News International ends thelondonpaper's run

In an eventful week for the future of print media, Murdoch announces the axing of thelondonpaper. Following statements concerning paid for content, the print media landscape could be about to shift significantly

The release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, has shaken the world. Al-Megrahi is terminally ill and has a predicted three months to live. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, leading the verdict of his appeal, said “my decision is that he returns home to die”. The decision has been explicitly opposed by the US government. “We continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland," the White House said in a statement. ‘Compassionate grounds’ clearly require a degree of subjective assessment, and privacy laws mean that the finer details of his illness are covered in a shroud by the courts, but the controversy of this decision remains. Rarely has a key public-interest decision come out of nowhere like this, especially one attracting such opposing views.

Back to prime British summertime’s news wires, retail sales have seen an unexpected hike in the month of July. Furniture and electrical stores enjoyed a particularly bumper month, a month where sales rose twice as fast as expected. Government borrowing, however, posted a record deficit; public sector net borrowing hit £8 billion as against analysts’ predictions of just £500 million. It’s a continuing fight-off, but the July figures have surprised a few people; July is usually a surplus month. The unemployment rate has just hit a 13-year high of 7.8 percent, so that would explain a few things.

It’s a great time to start university for those who’ve just made the A-level grade; while student debt may not be over-appealing, three years in the wilderness is arguably the finest coping mechanism for the recession. And it’s good news that the proportion of A-grades rose again in 2008/09 from 25.9 to 26.7 percent.

And in media land, Rupert Murdoch is shutting thelondonpaper after it posted an almost 13 million pound pre-tax loss for the year. In spite of News International-owned The Times also posting huge losses, the decision to terminate the freesheet has come as somewhat of a bolt out of the blue. The war between Associated Newspapers and News International has reached a sudden end, but perhaps nothing too inevitable. James Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corp in Europe and Asia, said “The team at thelondonpaper has made great strides in a short space of time with innovative design and a fresh approach but the performance of the business in a difficult free evening newspaper sector has fallen short of expectations.”