"People talk as if they have fallen below their usual high standards. They were already in the gutter, it is just that they have sunk lower than anyone thought they could" Steve Coogan

So it's the last day for The News Of The World ("the world's biggest selling newspaper" sic?) after some of the most hypocritical, specious, venal, yellow journalism the country (note: not the world!) has ever witnessed. The only surprise is how come it lasted for 168 years and the answer is car-crash lowest common denominator journalism posing as 'investigative', as opposed to creating, nay luring the unsuspecting and nay even inventing, immoral unethical and plain psychologically disturbed writing or 'journalism' the country has ever seen, inventing some of the most heinous and specious examples of what is NOT 'investigative', in the sense of searching for truth, it is possible to imagine. As an example of how low the gutter actually is, this gross moral turpitude would have been impossible to imagine had it not been for Murdoch, Brooks, Mulcare, McMullan et al

no stench unturned, no gutter too low........

      Now I should say, when I was a student in the 70's my wife-to-be and I bought all the Sunday papers and always included what I still call a 'comic', a red top, a tabloid, for fun, as it was, like the Sun with its invented 'Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster' nonsense that no-one actually believed ....did they?
Well the answer was 'Yes!' People did believe it and as soon as we worked out more sinister forces were afoot we dismissed it and refused to patently put more money in the purse of someone so corrupt it was nearly funny. Nearly......not any more.

the scale of the problem.......Glenn Mulcaire

deepens into the mire...this the man who thought it merely "frivolous" to be hacking the phones of friends and family of Milly Dowler and the families of Jessica and Holly, the girls murdered at Soham? The phones of the loved ones of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan. McMullan replied that he thought "it was quite routine"

But Murdoch is a strange phenomena isn't he. What IS in it for him? He's going to die with one of the worst reputations a man could have, more Machiavellian than Thatcher,  more Chauvinist than Blair, more evil than Rachman or the murderers he purports to defend us against! Murdoch has for decades been up near the top of the list of the world’s most hated media barons. Journalists – those who don’t work on his papers, and many more who still do – hate him for the contribution he’s made to the trivialisation of their profession. The British intelligentsia hate him for hi-jacking their country’s political system. The American Left hate him for starting the staggering ignorant and inept, Fox News. The IRS hates him for dodging hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate taxes. Australians hate him for becoming an American. His ex-wives hate him for the fact that he regularly traded them in for newer younger models. Other media moguls (most notably Arthur Sulzberger Jr. of the New York Times Co.) hate him for publicly emasculating them. And in the last few years, while you can’t exactly call it hatred, even his advertisers have started to develop a distaste for him. Sic: Renault! Keep going boys, it's only money and you can't take it with you - go on take a risk and stand by your ethics and/or reacquaint yourself with some.

disingenuous to a fault, a relationship with the truth that borders on Münchhausen's, your paper always was "TOXIC"!

 It is NOT the Guardian or the competition that has finally brought down this one staggeringly ignorant 'rag' but the public it so disingenuously purports to reflect & represent. The hacking of the phones of murder victims who the public took to their hearts just as they were breaking, stands alongside the intellect and moral values of the idiots who supported the actions of Raoul Moat! Psychotic, sociopathic, moronic, self serving, venom driven specious bile to sell another paper for a few pence more. Money for rope...............

The truth will out...........

Here's your tune of the day..........down here on Radio Swappers

 Some notable highpoint from the history of this bastion of the ''free-press' this embattled noble pillar of truth and the most laudable journalistic moral tone and highest ethical standards.......

Notable entrapments er, I mean reports

    * Caroline Cossey, an extra in For Your Eyes Only, was outed as transsexual. By her accounts, she was so upset that she contemplated suicide afterwards. (1981)

    * Roman Catholic Bishop Roderick Wright, who eloped with a parishioner. (1996)

    * Prince Harry underage drinking and drugs. (January 2002)

    * Mark Oaten and his relationship with a male prostitute. (January 2006)

    * Max Mosley's private sado-masochistic sexual acts with five prostitutes (2008). The News of the World posted a secretly filmed video on their website, and alleged that it involved Nazi role-playing. Mosley took legal action, and the High Court ruled in July 2008 that the News of the World had breached Mosley's privacy and awarded him £60,000 in damages and £450,000 in legal fees. The judge also ruled that there was no basis for the allegations of Nazism.

    * Accusations that snooker star John Higgins had accepted bribes to throw frames in snooker matches. (2010)

    * Spot fixing with the Pakistan cricket teams in the test series against England.

Notable Campaign

Anti-paedophile campaign (2000)

The paper began a controversial campaign to name and shame alleged paedophiles in 2000 following the abduction and murder of Sarah Payne. The paper's decision led to angry mobs terrorising those they suspected of being child sex offenders, which included several cases of mistaken identity, including one instance where a paediatrician had her house vandalised and another where a man was confronted because he had a neck brace similar to one a paedophile was wearing when pictured.[sic] The campaign was labelled "grossly irresponsible" journalism by the then Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, Tony Butler. The paper also campaigned for the introduction of 'Sarah's Law' to allow public access to the Sex Offenders Register.

Phone hacking scandal

In 2006, reporters at the paper used private investigators to illegally gain access to hundreds of mobile phone voicemail accounts held by a variety of people of interest to the newspaper. In 2007 the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, pleaded guilty to illegal interception of personal communication and was jailed for four months; the paper's editor, Andy Coulson, had resigned two weeks earlier. In 2009/2010, further revelations emerged on the extent of the phone hacking, and how it was common knowledge within the News of the World and its News International parent. According to a former reporter at the paper, "Everyone knew. The office cat knew," about the illegal activities used to scoop stories. On 17 January 2011, The Guardian reported that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator paid by the paper, testified that he had been asked by the newspaper's leadership to hack voicemail accounts on its behalf. In April 2011, attorneys for the victims alleged that as many as 7,000 people had their phones hacked by the News of the World; it was further revealed that the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, had attempted to pressure Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour Party MPs to "back away" from investigating the scandal. Three journalists on the newspaper were initially arrested: Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck on 5 April and James Weatherup on 14 April. The newspaper "unreservedly" apologised for its phone hacking activities during April 2011. On 4 July 2011, it was disclosed that potential evidence had been deleted in spring 2002 from the hacked voicemail account of Milly Dowler, then missing, but later found to have been murdered.


Bit of further reading from a true investigative newspaper, The Guardian, that was even-handed enough to publish David Wooding's piece of handwringing. He's NofTW's 'Political' Editor stating that the demise would trigger a crime wave! No longer able to report crime and uncover criminal activity for us, now you join them for YOUR criminal activity and lowlife, unbelievably corrupt, sordid behaviour................
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/09/news-of-world-last-edition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/09/hugh-grant-steve-coogan-news?INTCMP=SRCH


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/rupert-murdoch-phone-hacking-cameron


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/09/phone-hacking-scandal-rupert-murdoch

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/news-world-investigator-families-dead-soldiers

Steve has the final word