So, Rebekah Brooks has bowed to pressure and resigned as the chief executive of News International in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. She, and a host of her one time co-employees, is a casualty of the 21st century plurality of media.
There is no excuse for the News of the World hacking scandal but it is a symptom of much bigger things going on in the media.
Progressively, the attention of the world has moved away from printed newspapers to online news. More of our news and information is mediated by friends on Facebook, Twitter trending and the depth of coverage on YouTube and blogs.
Right at the heart of this change is Google.
If you missed the news, want deeper insights or are just browsing, search engines keep you a few keystrokes from all you desire.
Newspaper and magazines cannot keep up. They offer comparatively little by way of need satisfaction, prurient or otherwise. They need a constant supply of very newsy or very profound content to maintain the attention they loved and profited from only a decade ago.
It is not a surprise then, to fine some newspaper taking short cuts.
But the real lesson we all have to learn is that this is a symptom of massive change in the media and the media reading habits of most people.
The big shocks to the system can be seen on every street in the land. Look round and we see people using mobile smart phones, iPads and slates and Kindles just as once they read newspapers, magazines and book.
But these devices are not a substitute medium. They are a window into the whole world as we know it and much more.
Newscorp would like us all to believe that TV is immune and it is the future of news. Well, why limit the news source to Sky or Fox when all of YouTube is available? On YouTube, real and ordinary people report from the front line and a global perspective is common.
In PR (and marketing and advertising and recruitment and finance – the list is endless), we have to recognise the end of mass and the evolution of diverse channels for influence and opinion in everything we do.
Sorry Rebekah. You are a victim as well.
publicasity
