I once shared a lift with Rupert Murdoch when I worked for News International. Watching his recent performance I concluded that I've aged better than him – and unlike him, I prefer not to use my son as a public punchbag.
It's very telling that the BBC News website today sees fit to run a piece on 'Phone hacking: The other news you might have missed'. While we've all been glued hour on hour to to the unfolding drama of Murdochgate, the world has kept turning it seems.
The scandal is an obsession for journalists, who love nothing better than rubbing their competitors' noses in it when things go pear-shaped. Getting one over the opposition is the oldest trick in the book in the battle for readership, and being able to dish the dirt on market leaders the News of the Screws and the Sun will have the Rothermeres, Richard Desmond and other proprietors rubbing their hands with glee.
So it will be interesting to see what slithers out when the Met's finest and the judicial inquiry roll over stones in other newsrooms.
The media is unlike other sectors in that it's a fast-revolving door for staff – people slip seamlessly from one organisation to another and back again. Add to that the traditional use of casuals working shifts and it's easy to see how questionable practices such as hacking into phone messages can spread.
If, as seems likely, newsrooms outside of Fortress Wapping find themselves tarred with the same brush as the News of the World, it will be interesting to see how they report events in their own backyards. The words 'mote' and 'beam' spring to mind.
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