In amongst the collapse of the News Of The World I find myself actually feeling weirdly sorry for those involved. It's strange, certainly in my lifetime it's not exactly been a paper I'd feel a need to mourn the passing of, and in truth I would say my feelings of it range from "don't care" to "content", but I do feel sorry for the people affected by this.
Firstly any newspaper employs more than just journalists. More than photographers too. I don't know their logisitical supply chain so maybe the impact isn't too bad further along the ladder but there is printing and delivery involved in these things for a start. Logically most people who used to buy the News Of The World will now buy something else so paperboys and newsagents won't suffer. And those in the paper industry and haulage side will likely pick up the slack with increased sales elsewhere, although that will be most common at the more hands-on levels and a few managers may find themselves job-hunting as a company downsizes or even goes under. But even the general job losses don't especially bother me; the reality is many people are losing jobs these days for no reason of their own. The News Of The World has probably helped a few people into unemployment along the way too, so they can't act too much a martyr in that regard.
Where my sympathy really kicks in though is the way we're only looking at the News Of The World. The tawdry truth is that not only were the New Of The World not the only people guilty of very intrusive journalism, they weren't even the worst offenders. We've even had MPs questioning the Triplets Of Intrusion and saying that the private detectove they hired had done more jobs for rivals newspapers. And that is the thing, why aren't more being held to count? The newspapers are flitting between "Lynch the scum" and "Why are you worrying about newspapers when there are foreigners!" because they know that to a greater or lesser extent there is a chance that they should be answering the same questions.
It's become yet another knee-jerk reaction to small aspects of this story, a story that has basically been about for years, but only now the public disgust is enough to merit people doing things. It says a lot that a police chief has resigned, it says even more that as a nation we've known this has been happening and he didn't resign until now. But this goes back to the sudden outrage. When it was famous folks it wasn't half as wrong as when it was decent normal people. Which seems to put us back at the root of the problem - our hunger for celebrity gossip.
The reality is that a newspaper will sell more issues to the casual shopper when it has something salacious on the front page. Regular buyers don't influence newspapers, they are loyal and they prefer a more constant low-level nod in their direction, but there are many people who pick a paper on the headline, who will buy it because their favourite (or least favourite) celebrity is on the front page. That is where "tabloid journalism" comes in. That is why newspapers like the News Of The World have been happily hacking into phones (which is technically a terrorist act these days) to get the stories that will sell papers. This is why we have super-injunctions; and really for all the cries of freedom of the press with injunctions there must now be a question of how much illegal investigation makes celebrities feel the need for such moves. And the hunger and complacency that has allowed such things to prosper led to the News Of The World going further and hacking the phones of dead soldiers and missing teenagers.
We, the public, have created this situation. Our fascination with the lives of others has pushed the media world to this. Could they have said "enough"? Of course, there are many areas of the media and they have all set their own standards in that regard. The scary thing with the latest scandals is that people are starting to realise those standards may not be quite what they seem when looking in. But was it really that much of a surprise? We were living in denial really. We condoned this journalism when it was reporting on Them, but now we've found out some of Us got hurt too?
It's likely this won't be really changed any time soon, if ever. We created this world, and now we seem uncomfortable with it. Do I miss the News Of The World? Nope. But I can't help feeling a little sorry for the Murdochs et al for being punished for giving the public what they wanted, especially when everyone can see they are far from the only guilty parties.