The press dinosaur

We are still not sure why the dinosaurs became extinct so many million years ago and we certainly know nothing about the prelude to that extinction. But we may know plenty more about the imminent extinction of the print media, and perhaps even the main broadcast media with it. I am pretty convinced that print media will not survive the Internet onslaught. All attempts to generate sufficient revenue through the web seem to be failing. So, I expect traditional newspapers to disappear, though the Huffingtom Post is having a good go at becoming a bridge between the old and the new. Perhaps, well, more than perhaps, 'probably' we are now seeing the great press dinosaur entering its final death agonies. As its demise becomes ever more apparent, its excesses seem to be increasing. Undaunted by Leveson, they are now baying for the blood of suspected Tory paedophiles, lascivious celebrities from the sixties and seventies,corrupt police officers and child abusers in the care system. Now, it may well be that all such people exist, perhaps in large numbers, and that they should be exposed, but the press do seem to be engaging in a witch hunt. I rarely find myself agreeing with David Cameron, but I do on this one. Such a hunt will inevitably spawn many innocent victims. It appears that Lord McAlpine may be one of them. How many more will there be ? Trial by newspaper is an horrific prospect, but I fear it may become common as proprietors and editors try to eke out dwindling sales from the dying embers of a doomed industry. Why should condemned men and women concern themselves with ethics when they are about to mount the scaffold ?