'My column at the News of the World' blog discussion

BonaV

I have been here for a while but never posted previously. My personal view of the NOTW has always been low and as a 45 year old have never purchased the NOTW since I was a teenager. However, millions of people do buy it and believe all that they read in it. Who am I to judge that many people.

My thoughts on Martin Lewis continuing his column in the NOTW are in agreement with his original blog. The companies which are currently removing their ads from the paper are doing so to try and make us think they care about people and not profit. These companies will be back in droves once this has blown over, and remember they continued their advertising whilst the original investigations were going on. Yes I find it sickening that they hacked into voicemails of War Widows and murder victims, but they broke the law in this instance by hacking into phones, regardless of a persons status. Surely, the time to back away for these moral advertisers was when it was originally discovered.

In the past I worked for what I considered an immoral company, but thought it best to stay and change it from the inside. Not easy, but I stayed and made my views known. It would have been much easier to walk away. Why should it annoy people that Martin Lewis gets paid for writing his column? Oh yes, he takes his money from the Murdochs. He should jump ship to the Mirror group. But, wait. Didn't Maxwell rob the pension pot years ago? Remember, a lot of us are adding to Murdochs riches by buying his products regardless of the effect.

I am guilty myself of being very worried about the Murdoch stranglehold on the UK media. I have not purchased any of his groups newspapers for decades, yet I subscribe to Sky for my TV, Telephone and Broadband. However, today I am amending my status to Sky (and Murdoch) free and terminating my agreement and opting for Freesat and losing my landline. Therefore I will save money and cease my known payout to Murdoch. I will miss the programmes I like on Sky, but they are only on Sky because all of us who subscribe continue doing so. Will the loss of my custom make a difference? Of course not. Neither will it make a difference if Martin Lewis continues his column with the NOTW or not.

I believe we have the choice to buy products and services we choose, and to make informed choices which match our personal needs. Martin Lewis has the same rights and has helped so many of us to do this. Please allow him this without making harsh judgements. You can always vote with your feet.

flimsier

I think you'll stop writing your column as soon as you realise the damage it's doing to your image, and that will probably be in the next few days.

But after this blog that you've written, don't you dare try and claim it was a moral decision. In your own words, making a moral decision wasn't tempting enough. It will be a business decision.

It would have been a lot better if you'd been able to say "as soon as I realised what sort of activities were condoned as journalism by the NOTW, I resigned". I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you're probably weighing up how much resigning will cost you financially.

MrSmartprice

BonaV wrote: »

Neither will it make a difference if Martin Lewis continues his column with the NOTW or not.

I believe we have the choice to buy products and services we choose, and to make informed choices which match our personal needs. Martin Lewis has the same rights and has helped so many of us to do this. Please allow him this without making harsh judgements. You can always vote with your feet.

Of course it will make a difference. It will make a difference in how Martin Lewis is perceived by the public. And it should make a difference to him, if he is a man of principles, on how well he sleeps at night.

And of course it won't make much difference to the NOTW, they are sinking anyway. But imagine living with no principles whatsoever. Many people will vote with their feet by ditching the NOTW. Martin Lewis can do the same and show he is a decent man.

Hoseman

Exactly, Martin's reputation along with that of many people is at risk here. Why do you think all the advertisers have pulled out/suspended their advertising.

Martin, go speak to your PR /marketing people and make the right decision. Wash your hands of these people.

Dylanwing

Leopards don't change their spots, Murdoch is relying on his mate Cameron doing a damage limitation exercise in the short term, no doubt in exchange for favourable headlines in the Scum. The sooner people realise that Murdoch is a far greater threat to freedom and democracy than Al Quaida (Have I spelt it right?) the better. Grow some testicles and do the right thing.

midnightz

Make no mistake, this man makes millions from MSE via the use of affiliate links.

Even more interesting is that he gets PAID TO ADVERTISE the website on all forms of media including the NOTW.

Even more interesting that that is the fact that a lot of the money he makes on MSE is indirectly or directly via the hard work of the public in finding those amazing deals.

This is how he repays the public.

It is sick that he justifies his decision by claiming it is one to help the public rather than a commercial one based on free advertising.

BonaV

MrSmartprice wrote: »

Of course it will make a difference. It will make a difference in how Martin Lewis is perceived by the public. And it should make a difference to him, if he is a man of principles, on how well he sleeps at night.

And of course it won't make much difference to the NOTW, they are sinking anyway. But imagine living with no principles whatsoever. Many people will vote with their feet by ditching the NOTW. Martin Lewis can do the same and show he is a decent man.

I agree that perception is in most peoples minds at the moment. But let's not forget that Martin has not been part of the alleged phone hacking and as far as I am aware does not condone it. Let us judge him on the numerous people he has helped.

If he jumps ship, he could be perceived as going with the herd to gain moral favour. Yet the work he does is the same. And, whichever newspaper he writes for will be no better. Martin has given his reasons, whether we individually agree or not. Like I stated earlier, vote with your feet. Remember, millions of people buy the NOTW every week. I'm sure Martin sleeps well every night, knowing how many people he has helped and judging by the posts in the forums, it's a significant number. Judge the morality of people who are disgusted at the latest revelations yet will still purchase their copy of the NOTW this week.

I must add that I have just been to my local shop to stock up on a few ciggies, and noticed that The Sun which is usually sold out by now still had about 50 copies left on the stand. So, hopefully the public will make a difference.

Hern

If Martin is reading this thread -- and hopefully, he is -- then could he please consider the following (written from my perspective as one with many, many more years experience of daily and Sunday tabloids than Martin can ever have):

1. Martin Lewis is held in high esteem here. And justifiably so. He created this site, developed it, funded it and still funds it. He has, single-handedly, shaken up UK consumer financial journalism and has done so without fear or favour to any. Countless thousands of people throughout the country are, in every sense of the term, better off because of Martin Lewis. He is an exemplar of objective, incorruptible journalism. . .

. . . And because of that, is EXACTLY the kind of fig-leaf the News of The World / News International so desperately needs right now.

2) But Martin seems oblivious to that reality. Instead, he cites his determination to go on helping people, and that to do so he must set aside any moral repugnance he may have about the media conduit he uses in order to keep on reaching out to those people.

3) Obviously, he's not alone in considering whether or not moral repugnance over the messenger should be stifled in order to promulgate the message. The Royal British Legion has been in exactly the same position: it needs the News of The World's mass-market circulation to heighten awareness of its work; to raise funds; to help individuals and families all over the UK.

4) Today, the Royal British Legion decided that no matter how important the message might be, the messenger was no longer acceptable. Today, the Royal British Legion effectively decided it was not going to allow itself to be a fig-leaf for News International.

5) Martin should look closely at that decision. Because it wasn't about 'principle' or about loyalty or even, about helping people. It was all about self-protection: about ensuring that a reputation so hard-won is not tarnished by the NOTW.

6) But will Martin Lewis' hard-won reputation be tarnished? Quite obviously, the risk is there. And with every passing day, that risk intensifies, because although News International is as desperate to news-manage unfolding events now as it was desperate to suppress any and all such news in months and years previously, the efforts of the Murdoch Empire aren't working.

The strategy being assiduously pursued -- "it all happened long ago, it has nothing to do with the way the NOTW is now" -- by News International is the only strategy its corporate think-tank believes will ultimately work.

But, but, but. . . the cut-off point for "long ago" is shifting dangerously ever nearer to the present, as confirmed by reports today on the alleged hacking of the phones of families of service personnel on active duty in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is *not* long ago.

So although the current NOTW Editor Colin Myler -- whose journalistic career includes being sacked from the Editorship of The Sunday Mirror after that paper almost wrecked a high-profile court case because of its irresponsible reporting -- could yesterday afternoon assure NOTW staff that "it's all in the past", the question as to just how far in the past remains unresolved.

Neither Martin Lewis nor I nor anyone else at this time knows if the News of The World suddenly turned whiter-than-white at the time of Myler's 2007 appointment as Editor of the NOTW.

Equally significantly, no-one knows if, in turning whiter-than-white in 2007, it did so because it knew just how blacker-than-black it had been before then -- in which case, nothing that is emerging now is in any way the "surprise" that today's NOTW claims it to be.

Those who, like me, are critical of Martin's thinking at this time are not acting out of malice. We're actually offering the kind of counsel he seems markedly short of.

We're critical because we know how tabloid newspapers work. We're critical because we know that a paper like the NOTW will seize upon any "good works" it can attach itself to in order to yet further mask its true face behind the respectability of others.

We're critical because a newspaper as manipulative and exploitative as this one has been does not, overnight, stop being manipulative and exploitative: its nature is too deeply ingrained.

And we really don't want Martin Lewis to be one of those manipulated and exploited.

Finally. . . we're critical of Martin's thinking because it displays a serious error of judgment -- and good judgment, at the end of the day, is actually the essence of Martin's / MSE's success, where all recommendations made, and all advice given, are all carefully considered.

But what is one to make of that calibre of judgment now?

The Royal British Legion has just demonstrated that it believes its message is more important than its messenger.

Though Martin really should have done himself a favour by reaching the same conclusion before now, there's still time to do so.

Now.

Today.

His message is of infinitely greater worth than the messenger he is using to deliver it.

His reputation is of infinitely greater worth than the reputation of the medium he has seemingly chosen to continue to associate with.

On which basis, then:

The clock is ticking, Martin. Every day brings new revelations of cynical breaches of public and private trust by a newspaper that in treating issues of ethics and morality with complete contempt must likewise have held its readership in that same contempt.

Do you seriously wish to risk everything you've achieved by waking up one morning in the not-too-distant future to the revelation of how "surprised" The News of The World is to now suddenly "discover" that the kind of behaviour that it claimed happened in a conveniently unspecified past has actually continued on into this specific present??

It's not a risk you should be taking. And anyone who advises you to take that risk is no friend of yours, or of MSE. Bottom line:

The News of The World needs Martin Lewis more than Martin Lewis needs the News of The World.

If you want to protect your message, then you've no option but to shoot your messenger.

Hoseman

Hopefully the NoTW newspaper will be a ghost town come Sunday. Advertisers/columnists will probably be more noticed for their appearance rather than their absence. It will damage their reputation I reckon, not to the same extent as the newspaper but still.

Count_Dante

Hern wrote: »

If Martin is reading this thread -- and hopefully, he is -- then could he please consider the following (written from my perspective as one with many...

Good piece. According to the Independent, Gary Linnekar has thought about quitting his job at the paper.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/lineker-fears-role-as-columnist-puts-clean-reputation-at-risk-2308183.html