Jim Hopkins: Shock Horror! We're all tarred

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming, and without further ado, I'd like to begin this press conference by inviting you to welcome our guilt-ridden guest. It's my pleasure to introduce ... the columnist himself."

(Voices clamour, cameras clatter, there is a frenzy of flashes and a smattering of tepid applause as a haggard, shamefaced figure stumbles towards the forest of microphones at the front of the lectern.)

"Thank you and hullo," mumbled the sweating owl, a shamefaced blush reddening his cheeks. "Oh, gosh, umm, err, squirm, wriggle, heck," he continued, shielding his eyes from the lights, "What can I say?"

"Try the truth for a change, you hideous, horrible, hacking hack," screamed a scribe from The Daily Blackmail.

"And, remember, even if you say 'Cut' we'll show it anyway," added the shrill virago from Make It Up.

"Yeah! 'Cos we're effical," quipped a blogger, much admired for fearlessly breaching name suppression orders.

"First of all," said the columnist, "let me say I have full confidence in myself and will not be asking me to resign ...

(Muted groans from the throng.) "And, secondly," the wretch continued. "My conscience is clear. I have never hacked a cell phone in my life."

"Oh, really," sneered the Rotters man. "We've got photos. Or will have, as soon as we've doctored them. Which we can, you know. Ask the Israelis."

"Okay, you've got me," whimpered the columnist. "What I've just said is not entirely true. I did hack a cell phone once ...

(Exultant cries of "Yes" and "Gotcha!" ring out).

"... but only because I couldn't make it work. So I got an axe and hacked it".

"Don't worry," the editor from Fix News whispered to his host. "I'll edit that out. Just have him say, 'I did hack a cell phone.' Much cleaner."

"What about you and Rebekah?" came a cry from the back of the room.

"We are just good friends," spluttered the columnist. "And even if we weren't, I wouldn't reveal anything. One rule for politicians, another for journalists, as you know. Look at the gossip columns in the Sunday papers, for crying out loud. Week after week, year after year, coy hints about 'well-known' hosts or 'big name' TV types with a P habit or given to nipping next door for a quick affair or inclined to put the hard word on 'glamorous' cub reporters. But never any names, of course. No! Because we've always looked after our own, have we not? Screw the world, not the newsroom. Dish it out to others, hush it up at home, right?"

"Maybe so, but we don't bribe coppers, Mr Establishment rat fink," yelled Julian from Wikked Leaks.

"No, but you do steal other people's private correspondence and publish it, irrespective of the consequence," snaps the columnist. "That may not be Coulson but it still isn't cool, son. And yet half the people denouncing me consider you a plaster saint and will happily print whatever you sell them."

"Speaking of sales," snapped a business reporter, "is that why you've closed the paper?"

"Of course not!" said the columnist. "Sales were fine. Never better. Yes, the world of the news has lost the News of the World but not because of sales. Let's be clear about that. What I've done is a perfectly principled and proper response. Close the paper, excuse the perpetrators. Makes sense to me."

"Well, not to me," replied the business reporter, rather wishing she could listen to something less sanctimonious, like BridgeCorp directors requesting legal aid.

"Oh, come now," smiled the columnist, paternally. "You know as well as I do that most news is piffle - whoever's 'across' it. Scare today, gone tomorrow. That's it. And, if most news is piffle, all news is a product; packaged, shaped, tweaked and flavoured to satisfy public taste. Which we did. Brilliantly."

"But unethically," sniffed the business reporter.

"Ah, you want ethics?" replied the columnist. "Hands up those who didn't run a single My night of wild love with Tiger Woods story." (Not a single hand went up)

"Bingo! I rest my case. If there's something rotten in the state of deadline, it isn't just me, friends. Tarred I may be, but the brush has caressed us all. Consider this.

"Between us, we've created an entirely new career. We've created gosstitutes, people who're paid not to have sex, but to talk about having sex so we can run their uncorroborated tales of steamy lust with nary a care for who get harmed or hurt. You want ethics? There they are. Face facts, folks, News is a product, produced by people who are, collectively, no more principled than bankers, financiers, lobbyists or used-car salesmen. The only difference is that journalists are their own publicists. That's why they get a better press."

"Except on days like this," muttered a member of the public, who'd wandered in by mistake.