The News of the World dies today. Edition #8,674. Started 1843. How such a piece of shit like that could last so long is beyond me, but as it's life support is finally pulled, it decides to be nostalgic for it's very last edition. Boldly proclaiming itself "The world's greatest newspaper" on the very front cover, you'd forgive me if I don't believe it. Calling something the world's greatest newspaper is a backhanded compliment at the best of times, but I doubt the world's greatest newspaper would be shut down due to hacking the phonelines of the parents of dead children in the first place
It actually has a George Orwell quote on page 3. I'll save you the bother of typing it up, since they only use it because he mentions the newspaper. You'll see this a lot - it drags famous people but only when it mentions itself. I wasn't really sure you could be vain in retrospection but it manages it somehow. The entire opening article is "Here are some things we've reported - aren't we great?" ignoring the fact that literally every other newspaper also reported the exact same stories
Now I don't want to be accused of being a bandwagoner here. I've read the News of the World for years. I can say without a shadow of a doubt the paper is garbage, and has been for years. Only the most boring celebrity drivel, wild accusations of drugs and affairs, random sheik's turning up and then making their excuses. The News of the World has had lots of this, and they've all been shit. It gives washed up has been celebrities an open day to try and be relevant, whether it was racist cancer ridden mong Jade Goody or worthless scouse cokehead Kerry Katona - these are the real exclusives the paper has got, because nobody else gives a shit
Even when it mentions the phone hacking scandal in the article, it ignores why everyone is so outraged. It brushes all of that aside and pleads that "history will eventually judge us on all our years" I'll be getting onto their history later in a fucking 48 page pullout of all their "best" stories, but as I've already mentioned and will keep mentioning - it has been shit
Now if I went through the entire paper I'll be here all day and this will end up being a dissertation - it's over 100 pages today. It will eventually go into the "news" for what that is worth, but it is mostly looking back and giving themselves a pat on the back. Pages 4+5 are about the fake sheik and all the "good" he's done. 6+7 are all the causes they've started, from Sarah's Law (Yes NotW, Sarah's Law was passed entirely by you. You did all of it. Congrats) to 7/7 compensation, our countries9/11 except not as bad, to that woman from Eastenders whose brother was stabbed. Remember her? She was a lesbian for a bit and then she died or something
Page 8 has a collection of tweets from people outraged the paper is no more. Surprise surprise, fat shithead Piers Morgan is unhappy about it! Didn't he used to work there? Hmmm! Notice they never mention anything negative about the paper being shut down, it'sall very sympathetic. Bless. Page 9 is full of famous women with their tits out. It'stook 9 pages of awful self congratulation but we've finally started to reach what this paper is all about
But that stops for now, as in no particular order - Prince William misses his mum. Princess Diana will be a theme that will continue throughout the paper, and the theme is abject boredom. He also wishes David Beckham luck, since Victoria is about to give birth. NEWS! Nextpage we have picturesof Prince Harry's new girlfriend wearing not much, and then a story about Chelsea not letting players hair dressers into the training ground. Next page has story about the average amount of gold in our homes (Two and a half grands worth, or enough to give Ron Paul a semi) and next we have a story about Coronation Street losing viewers
That's 15 pages and we've had nothing but awkward self congratulation and worthless filler stories. There has not been a single story in that space that could even be described as news, never mind news for the world's greatest newspaper. Page 16 has Gwyneth Paltrow on a beach, when everyone would much rather have her head ina box, and on page 17 we have our fake sheik at it again - this time infiltrating a fat Bulgarian sex slave. Betty Ford's death gets pushed into the corner of page 17, the former first lady of America dying having the indignity of having less space than Kate Moss' honeymoon
Carole Malone, a person most people have no idea exists, then writes an entire fucking page about absolutely nothing. She is worthless. Carole Malone, you seem to me like the kind of person who searches your own name so let me tell you now that I hate you. You have been writing in the paper for ages and you have never once even came close to an interesting thought. Your opinion on anything is as worthless as your very existence. Now the paper has died it would be too mean for me to say I wish you will as well, so I'll just think that instead
Next up - the celeb page! Yes, all the celebrity stuff before now wasn't realceleb gossip, this is the only page for that! The guy from here gets points for disliking Lily Allen, but loses them for his topten showbiz scoops - Jordan's second husband being on verge of suicide? Noel Fielding being a drug addict? One of the fat bastards from Blue says he's bisexual, and so is Pink? Charlotte Church gets divorced? It's like a who's who of nobodies flailing wildly for attention. Only in the News of the World
Next page - some loser from the Apprentice has a business that isn't doing well. He gets a two page spread. Nextage tells us Blackpool is the best place for a holiday. A whole page. Katy Perry buys a new house gets half a page next, with the BBC paying it's "fatcats" lots of money gets the other half. 30 pages now and only 2 pages have anything even resembling a news story
It's TV critic is next, although I always liked reading it since he always puts in some kind of burn on Piers Morgan. Next page headline is, I shit you not "Custard biscuit, fish fingers and smiley potato faces named as our greatest inventions" Well done Britain, we will soon reach the days of imperialism soon! Next we have a varied collection of stories - weird face sometimes prostitute never actor Billie Piper says she does not want another child! Dermot O Leary says he begged ITV to be on his new awful TV show! "Soap legend" Sarah Lancashire unhappy about amount of reality TV on the air! Nonentities giving nonstories to a nonnewspaper!
Next we have 48 pages of NotW headlines. My favourite is "DIANA DEAD" if only because a certain other newspaper fails to believe that. We also have Hugh Grant's affair with the prostitute, which is funny since he has been one of the most vocal people against the News of the World recently for being disgusting. It's like watching Saddam chastise Gaddafi for murdering his own people. A WORLD EXCLUSIVE of a woman pregnant with octuplets refusing to give up six of them to save the other two. All 8 eventually died. Lady, thats what happens when you try and give birth to calamari
John Leslie doing coke, Beckham cheating, Gordon Ramsey cheating. Oh, here's something interesting. Pig faced racistmong Jade Goody gives NotW an exclusive talk about her cancer. Reports the interview was "I'm dying innit" and they made up the rest was both made up entirely here and then denied. A picture of a bed that Michael Jackson died in - not nearly as interesting as the small boy he died in. Kerry Katona's "shame" of being a cokehead is next - they somehow manage to narrow it down to one newspaper rather than the several she's been on the front page for being photographed doing cocaine
Peter Crouch cheats, Wayne Rooney cheats, Ricky Hatton doing coke, Liz Hurley cheats, Ryan Giggs cheats. If you take out any mention of cocaine, affair or sheik then News of the World will probably not have a front page for the past 20 years. The back page of the paper has a picture of Bobby Moore raising the world cup in 1966, our only sporting triumph the entire time the paper was running. Gawd bless England
There. You don't need to buy or read the last edition of the paper. Anything worth reading (Fat Bulgarian pimp) has been mentioned, and lots of shit not worth reading has as well. There will be no more. It'll come back around, maybe not necesarily as the News of the World, but something of its ilk will return. Journalism is dying, and although the antics of this newspaper has put another nail into it's coffin, it will still try its best to live for a bit longer. And we need something like the News of the World to exist - if we don't have "the world's greatest newspaper" around, how are we to know what increasingly low standards are tolerated?
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