News of The World

I care not for Sienna Miller, nor does Hugh Grant come across as anything other then disposable. The lives of past it actors as well as Premiership footballers ultimately don't matter to me, however i accept the point of view that one who lives in the public eye and greatly benefits from doing so cannot expect sympathy when those who help make their careers tilt over the edge of common decency.
The actions of The News of The World (And it would have been The News of The World, no private investigator would go to such lengths without an employer's direction or blessing) in regards to the Dowler family were simply deplorable and, in a rare moment of agreement between myself and Ed Milband, was a stain on British Journalism. I can see no moral or ethical reasoning behind it, the fact that the family of a (at the time) missing teenage girl, even in the moment of their deepest worry and what was soon to be grief, can be hounded and pulled along in delusion makes the individuals involved only a small step down from Bellfield himself. I have the utmost respect for the families of our dead servicemen and women, as well as those who perished in 7/7, however, with no offence intended, their fate was already known when it happened. It is awful I know but the torment Milly Dowler's parents and sister were put through in being allowed to believe she was still alive by the active deleting of voicemails from her mobile phone for me is the lowest level that this scandal has sunk to and nothing that comes out now will trump it.

However, this is not the most significant aspect of the saga, more the reaction to it. The day the Dowler family stood at the steps of The Old Bailey and spoke in such dignified terms of their pain, not only at losing Milly, but of what they went through during Bellfield's trial, caused a whirlpool of hatred and anger, which the press steered, right though they were, towards the painfully over liberal jucidial system. In the days after, when the allegations from the Dowler's solicitor came out they felt the wrath themselves and ultimately the News of The World was closed down. Hurrah! The will of the people was answered, put that on your barbecue and cook it Rupert old boy! Better yet, stuff your son's face with it, anything to silence his daft sounding voice. A victory in the name of common decency over the apparently unbeatable rubbish pit, the boidoir of the Murdoch gutter press; this was the reaction, but in doing so it showed in very clear terms that the press is nothing other than a mirror of society and not, like some would have you believe, the other way around. The press and the media, mass and conventional, do not inject ideas into people's brains, they are canvases for society to spew it's collective filth onto and be constantly avaliable for anyone and everyone to observe and wonder at.

There is no denying the atrocious nature of what the News of the World did (in the Milly Dowler case), however there is very little point in directing anger towards the paper itself or dare I say the Murdochs. What the did they did for a reason and the cold hard truth is that had they published a story about a member of the Dowler family which cast them in a bad light, people would have bought it to read, to gossip over like they do everything else. The News of the World was, and it's successor will be, very much part of Britain in the 21st Century. It was to to tabloid media what Lehman Brothers was to Wall Street and perhaps more. A gutter press for a gutter readership and a gutter society.