News of the Screws - "We made our excuses and left"

After Sunday the infamous 'News of the Screws' newspaper will cease to be published. The paper that rose to fame on the antics of 'dirty vicars' & 'smutty scoutmasters' and later perfected the 'fake sheikh' newspaper sting is now in its last throes.

It has fallen due to the current 'phone hacking' scandal. Advertisers deserted in droves and the predicted readership of next Sunday's paper was close to zero. News International/Corp look like they have decided to cut their losses and throw the paper to the wolves in the hope of salvaging their takeover of the remaining 60% of BSkyB.

I will not comment on the morality of the phone hacking or the way the scandal is being handled by News International/Corps, as this is filling the news outlets on the net. (See here, here and here for example).

I will merely comment that I find it inconceivable that senior management in this organisation had not idea that this method of 'news gathering' was going on. They may have hidden their knowledge behind  a smokescreen of plausible deniability, but they, IMHO, must have known, otherwise they are incompetent.

So would you prefer people who at least turned a blind eye to phone hacking and possible police corruption, if not condoning it, or people who have no idea what their subordinates are up to in charge of a major news and media corporation? Do you feel that either sort of person is a 'fit and proper' person to run a news organisation? Do you really feel that this is an organisation that UK politicians of all political parties should be cosying up to in the hope of being re-elected?

And how many other news and media operations also use these methods to get their news?

RIP "News of the Screws" - You made your excuses and left!

You may find the comments here and here interesting. As well as this.