How little newspapers matter

News today is that the world's second most popular English-language newspaper, the News of the World, is to close. Most likely it will simply be replaced by a Sunday edition of the Sun (the world's most popular English-language newspaper).

Not because, like so many newspapers in the early C21st, it loses money. The News of the World makes money hand over fist (not literally of course), so much so that its closure threatens its persistently loss-making quality stablemate the Times. Printing lies about celebrities is worth a fortune and the model is replicated thousands of times around the world. 

Not because it has been found out doing something so profoundly unpleasant that even our politicians are prepared to take a moral stance against it (see the same people waxing pragmatic about their own collective and systematic theft from the public purse, their sending Britain's young men to die in the sand for no reason anyone is prepared to explain, or their persistent refusal to accept that UK citizen Bradley Manning deserves their representation as he is tortured by a foreign power).

No, the News of the World is being closed because its blatant malfeasance now materially threatens News Corp's bid to take over the rest of BSkyB. That's how much newspapers matter today. One of the most popular newspapers in the world, one of the few genuinely profitable ones in Britain, is the sacrificial lamb tossed over the side to appease us as Rupert Murdoch tries to get away with something vastly more important.

(According to the website of the same name, Rebekah Brookes has still not been sacked for whatever part she played in the affair, as of about midnight Thursday.)