by Chris Bodenner
Jack Shafer senses a roundabout rebranding of NotW:
Although the 2.66 million circulation News of the World will die after its last edition Sunday, the newspaper's ferret is still very much alive and may soon have a new home. The Guardian, whose investigations under reporter Nick Davies uncovered the phone-hacking outrages, has already spotted the furry creature migrating to another Murdoch-owned London tabloid. The Guardian reports, "There are already industry rumours that the News of the World's stablemate the Sun could be turned into a seven-day operation." When asked by the BBC if a Sunday edition of the Sun was in the works, a company spokeswoman answered cryptically, "What happens to the Sun is a matter for the future."
When the subject is financial crimes, this sort of artful shifting of assets is called "money laundering."
Harry Wallop has more:
On July 5, as the scandal over phone hacking at News of the World, was gathering momentum, the domain name http://www.sunonsunday.co.uk was bought by an unknown company and registered. Politicians and media commentators were quick to suggest that the true owner was News International, or an agent acting on its behalf ….
However, News International has already announced plans to move to seven-day working across its four titles – the Sun, News of the World, the Times and Sunday Times. At the end of last month Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, said that the company wanted to implement “editorial integration” across its daily and Sunday titles.
A reader asks:
How exactly is the shuttering of a 168-year-old paper and all the employees at every level (delivery drivers, printers, other reporters, etc) the appropriate response? It seems that instead of following the adage "cut off the head of the snake" to solve a crisis, Murdoch has inverted this. He cut off the body of the snake but kept the head that accepted, condoned, and profited from years of exploitation and criminal activities, because they were a) him b) family or c) political Kool-Aid drinkers.
As for the reasoning behind this, if it based on fear of fleeing advertisers, let me ask this: Will Ford and the other advertisers make the connection between NoW and other Murdoch enterprises? Will they and others recognize that Murdoch, not just one paper or a few editors, is the problem and boycott other News Corp vehicles?
Murdoch can take the financial hit and recover because it is short term and he is a deep pool. For the, say, small storekeeper who benefits from the traffic of the largest selling English newspaper in the world being sold in their shop, this is sad. The problem will not go away because the masterminds are still behind it. The con man will pack up shop because the heat was on and move to another market and change his name, but it will be the same snake oil.
(Image from the fake Twitter account, The Sunday Sun)
The Dish 