Not The Sun. Surely, anything but The Sun. There’s just no way Rupert Murdoch would kill his baby, the red top that’s by far and away his best-selling paper, the 10th biggest-selling paper in the world with a whopping 2.7 million circulation, his pride and joy?
Speculation the paper could be on the chopping block, or at the very least sold off, has been mostly fuelled by the comments of Labour MP Chris Bryant — the same Chris Bryant who triggered the now infamous admission from Rebekah Brooks that, yes, on occasion they did pay police for information — has said it stands to reason that if a disgraced masthead was closed for similar offences, then The Sun should be next. Bryant, and disgruntled Sun insiders who feel the paper is being hung out to dry.
But News International chief Tom Mockridge has told staff in a widely-circulated memo that he has received “a personal assurance today from Rupert Murdoch about his total commitment to continue to own and publish The Sun newspaper”. He also conceded the escalating police inquiry was the greatest crisis in the paper’s history.
Today’s Guardian editorial makes the distinction between good tabloid journalism and bad tabloid journalism:
“On the morning of Saturday’s police raids, the Daily Mail published the latest fruits of its long investigation into the connections between the billionaire financier Nat Rothschild, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Lord Mandelson, having won a libel action in which Associated Newspapers had to risk enormous costs. That was gutsy tabloid journalism, and a gritty defence of it. The Sun, at its best, also makes a vigorous and essential contribution to reporting and debate — see its recent campaign for frontline troops to be properly equipped.”
That, and headlines like “Injured on ice! Jennifer Ellison suffers a blow to the head during ‘scorpion kick’ – but finished routine to receive best score yet” and “Pizza-only diet could kill me, says scared Claire” and, of course, the 1986 classic “Freddie Starr ate my hamster”.
And then there’s the indefensible stuff. Which is where these latest five arrests come in. Ten journalists have now been arrested.
Murdoch commentator Michael Wolff says sell The Sun off, cut it loose, much like a gangrenous limb: “What’s happening in Britain is eating News Corp up — its slow, agonising pace may even be more corrosive than the prospect of trials and even potential convictions. An extraordinary corporate death is taking place.” But media commentator Roy Greenslade “cannot believe that Murdoch will take the nuclear option by closing his beloved paper, nor do I imagine him offering it for sale. Not yet, anyway.”
And yet, says Greenslade, “that we can contemplate it happening at all illustrates the paper’s predicament. Renowned for setting the news agenda by holding politicians, police and public officials to account, it now finds itself at the other end of a media storm.”
Which is no place for a paper to be.
Such a rich and sensational scandal – which The Sun will never publish.
He will ditch the Sun. He will ditch his own mother to save his attendance in a US jail. The FBI and the SEC are investigating him and his mafiosi organisations. A tribe of UK lawyers are jetting to the US to give him what he desrves.
I invited the US Ambassador to accept our gift of his current resident off spring and didn’t get a reply. Even the yanks a got more brains than that.
It is going to be an expensive visiting trip for Lachlan, seeing Rupert in a NY jail and visiting James in the pommy lockup.
If Rupert and James had have claimed some responsibility in the first instance instead of pleading: “we did not know; we weren’t aware of the extent of the phone hacking; this is a very humbling experience, etc.” they would be out on parole by now and life would just go on as before. I awaiting a detailed analysis and on-going reports in the Australian and on Sky News on what actually happened in the phone hacking scandal. You know the type of reporting we are all used to reading and seeing when applied to matters outside News Ltd (a la what Kevin Rudd said and how Julia Gillard set up that whole tent embassy fiasco, and how bad the government is managing everything, etc.). However, I will not go on a hunger strike waiting for that day to come.
Rupert and James in an American jail, I’d love to see that! Those Americans know how to manage their jails. Some people say and come to think of it, Rupert and son would sort of qualify as “media terrorists.”
Even his dear old mum thinks it’s a lot of s#1T, but that wouldn’t mean he would bow to a true lady of discernement and honour.