The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20120706181914/http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2012-07/03/interview-with-the-guardian-newspaper-editor-alan-rusbridger-on-hacking

Could the newspaper that broke the hacking scandal be the next to close?

It may have toppled the News Of The World, but the beleaguered Guardian's balance sheet reveals a media institution on the brink of self-destruction.

Rex Features
The Guardian's media desk heard about the death of the News Of The World at about 4.15pm, but, reeling in disbelief, didn't run the story immediately. They were still trying to verify it a little less than 20 minutes later, when News International chairman James Murdoch's statement was released to the press. That was Thursday 7 July 2011. The previous Monday, after nearly two years of painstaking digging and a slow drip-drip of stories that failed to gain much widespread traction, the Guardian published the story that private investigators in the pay of the News Of The World had hacked the voice mail of a murdered schoolgirl: Milly Dowler. The public was appalled.

The trail the Guardian had been following stretched from Fleet Street to Downing Street and Scotland Yard. It had implications of corruption, bribery and influence, yet had failed to gain widespread attention. But this was the breakthrough the Guardian had been working towards. With one thunderous headline, editor Alan Rusbridger had destroyed one of the jewels in Rupert Murdoch's crown.

By Wednesday and Thursday, disgusted advertisers were deserting the News Of The World in droves, but when the press release confirming its closure arrived in the inbox of Guardian reporter James Robinson, his jaw still dropped. "I remember opening it and just going, 'F***. They're closing it down.' Then someone legged it [over to] the internet guys, shouting, 'Get it out, get it up there!'"

The Guardian's deputy editor Ian Katz left his office in a daze, and saw Rusbridger. The editor shook his head in disbelief. "Everyone was gobsmacked," says Katz. "I don't think it entered anyone's head that was going to happen. In an embattled industry the last thing you want to see is newspapers shutting. But at some level, it was a complete vindication."

At some level.

The Guardian, a mid-sized broadsheet with a circulation of less than 250,000, had brought about the demise of one of the world's biggest- selling newspapers, a red-top behemoth with a circulation of just under 2.5 million. In an age characterised by celebrity gossip and PR-driven drek, it had shown that there was still a place for real, quixotic investigative journalism.

By the time Rusbridger appeared in front of the Leveson Inquiry on 18 January 2012 - two months after celebrities such as Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant - he carried himself with an air of triumph. Here was the result: a wideranging inquiry. Surrounded by the fruits of his labours, Rusbridger seemed almost to purr. Never again would newspapers, especially tabloids, be able to act with such arrogant impunity, or wield such power over government.

Sitting facing Lord Leveson in a sober, dark suit, Rusbridger quietly laid out his idea of a journalism with real ethical safeguards. The future was to be shaped by his vision.

There is a crucial question. How much does good journalism matter? Or rather: how much is it worth?
It was now almost three years since Rusbridger had sent his investigations editor, David Leigh, down to Lewes to meet a journalist called Nick Davies, a Guardian regular, who was pitching a story about a £1m cover-up surrounding a private investigator at the News Of The World. On his return, Leigh, who had his doubts about the wisdom of war with the Murdochs and had his fingers crossed behind his back, reported the story was solid. Rusbridger was in a difficult position. It was a tough call - Murdoch has deep pockets, and a fight with News International would be an expensive undertaking.

"The thing about Alan's face," says Leigh now, "is that nothing plays across it. His great stock-in-trade as an editor is that he has a poker face. He's made of steel. He doesn't look it, but he is."

"OK," Rusbridger said to Leigh in 2009. "Let's do it."

The result was the biggest news coup of the decade. But it came at a price - one the Guardian can ill-afford. For those who look behind the headlines - at the newspaper's plummeting finances, its burdened staff, the seeming lack of any business plan to get back into profit - it isn't hard to imagine that, after the closure of the News Of The World, the Guardian might be next to cease printing.

The Guardian and Observer - not the Guardian Media Group, just the newspaper division - reported losses of £61.2m in 2008/09, £57.9m in 2009/10 and £43.8m in 2010/11, meaning that it loses not far shy of £1m a week. In 2009/2010, the overarching Guardian Media Group - which includes regional radio stations under GMG Radio, the Auto Trader magazine and website under Trader Media Group, property software arm GMG Property Services, and business-to-business publisher Emap - reported its greatest ever loss: £171m. At the time of giving the go-ahead, a wrong call from Rusbridger could have finished off the Guardian.

It still might.

"The Guardian will fold before the last of the [phone-hacking] trials," says Kelvin MacKenzie, a former editor of the Sun. "I mean, they're in big s***. Basically, the thing's going bust."

Not only that, but the story that brought the News Of The World to its knees may not have been fully correct. The Guardian had to apologise that part of its story - that Milly Dowler's voice-mail messages had been deleted by the private investigator, the so-called "false hope" accusation - could not be comprehensively proved. Richard Caseby, managing editor of the Sun, told the Daily Mail in December that "Alan Rusbridger effectively sexed up his investigation into phone hacking".

The Guardian will fold before the last of the (phone-hacking) trials
Kelvin MacKenzie
The atmosphere among Guardian staff is turbulent. A reporter tells GQ: "There's a lot of grumbling. People don't like what the management is doing. They get that we're losing money hand over fist and we need to stop the losses as much as we can, but they think that what's being sacrificed is journalism."

At the heart of the Guardian's problems is a crucial question: how much does good journalism matter? Or rather: how much is it worth?

By the time Rupert Murdoch flew to England this February for the launch of the Sun on Sunday, and to effectively take back control from his son James, he watched on in satisfaction as its first edition clocked up 3.26 million readers. That week, the Guardian announced its circulation. It had dropped to just 229,000.

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