NEWS OF THE WORLD: THE BACKLASH

Rupert Murdoch certainly has guts. It takes a lot to kill a best-selling publication with more than 160 years of history.

I am not condoning what is alleged to have happened at the News of the World, however one thing that's been missing from the reports so far is the fact that this was a successful publication because of the stories it published. Yes, there is now debate about how some of those stories were obtained, but the fact is the public was lapping them up.

I've certainly had first-hand experiences of one aspect of this story. When I started my career on newspapers in the early 1990s tip-off payments for stories were not unusual. Whether it was in the form of cash or a few drinks at a local pub, 'payment' for information happened, and one of my former colleagues was, shall I say, pretty close to members of the police.

My view is the News of the World saga has a long way to run. The backlash will likely spread to its sister paper The Sun, and I also feel there is potential for further anger directed towards Murdoch for his decision to cull such a historic publication and not take action against the accused individuals.