A mourning nation weeps, and wails, but keeps the sales of evil tabloids healthy

[venta]

So, as of this weekend, Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper[*] will cease publication.

Comments

[octalbunny]

I'm wondering if another paper is hacking the NotW. A lot of yesterday's news seemed oddly sourced, in a "we've heard that police may have contacted (group of victims)" way.

[killalla]

I don't know from journalism, but the quote is The Divine Comedy - Generation Sex.

[shrydar]

You may find this response from the National Union of Journalists of interest:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=2152

(in short, they accuse Murdoch of attempting to just make the whole scandal disappear by scapegoating junior staff whilst simultaneously removing an anti-trust objection to the BskyB deal).

[smiorgan]

^^^this.

[venta]

Yup, I think they said many of the things I wanted to. But better. And rather more well-informedly.

[smiorgan]

Surely journalists-as-evil are the new MPs-as-evil, who were the the new Bankers-as-evil.

[undyingking]

It was the best-selling English-language newspaper in the world, not just the best British Sunday.

[venta]

Someone on twitter described it as "best-selling", but my cursory googling only turned up reliable-looking[*] descriptions of it as the best-selling Sunday paper.

[*] Why yes, I do mean "on Wikipedia".

[zenithed]

I gather it used to be but has been overtaken by the Times of India. Wow, people in Japan buy a lot of newspapers.

[undyingking]

The figures from Japan are pretty unreliable: they inflate them by forcing distributors to take extra copies that remain unsold. But yes, they do like their papers there.

I think the ToI figures are also pretty dubious, but it certainly was coming up fast on the NotW, whether or not it had actually overtaken it. The trouble is that 'circulation' has many definitions, and it's hard to compare like with like across different countries.