News of the Empire

The Rupert Murdoch - News of the World story is rampaging across the media. The famine in Africa, the war in Libya, all have dropped into the interior of newspapers and rarely manage to make the t.v. headlines. Prince William and Kate barely rate a mention as they visit the Americas. This is big. I heard bullish former police officers being interviewed by the Home Affairs select committee. They tried to make their warm relationship with News International sound completely justified. Astonishing. No less astonishing was Murdoch's attempt to hold off the baying pack by silencing the News of the World for ever. In an unconvincing show of repudiation of the paper's evil deeds, he lamented its course into crime. But what I want to know is, to what real end? Murdoch still stands ultimately responsible for the crimes of the paper. If the paper is guilty, then what of its proprietor? Does he think he has done the right thing and the public will thank him for removing his rag? The public are not so stupid. Today's paper is not the criminal and sacrificing it was neither here nor there. The net will move past this distraction and continue to close on Murdoch and his flunkies. What a pity the News of the World won't be around to report it. Maybe that was why Murdoch closed it down.