Can consumer protest work?

In the UK we are currently seeing a consumer backlash against News International following a series of allegations of phone hacking, not just against celebrities and people in the media eye, but also against members of the public who would be of no interest to the media were it not for a twist of fate such as being the victim of a serious crime, terrorist attack or casualty of war. This alleged intrusion of privacy has really caught the public attention and has resulted in several major companies pulling advertising from News International publications, particularly The News of The World newspaper. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Historically, consumer driven protests have been short lived, especially when protesting against a generally popular brand. News of the World is perhaps the widest read Sunday newspaper, and has been for some time. It has a loyal readership who have stayed with the paper despite previous provocation, particularly around the time of Princess Dianas death. This time feels different, and I am hopefully that there will be a forced step change across the media. Previously the closest we have come to this situation was probably the Daily Mirror being caught out publishing doctored or staged photographs, and that blew over in a week or so. The difference here, I think, is that the outrage seems more co-ordinated, more structured, and crucially perhaps, better reported. This may be because it is an opportunity for the BBC to have a real pop at Rupert Murdochs news empire, but perhaps that is being overly cynical.

There certainly seems to be an interesting mix of what appears to be genuine anger from some political and media quarters, alongside the expected hangwringing and pontificating from the usual quarters. We have been promised a full judicial investigation by the Prime Minister and it will be interesting to see firstly if this happens, and secondly how many of those handwringing and pontificating end up tarred with the same brush, because I find it hard to believe that this is limited to just one newspaper, or indeed just one small group of journalists and managers.....watch this space.....