Courtesy of PerezHilton.comSo it is farewell to the News of the World and bonjour to The Sun on Sunday. I have heard the stories, watched the countless amounts of accusations pile up and read as reporters from the drowning paper tweeted their good byes.
It is from all this that I waited outside my corner shop early on a Sunday morning to buy the last ever issue of the News of The World. Issue number 8,674. I am not an avid reader of the paper but I have grown up with it. Just as I have grown up in the media world of News International. As they hacked Milly Dowler's phone I was barely old enough to read a paper. I was at the same age as the girls that disappeared and died at the hands of Ian Huntley. I truly have grown up with this and many other papers throughout my whole life.
This is why I felt I owed it to myself to buy the last ever copy of the News of the World. I am a positive person normally and though I know that some journalists at the paper have done wrong I still like to believe that the majority did not know what was happening.; the paper and its employees were not to blame for the minority of wrongdoers.
As I open the front page and read the letter of apology I notice that there is no byline. The letter is written from every employee to every reader and wants to reach out and accept the wrong of some but also wants the public to realise and understand all the good it has done too.
As I read,
"It is Sunday afternoon preferable before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, ad the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose and open the News of the World."
I have goosebumps, I read on,
"We [also] recorded the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, two world wars, the 1966 World Cup victory, the first man on the moon, the death of Diana... the list goes on."
Tears spring to my eyes that this newspaper has recorded a history of humanity. The huge events in our lives that affect so many. We will forever have this history and something to look back on.
The last paragraphs culminate in making me feel as if the British Public truly have lost an awe-inspiring news paper.
"You've been our life. We've made you cry, made your jaw drop in amazement, informed you, enthralled you an enraged you.
You have been our family, and for years we have been yours, visiting every weekend.
Thank you for your support. We'll miss you more than words can express.
Farewell"
My cynical side says that this true of any newspaper and that this paper has done not only the public wrong but had hurt families beyond belief. Every day it feels like more accusations are made and I wonder who was it that gave the nod to say hack her phone or hack his? Who thought it would be fine to hack a girls phone that was dead? To give her parents and the police false-hope that she was still alive? All that pain to find a story. I am a student journalist. I am not fully aware of how hard it must be to get a story or to the lengths some people would go to get one but I feel that no front cover is worth the pain they have caused. For the suffering families and for the thousands of journalists that today are out of a job.
It also did not go unnoticed that all of the advertising space in he final paper was given to charity. As well as all the money from the sale of the paper. This is an amazing thing for the paper to do but I do feel that it is a too little too late.
I am sad to see a newspaper go that has been around for 168 years, sad for the journalists and for the people that were helped by the News of the World but it will be replaced and I believe that within the next 168 years there will a lot less papers than there are now. The age of the Internet is growing all the time. I love reading newspapers, I love the smell, the status and actually holding and flicking through the pages but it will not win the race with the online stories.
Au Revoir News of the World
