Scoops don't matter to readers

Scoop journalism is hopelessly old-fashioned. There's that nice Richard Wallace, editor of the Daily Mirror, landing scoop after scoop - Kate Moss snorting, McCartneys' marriage aborting, John Prescott cavorting - and yet his paper's sales continue their sad decline. One glitch is that, despite producing spoof early editions, the rest of the digitised media world can catch up and even overtake in a nano-second. So plenty of readers (and, obviously, surfers) have no clue that it was the Mirror wot got it. But that's not the only problem with red-top scoopery. The truth is that even in the old deadline-midnight era scoops didn't matter to readers. They have always been much more about Fleet Street machismo than satisfying the real desires of readers. Mind you, I bet The Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade, doesn't see it that way!