Analysis: NoW closure an act of liberal intolerance

THE true scandal of the News of the World affair is that a popular newspaper has been closed down by the forces of intolerance.

Whatever you think of the NoW, it is worth noting that closing down a public institution after 168 years is a major event. If this was the BBC being forced to close we would recognise that it was a dark day for freedom.

But just because we don't like the NoW doesn't mean its forced closure should be ignored or even celebrated. In the 1950s around a third of British adults read the scandal rag the NoW, but then serious writers like Orwell and Silitoe had a pretty relaxed attitude towards the paper.

Today, however, a paper that is generally little more than a form of light, titillating entertainment is (or was) taken far more seriously by "right thinking" people.

The phone-tapping affair is pretty sordid, but the NoW has been sordid many times over and did not close. Today, however, the power and hysteria of the "liberal" elite is at an all-time high. Anything deemed right wing by this "tolerant" group ends up being targeted, regulated and often banned. And the NoW, News International and Rupert Murdoch, in particular, within this context, have become the right-ons' enemy number one.

The irony of those who hate Murdoch and the NoW is that they see themselves as radicals, opposing the intolerance of tabloid culture. In reality, their disdain is a form of snobbery and fear of the "mob" who they think are sheep-soaking up everything they read. The end point being that these liberals have created a culture of profound intolerance to anything they don't like and it is this culture that has led to the closing down of the most popular newspaper in Britain.

Another irony in this whole affair is that the idea of the "right" being all powerful in our "neo-liberal" world has been shown up for the myth it is.

Murdoch rather than being an all-powerful oligarch has been shown up as defensive and on the run. But you don't have to be a fan of right-wing ideas or the tabloids to be concerned about the forced closure of a newspaper or the press regulations that will result from this affair. I may not like what the NoW print, but I would defend to the death their right to print it. It's a shame Murdoch doesn't have the courage to defend his own paper.

• Stuart Waiton is a sociology lecturer at Abertay University