Quitting? No, Not Our Newspapers

They will never quit even if they ‘kill’ some respected individual or even a kind flibbertigibbet.

But the British oldest newspaper literally ran away after its journalists overdid their profession. The News of the World, the self acclaimed world’s most read paper selling an average of more than 2.8 million copies every week, was buried yesterday. It was a culmination of investigative endeavours, by the paper’s overzealous journalists but seemingly coated by their rookie superiors, which eventually went overboard and were ultimately let out of the basket.

Over the past few weeks, the paper has been ailing from a self-infected terminal disease that seems to have mutated for almost five years but which finally killed it last week and the burial held last Sunday. It must have been a sorry send-off for a 168-year-old product of scribes. It must have been really emotional for its diehard readers. Now they have to think and rethink on where to shift their loyalty.

Now that’s in Britain. Back home. Would that have happened? Just wondering. If any of our newspapers were to engage in such egregious crimes and unfortunately they are exposed would they admit and fold. Everyone’s guess should be as good as anyone else’s here. They wouldn’t and will not. Never. Not when they make billions of money and making a mistake of giving in would mean automatic promotion and enrichment of their competitors who would definitely savour such a move.

By the way, why should they get bothered or roast themselves with stress or worst think of coiling their tails before saying goodbye like what the News of the World did when they can squeeze a ka-apology in one of its hidden pages when they feel like apologising or when they are pushed to do so by a suave lawyer who threatens to initiate a court case? Our papers ‘apologise’ yes they do like Correction: “Yesterday we carried a misplaced name of John bla bla with an obituary photo. We have since established the true identity of the photo. Inconveniences caused bla bla bla...” if you are a scrupulous reader you will realise that something is ever amiss with such ‘apologies.’ I will not say what it is but it’s something next to distancing away from weaknesses and not admitting to them. Even if they misname a living person with a dead one or vice versa-that is next to ‘killing’-they will stay put and fix a ka-apology somewhere. By the way it’s not wrong. It is how newspapers do it. Don’t talk of the broadcast media because you may wait for such apologies for ages. They never apologise, yea radio. TV may.

So when NoW used a full-page apology to try to smooth the hearts of those whose phones they hacked saying "Quite simply, we lost our way," and worst of all closing, they committed a grievous sin worth nothing else other than a big laugh from the local newspapers.

Moral Lesson: “it’s us, we don’t apologise. The weak do. We are not”...thoughtful anonymous.