I am genuinely finding it difficult to understand just what it is that has happened in the saga of the News of the World this week.
True, the news that the voicemail of a murdered girl had been accessed by a newspaper marked some kind of turning point, but I genuinely do not get any sense of continuing outrage – not one single comment overheard on the bus, no neighbours or friends asking What do you think of this then? We always knew that reporters could be devious, unfeeling so & so’s.
But it does seem to have acted, in the way that the last grain of sand can cause the pile to collapse, by suddenly freeing the politicians from their fear of the tabloid press. Not all by itself, f course, the clues that the newspapers have lost their hold have been there for all to see, not least in falling circulations.
Tthe power now lies with the new & newer media.
Which is why the News of the World had to be sacrificed.
My feeling is that ordinary reaction to that is sympathy for the workers to have had to pay the price with their jobs.
It does not mean that a great moral crisis in my or your private life will not continue to be a matter for gossip in yours
