NOTW: The end of an era and the likely beginning of a very similar one

It amused me to some extent as I watched the drip of News of the World journalists being interviewed by BBC and Sky News outside their Wapping office on Thursday evening. Not because, like much of the country (or certainly people commenting on our site), I was revelling in the closure of the paper, but because the irony of NOTW journalists complaining about a media and public backlash getting out of control was too much even for me to handle. After all, the paper has been responsible for some of the most sensationalist and public-enraging journalism we've ever seen in this country.

If you take the decision made by James Murdoch (or more likely his father) at face value it seems a huge sacrifice to close a market-leading newspaper which sells 2.6 million copies every week, but when you take a step back, not a lot is going to change.

It has been widely reported that TheSunOnSunday.com and TheSunOnSunday.co.uk URLs were registered on 5 July, two days before the NOTW closure was announced. If this is the case then all we are looking at here is a savvy rebrand. Make no mistake about it, Rupert Murdoch doesn't care what people think about him or his organisations — he owns Fox News for Christ's sake. What Rupert Murdoch cares about is money. Talk of judicial and police investigations didn't provoke a reaction from the media mogul (they can probably be bought over anyway) but when the advertisers started walking, that's when he woke from his slumber.

It's not a new phenomenon that advertisers don't want to be associated with negative products. Just look at the Wayne Rooney and Tiger Woods scandals. The moment the brown stuff hit the fan their endorsers hit the road, and so too with the NOTW. (I should point out that the 'brown stuff' is a metaphor — I've no idea what they actually got up to.) So what better time to close the tarnished paper and extend The Sun - an already established and popular Murdoch-owned publication — to cover the Sunday gap the NOTW leaves?

It makes perfect business sense. Not only will Murdoch win back advertisers under The Sun's brand but there's already a readership there and many hacks can just be transferred into the new edition. Yes it's the end of an era and some people will lose their jobs but dear old Rupert has never been one for nostalgia.

On the subject of jobs, it's a shame people who celebrate the closing of the paper forget that there are many hardworking, honest people that will be losing their livelihood. Not just journalists — receptionists, PAs, accountants, cleaners — you name it, gone. These people are being sacrificed so Murdoch can save his British empire, at the hilt of which still stands Rebekah Brooks.

The fact that Brooks remains in her job proves she really is as slippery as a Murdoch and that's probably why they are standing by her. Either that or she has some dirt on one of them. If one of my reporters hacked into anyone's phone to pursue a story I wouldn't expect to keep my job whether I knew about it or not. I'd either be negligent and incompetent or so devious and corrupt I wouldn't deserve the title of Editor. Unless I was on holiday, of course - that changes everything.

On Wednesday evening I attended the launch of The Huffington Post where a debate took place on, among other things, the importance of media in today's society. The panel, chaired by Richard Bacon, consisted of Alastair Campbell, Shami Chakrabarti, Celia Walden, Arianna Huffington, Kelly Osbourne and Jon Gaunt (as a replacement for ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie who pulled out late in the day due to 'work commitments'. Probably nothing to do with wanting to avoid any phone hacking questions.)

While there was a lot of obvious chat such as "I think news should be free" and "the balloon is red" from Kelly Osbourne (I'm taking the Johann Hari approach to journalism and quoting her on something she didn't actually say. That's fair game now, right?), there was some interesting commentary, specifically from Campbell and Gaunt.

While they bickered on many issues they did both agree that the influence of 'old fashioned' journalism has diminished and the fall of the NOTW highlights that perfectly. Before the online news boom, people would always complain to their friends and family about problems with the media or government but there was never a sense they could make a change. It was always very low key. Now, a frenzied community can emerge in minutes thanks to the likes of Twitter, rendering newspapers helpless to either cover what everyone is talking about or risk looking ridiculous by omitting it.

Ridiculous is what many papers opted for in recent weeks, by the way. When The Guardian broke the Milly Dowler hacking story no red top papers ran it on their front pages and the story only featured on a small column in the Mail. And yet, despite their efforts to stifle this story the NOTW has had to admit defeat and close down in what is a clear indication that newspapers have completely lost control of the media industry and what information people receive. They're just another member of the herd, as Noam Chomsky would say.

And is it any wonder? As Gaunt pointed out, the idea of newspapers having deadlines is utterly pointless now thanks to online publications and social media tools where news is breaking constantly. Not only that but trust has diminished too.

Bias in some media publications has always been in readers' minds, they're no fools. But what hasn't been apparent until this week is just how low some hacks will go to find a scoop — and how much backing from their bosses they get to do it (that bit still isn't clear). They've been put under so much pressure to sell newspapers and find exclusives that some journalists have forgotten (or been bludgeoned into submission) what their job actually is — unearthing truths the public needs to know within the law.

In 2009 it was the turn of MPs. In 2008 it was bankers. Every year previous to that it was either the taxman or traffic wardens. Now, in 2011 it is the turn of journalism to own the title of 'Britain's most hated profession'.

The News of the World will be missed by many. If not by its owners, then by readers and fans of the paper's scoops that were gained by just means - not by those who ruined it for all with disgusting acts of privacy invasion on those already suffering enough.