Why I’m not Cheering the News of the World’s Demise.
So this Sunday’s News Of The World will be the last, after over 150 years James Murdoch has announced that News International’s biggest selling paper is to close. You’d think this would be a cause for celebration for us on the left. A blow has been dealt against the Murdochs and for journalistic integrity.
But is it really such good news. Already we hear that the Sun will move to a 7 days a week schedule, so Murdoch will have just as many papers on sale each day and by sacrificing the paper and appearing to take on board the criticism levelled at them has he made it easier to gain control over BSkyB? Will the outcome of this sacrifice be greater, not lesser, control over our media by Rupert Murdoch?
And what of the staff at the News of the World? What happens to them? If the Sun moves to publishing 7 days a week no doubt some of them will keep their jobs, relocated from one publication to the other, but it seems likely that many will not. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see significant losses in admin and IT staff, in receptionists and security and many other positions. Are they all complicit in the events that led to today’s announcement? I would say they weren’t, but, unlike Rebekah Brooks, who still has a job, they’ll be the ones to suffer.
There are those, of course, who would say that everyone knew what the paper was like and just as they feel no sympathy with staff who lose their jobs when an arms company closes a factory so these workers are paying the price for where they chose to work. But when there are 5 people unemployed for every vacancy can we really blame people for taking any job they can get? It would be great if we could all choose not to work unless we could find an employer we agreed with, but the reality for most people today is that that is not possible. So much as I’d like to see the arms trade shut down, and right wing newspapers, I don’t cheer when job losses are announced, even at companies I dislike.
What we need is a Just Transition, where ordinary workers aren’t the ones to lose out, and are helped to find alternative, more ethical, employment. Be that collectivising a failing factory and reorienting production towards more socially useful ends — turning an arms factory into one building electric cars or wind turbines, say — or sacking the editorial team at a paper not the staff.
What we should be calling for is a break-up of the centralised control of our media that currently exists, with more democratically and locally accountable papers, rather than the fewer and fewer titles owned by a smaller global elite we are seeing instead.
Today’s news won’t move us any closer to that ideal and may strengthen Murdoch’s control in the long run, allowing this to be pushed under the carpet, the real culprits to survive and more costs to be cut. Who knows, maybe the Murdochs have just been waiting for a chance to collapse the Sun and the News of the World into a single, more efficient structure but due to the papers’ long history couldn’t do it without a good excuse. One we just handed to them.
Also, do you think that now NoW has gone, the media may have space to focus on the remnants i.e. Brooks and co? Hopefully getting rid of the toxic asset won’t solve the problem for News International with two enquiries. Let’s use this time to get highlight the problems with the media as a whole.
I think getting rid of the NoW was hoped to be the end of it, it’s up to us to make sure it’s not. I guess we’l have to wait and see what happens though.
Interesting view, but I don’t think this episode will influence Murdoch’s grip on the media. I think it will negatively impact the reputation of News International a little and cost him a lot of money. The Tories’ reputation may suffer a little as well. The enquiries could produce some interesting results, we’ll have to wait and see.
That’s what I’m celebrating.
I would also celebrate if BAE Systems closed down as well, knowing this is realistically the best we could hope for even though ideally I’d love to see it owned by the public and it’s products changed to stuff like hospital equipment.
Do you disagree then with the Smash EDO campaign?
Also, I think it’s a bit too highly speculative to suggest this is what Murdoch wanted with regards to merging the two papers.
But I do think it’s great that you point out this isn’t idealistically what we should hope for and that it’s a shame about the job losses (most of them).
Boycott News Corp. That meansd The Sun, The Times and BSkyB
We have the momentum. Time to widen the front on which we take Murdoch on.
Ali, *that* was quick! Just to let you know: 200 redundancies have been made in Wapping, and Rebekah Brooke’s is not one of them.
This is MUCH MUCH bigger than News of the World – it’s about the way that Murdoch makes money and how he manipulates his workers and staff just so he can be wealthy.
News of the World’s shut down is a media ploy – the destruction of a toxic asset. In Murdoch’s world, it’s the business game that matters, not the people who make the business function (healthily/ethically or not).
It’s hardly news that Murdoch wanted to merge the teams at the Sun and NotW. But he didn’t want to close the title.
It’s also very true that throwing innocent people on the scrapheap is horrendous. But you appear to be blaming campaigners for this. Why? It was a decision made by News International. Blame them.
Yes we should be angry about the redundancies, and angry about the hacking, and angry about the lack of media plurality. Let’s gather that anger together into a powerful force rather than splinter it with comments like these.
The job losses announced today are just one more thing to fight Murdoch over. Don’t let them be a reason to fight each other.
@dhothersall I wrote this pretty quickly, I didn’t really want to blame the campaigners, sorry if that’s how it comes across. It is, of course, the fault of NI and people are the top, they’ve made a very cynical decision to sacrifice people at the bottom to save themselves and their profits. We have to make sure they don’t get to use this to save the BSkyB deal and get away with what they did. And I hope we don’t fight each other while we do that.
We also need to be pointing the finger at regulators, senior police, and politicians who have been complicit, either by action or negligence. This could do a lot more damage to Cameron than it already has, and it could be important in the long term, but only if we make sure that people aren’t distracted by the NotW drama.