Ed’s inbox – July 7th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

If Ed Miliband could only read five blogposts each day, he’d read these ones…

Progressive digital campaign made life impossible for advertisers – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

With the closure of the News of the World sending shockwaves across the media establishment, Political Scrapbook is proud to have played a significant role in making life impossible for those companies that wanted to advertise with Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid.

In concert with Liberal Conspiracy, we have were at the forefront of efforts to hit the dead-schoolgirl-hacking newspaper where it hurts: in the pocket. Hitting the phones to dozens of companies, our rolling live blog became the document of reference for the advertiser boycott of the paper. We were repeatedly contacted by corporate communications departments asking us to update our list to reflect their softening lines and U-turns. – Read more.

We killed the News of the World! [updated] – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

My view – post updated

In the end, Rupert and James Murdoch decided to ditch their employees instead of the people really responsible for phone-hacking. That is a decision we had no influence over.

However, I express no regret in running (with Political Scrapbook, FB groups) a highly successful campaign to persuade advertisers to boycott the Sunday tabloid. We wanted it to own up to all its mistakes and it still hasn’t done that.

We continuously harassed press officers, we ran running tallies of boycotts, we focused on top advertisers and kept the story running. In short, we ran a guerilla campaign using all the tools at our disposal to make our voices heard. It is what it is. The blame for job losses lies with the Murdochs not us. – Read more.

Has the economy grown by just 0.1% in 9 months? – Duncan’s Economic Blog
By Duncan Weldon

The highly respected National Institute for Economic and Social Research has just released its forecast of GDP growth for the 2nd quarter.

This morning I wrote that:

“Most observers have revised down their forecast for Q2 growth to 0.3% in recent weeks, today’s evidence suggests it could be even lower.”

NIESR are now forecasting growth of just 0.1%. – Read more.

News of the World goes down in flames – but will a ‘Sunday Sun’ replace it? – Left Foot Forward
By Shamik Das

As the Sun would have put it, Gotcha! The News of the World has been well and truly screwed; it is no more, it has ceased to be. But before we celebrate too much, remember this is Murdoch we’re dealing with – and he may have a joker up his sleeve.

This Sunday will be the last ever edition of the NotW, the pressure from public, politicians and campaigners finally tolling on Rupert Mudoch and his News International empire – not least the pressure bearing down on companies to pull their adverts from this Sunday’s edition.

Onto the future later, but first, the demise of the NotW – how did it happen? And happen so quickly? – Read more.

The phone hacking scandal is a disgrace. And it will all happen again – New Statesman
By Dan Hodges

The media acts as it does because it’s the way we like it.

It will happen again. We’ll have our debates, enquiries and investigations. People will resign and get sacked and go to jail. And then it will all happen again.

There is a simple reason why the parents of a murdered schoolgirl lived with false hope, and the investigation into their daughter’s brutal killing jeopardised. Because that’s the way we wanted it. Not just Glenn Mulcaire or, possibly, Rebekah Brooks. All of us.

Oh, it’s unfortunate, of course. We feel sympathy for the Dowlers; it would be inhuman not to. But our humanity never actually extended so far as doing anything to prevent it. Doing anything to break the cycle, the synthetic outrage and cover up. – Read more.