Pressing Issues

So I heard that there was a tabloid newspaper doing things that were illegal and disturbing. Is it just me or is this not the absolute definition of the tabloid press rather than just a new development specific to one publication?

The tabloid press have for as long as I have been alive, been morally devoid and all round shits. The real question here isn’t why have they done these things, it’s why the fuck do we buy them in the first place?

There were so many reasons not to buy red top newspapers before this latest suicidal gesture from The News of the World and now I am going to list some of them.

• They are written by some of the worst, most right wing, classless, lying, bastards to ever touch a keyboard.
• They advertise themselves as being cheap.
• They haven’t ever featured a story, to my knowledge, that didn’t involve paedophiles or Chelsea football club.
• They have a strange taste for women from Essex that forget to take their clothing to photo shoots.
• They are written in part by Jeremy Clarkson

There have been calls to regulate the press from almost everyone who isn’t either working for morally bankrupt tabloid newspaper or is a child of Satan. This leading to the ridiculously flimsy argument that it would inhibit free speech and the press’s power to undergo investigative journalism. This really doesn’t stand up when you make the eventual comparison to broadcast journalism which is independently regulated and it performs at a much greater quality and efficiency than the antiquated printed press.

So it seems a little mad that people are so shocked that an organisation as corrupt and morally bereft such as any run by Rupert Murdoch, could do such things. It also shocks me that people expect anything less from an industry unregulated and struggling to generate any interest away from new media or broadcast media.

The fact of the matter is that newspapers are dying and have been for some time. This latest saga only seems to be speeding up the demise of the cancer riddled body that was once the pride and joy of British journalism.