15 July 2011Well actually, there are and the European media took the closure of News of the World as an opportunity to reflect on the future of tabloid media on the continent, writes Charles McPhedran on New Matilda.

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"The risk of being attacked [by the paper] leads many well-known people in politics, business, sport and showbusiness to agree to take part in the marketing campaigns of the newspaper." That was the key finding of a study released in April and little reported in the media.

What the this particular print organ champions, continues the authors, is "the self-promotion of the paper, with the delivery of information a mere side effect". This means that the sort of journalism championed within its pages "serves a purpose, not for the public, but rather for the … brand."

As such, the paper is more of a vehicle promoting itself, and hardly a newspaper in a traditional sense, concludes the study.

The Otto Brenner Stiftung’s study could have been about the late News of the World, known for its "gotcha" investigations into celebrities of all sorts, and its simplistic, repetitive consumer or political campaigns on behalf of "the people". Instead, the study examined Bild, Europe’s top-selling daily, a rag with a circulation of over three million which is owned by the Axel Springer publishing house.

Bild’s success shows that the News of the World recipe — crime, scandal, sensation, breasts and populist politics — is hardly unique to the United Kingdom. So, as European journalists farewelled the News of the World on Sunday, there was little Schadenfreude in evidence-and more than a little reflection on the future of tabloids, after News Corporation’s Asian and European boss James Murdoch canned the "Screws" on Thursday.

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