline, and moved on.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

this

[hano.livejournal.com]

Indeed, this. I wonder how many regret signing away their union rights when they went to work for the NOTW? Especially the older hacks who crossed the picket lines at Wapping in 1986? Sorry, but it's hard to feel sympathy for a lot of the journos and others whose cynicism and lack of integrity makes them at the very least makes them complicit with everything that the NOTW has done over the years, not just the phone hacking. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling that there's a certain karmic justice at they way they've been cynically fucked over by their satanic overlord Murdoch especially given the way that's how they've been treating the rest of the country for years.
Not they're the only ones who deserve to be tarred and feathered but lets call this one a battle won for civilisation.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

According to a NOTW journalist, there are three people still working there who were there at the time the phone hacking occurred. There are a lot of them who are just there because it's a job, even if it's shit.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

What they'll do is hire back the best people but offer them one third less salary than they were making under the old newspaper.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

This!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

The qualifier "that much" is important - that section of the press doesn't trade on public intelligence. I wonder if twitter, blogs et all is increasing the effective intelligence of the general public by more effective dissemination of other analysis and points of view.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it won't be "exactly the same newspaper", there will be cosmetic changes both and changes would have happened anyway. it's an opportunity to restructure. I'm sure that replaceable hacks will be replaced, and key executives will be retained.

It's interesting to see how long the gap will be before the successor is launched - it indicates both how long the Murdoch organisation views the public attention span is, and if they get it right.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

No section of the press trades in public intelligence. The Guardian trades on its readers assumption that they are much more intelligent than NOTW readers.

When I worked on a transport depot full of bright articulate blokes, they mostly read Redtops. They referred to them as 'comics'.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I now read The Economist. I slowly realised that it trades on its readers assumption that they are much more intelligent than ... most other people, really. It supplies them with about 80% intelligent content to support this belief and 20% attempts to influence them.

It's really hard to spot which is which. But for instance a cover story about "the end of the space age", and within a week later a plan to halt work on the James Webb space telescope is one example.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I would imagine they'll almost have to employ all the old people from the NotW, otherwise they will have a bunch of old employees with massive axes to grind, who will have kept old incriminating documents and evidence of wrong-doing, which they will quite happily go and sell to other newspapers.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Which perhaps explains Murdoch's support of Rebekah Brooks...

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, good point. I had assumed she was being kept on as the ultimate fall-girl, if this investigation starts going up the chain of command, she's the one they can sacrifice to protect Murdoch jnr from having his collar felt. But it could well be an element of MAD too.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm certainly assuming she knows enough to send at least one Murdoch to jail.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The circles she swims in, she probably knows enough to send David Cameron to jail too...

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

If only we were so lucky!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised there have been no calls for Cameron to resign yet...

[willplant.livejournal.com]

A massively cynical deployment of an existing project to cut costs in order to provide a fire-break for the rest of the News International business and the BSkyB takeover...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/28/newsinternational-rebekahwade

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'm not so convinced there is going to be a rush to re-create the NOTW. Murdock has other priorities. And if they do immediately set up the Sunday Sun then I doubt they will employ the majority of the staff - they've been shitcanned.

Although (and I'm not a lawyer) would TUPE apply?

[andrewducker]

Depends. If they were employed by one company and it ceased to exist, without a transfer of jobs, then they might not get it. I'm not expert enough to know how big the wall between organisations has to be in order for employment law to be circumvented.

[willplant.livejournal.com]

http://www.hasrebekahbrooksbeensackedyet.com/

[thakil.livejournal.com]

While I do appreciate this cynical point being made over twitter, it does miss the point a bit. The NOTW was a profitable organisation (rare in of itself), whose audience won't necessarily all migrate to the Sunday. Yes, they might reemploy the journalists, and frankly, fair enough, as I'm sure theres talented people there, but having to close NOTW IS huge for Murdoch, and definitely a defeat. He's doing his best to do well out of it, but I think its clear that Brooks isn't going to survive that much longer either. She's still the story, that much is clear. And when you're the story, you need to quit.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Journos who worked at the NOTW when the hacking happened now work at all the major broadsheets. NOTW/Sun readers are no less gullible than Guardian readers.

[andrewducker]

Everyone is gullible when they're being fed things that match their preconceptions :->

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Otherwise known as "Why I don't read the Guardian any more."

[andrewducker]

I mostly stopped reading The Guardian because I felt told off by it all of the time, and I found a lot of its economics hopelessly naive.

I switched to The Independent. Surely _they_ wouldn't lie to me! :->

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Of course not! The Independent never lies. The Independent is my friend. Although if you want dodgy economics the Independent has Johann Hari for you... *Grin*

[andrewducker]

*lalalalalala* I can't heeeear you!

[anef.livejournal.com]

There is always the FT (but it's a bit dull!)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, the FT is good. And Economist isn't bad (once you learn to weed out certain things).

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

urhhhhrm.....
First there was the Daily Record, which was surprisingly decent until it - bizarrely - started competing with the Sun [which it outsold 3:1]
Then the Evening News, which was nice but not terribly worldly
The Scotsman had the worst quality journalism I'd ever seen, allowing for it not being a tabloid [ie, it was supposed to be serious and accurate]
used to read the Indy until it got a bit overemotive.
switched to the Guardian, but it smelled funny and had way to much content that was totally irrelevant to me
briefly read the Telegraph, which I liked because it had Genuine Quality Reporting in it. But it was rather too right wing, and seemed not balanced enough by proper argument. [It probably remains the paper I would go to just to check whatever papers think is important.]

Then I just stopped buying newspapers, on realising I was fact-checking every single article I read on the interwebs, and finding some 90% riddled with basic errors.

something similar happened with magazines.


I like print news media. I just wish I could trust it.

the only thing I still buy even semi-regularly is Fortean Times. I keep wanting to buy New Scientist, but never do. Make of that what you will.

[andrewducker]

I don't buy any newspapers any more either, I just read chunks on the internet (I have a lot of different feeds that I check on Google Reader).

And I also found the Telegraph less frustrating than, say, The Times.

I had a subscription to The Economist for two years. Which was fascinating, but it was taking huge amounts of time to read.

I don't trust anyone. They're all up to _something_ :->

[fearmeforiampink]

See, I gave up on the Independent when it constantly felt like they were fairly constantly fairly directly going "You should think this!" at me. Sure, the Guardian has bias, but it's not directly ordering me about.

TBH, nowadays I read googlenews with a slight Guardian bias in choice of source.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

The current journos at the News of the World are a load of decent, straight workers who were brought in to demonstrate that it was no longer bent News International cronies. Create a Sunday Sun, sack those who don't demonstrate the right Murdoch ethos, kill several birds with one stone.

[crm.livejournal.com]

(C) This is all a fucking ruse to detract us from the fact that the tory majority are about to feed the Murdoch family Sky and cripple the BBC in payment for the general election.

rich people are scumbags,
Dont Trust Anyone Over 35 (k, a year)

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

Think NOW is one of the best selling English newspapers in the world (almost 3 million a week). So killing it off is going to have a price tag in lost readers.

Think at least part of the reason it was killed off was that the whole scandal was jeopardising the SkyB deal.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Ahaaaaaahhhh.... oh my how I wish your closing statement was part of a Monty Python sketch.

the fact the deal can even still be in consideration is a clear sign of the Great British Political Apocalypse.

we're fucked, I tell yah

but hey, that's why I don't own a TV, and have not for some 3 years.
[similarly, I have refused to apply for a scholarship worth £6k because I will not take Oil Money]

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

To have a good stable democracy you need the people to get a decent level of factual information that has at least a vague relationship to balance and truth. For a government to undermine this, even if it gets them more votes, is a betrayal of their office.

Read last night that the media regulator has announced that it is now going to investigate if Murdoch is a "fit and proper" owner of a news channel after the police conclude their investigation. I think all one has to do is say "fox news" and the repeated assurances that the NOW corruption was a once off to prove he isn't.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

The majority of News Of The World journalists will be re-employed at the forthcoming Sunday Sun

--yes

Of course not. They wouldn't underestimate the intelligence of the public that much.
--no

It's going to be exactly the same newspaper, with a different name at the top.
--also no

They'll hire them, but when they see it on the CV they'll say "oh, you're one of THOSE people..."

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

it takes a special sort of... [ahem] journalist to *want* to work at a paper widely considered to be a hack rag responsible for the universal collapse of journalistic integrity and truth in publishing in the entire industry.

did that make sense?

or to rephrase: I can have no sympathy at all for anyone that willingly writes for a paper I dismissed as absolute horseshit when I was 7. Or, for that matter, buys it and believes its content.

[andrewducker]

In this climate, I can understand people that take pretty much any job going. And some of them no doubt were reporting on innoccuous things. I find it unlikely that _all_ of them were on celeb-watch.

But yes.

[fearmeforiampink]

My answer doesn't fit in your tightly constrained pigeonholes! You're oppressing me! Ahem…

It's going to be pretty much the same newspaper with a different name at the top, but the majority of people working for it will be different. Some of the best/those with dirt on News International will be retained, but I see them being quite happy to throw the majority of the workers to the wolves, and pick up new folk, yet run a paper with the same general approach/style as NotW.