The future for British newspapers

As the Leveson inquiry continues and the fees Rupert Murdoch has paid out to lawyers run into the hundreds of millions, I wonder if it has occurred to him that the money would have been better spent establishing a crack team of investigative reporters working across all the News International titles - an A-Team of journalists if you like.

As I’ve said before, all the newspapers increased their circulations during the MPs expenses scandal. Clearly, there is a demand for proper stories - something most editors seem to have overlooked.  For example, the story about Virgin paying the police overtime to investigate fraud seems to have escaped major attention. Does this indicate Government plans to privatise parts of the police force? Twenty per cent of the Royal Bank of Scotland is still in private hands. Who owns the remaining shares? Were journalists monitoring Stock Market activity after the announcement was made about Hester’s bonus? And as the National Health Service is dismantled by stealth, how many of David Cameron’s cronies stand to benefit?

There’s a reason why newspaper circulation is falling and it doesn’t have anything to do with the internet. Newspaper proprietors should never have viewed the internet as a threat, but as an opportunity to focus on what newspapers do best - investigative stories.

When it comes to judging the public mood, editors in England have failed spectacularly. And newspaper managers have failed to ensure that they employ people who have their fingers on the nation’s pulse.

The British public deserves better.

News International: the gift that just keeps on giving

The News International phone hacking scandal has been boiling for three weeks - and I'm still waiting for British journalists to get ahead of the story. All the UK newspapers seem to be chasing their tails on this one. Just as it took the New York Times to put this story back on the media agenda, I believe it will take an American journalist to really get to the bottom of this affair, and when that happens I am positive that more heads will roll - namely David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

The Murdoch affair serves to illustrate the falling standards in British journalism. As more and more local newspapers close, there are fewer places for young people interested in a career in the media to receive proper training. I can't see this improving any time soon.

News of the World Scandal

End of the World?

So, Rupert Murdoch has taken the drastic step of pulling the plug on the News of the World to save face and more importantly to save his BSkyB deal. What I find really interesting about this story is that it took a report by the New York Times to put the NOW phone hacking scandal back on the UK media agenda. I have no doubt that if it had not been for that report, Murdoch would be cracking open a bottle of bubbly and celebrating the signing off of the deal.

Anyone who has worked in journalism knows that all the police had to do to “prove” the case was to follow the money trail. It takes thousands of pounds to conduct phone hacking on the scale carried out by the NOW, and no journalist would have paid for that out of their own pocket. And it’s not as though any reporter could walk into the accounts department and say, “I’d like £1000 for a story, please” and have a wad of cash placed in their hands. In this day of cost-cutting, reporters must verify every penny that their spend – and someone senior has to sign off the request. So for senior executives to claim ignorance of the affair is clearly and demonstrably untrue. That it took the Met nearly ten years to figure this out speaks to the level of collusion that must have gone between the newspaper and the police.

What I find even more interesting is the attention British newspapers will devote to this story in the next few days. Clearly David Cameron is hoping that this will blow over in a matter of days and it will be business as usual – ie he plans to allow the BSkyB deal to go ahead. Given Cameron’s background in PR and that he has met both Murdoch and executive Rebecca Brooks socially, I believe that Cameron has been “feathering his nest” – lining up a position for when he leaves office.