Has the bad news been buried? Probably not

Although few believe that that the phone-hacking saga has peaked at a political level, a not entirely unexpected viewpoint emerging among the print media is that the story has run its course as a scandal. All that remains, say the senior pundits, is a satisfactory but final body count of News International executives.

It’s an entirely understandable reaction from a newspaper fraternity badly un-nerved by the unprecedented humbling of Rupert Murdoch. Many in the industry are struggling to come to terms with the absurd situation whereby they are suddenly answerable to public opinion when the job is supposed to be all about influencing it.

No surprise either that the denizens of Grub Street are dead anxious to dampen down, if not totally extinguish, any possible spark of collective guilt which is likely to come out of next week’s parliamentary grilling(s).

Among those flagship titles eager to draw a line – but only to ensure future press freedoms are protected yada, yada – is the ever reliable Daily Mail who portentously remind their readers that there is “a world beyond the Westminster feeding frenzy over phone-hacking”.

You can appreciate why they would adopt this perspective when you look at official figures published by the Information Commissioner in 2006. These showed (gasp) that the 182 “identifiable transactions”, i.e. instances of selling and/or securing confidential information by the News of the World were vastly overshadowed by the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday who had sanctioned 1068 such intrusions between them. The Mirror Group, which includes the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People notched up an astonishing 1626 instances in the same period.

For many toiling in newsrooms the gathering mass of revelations listed under the heading of “press abuse” can be likened to a shit snowball rolling downhill. It may miss you but you are certain to get splattered one way or another. Old school editors and proprietors who think that the best option is to hunker down until the storm passes could well find this to be a facile strategy. What many of them should know is that there is a lot of motivated payback out there and it is not just restricted to vengeful MPs either. Based upon the number of reported ‘hacks’, a national newspaper HQ will soon become recognisable by the queue of litigants outside and it is noticeable how broadcaster references to the “newspaper scandal” serve as self-exculpatory shorthand.

Whether a depleted and damaged newspaper industry is in the national interest is a debate yet to come. Yet it may well be one that is never properly conducted. For whilst the terms of the promised judicial inquiry tend to signal that the proceedings will be more of a ‘watershed’ than a ‘Watergate’ for the press & political establishments, all concerned are acutley aware that it could be a close thing. Governments under pressure are habitually prone to knee-jerk legislation and ministerial timing will be critical in more ways than one.

Of course this is all conjecture and who knows what fiendish developments will surface next week (or even tomorrow) to give public outrage new impetus. Even so, and whatever the messy outcome, one factual footnote to be written on the final account is that it was the Dowler family, and not the Murdochs or the Mosleys, who were eventually pivotal in terms of breaking the news.

Update: Don't rush to judgement over Murdoch, say Guiliani. Nice.