News International newspaper faces angry backlash amid growing campaign for advertising and reader boycott
The energy firm Npower said it was "reviewing" its advertising in the News of the World after the revelation that the newspaper hacked Milly Dowler's phone.
The company became the first business to comment on the fallout from the allegations. A spokeswoman said: "We note the concerns which have arisen on the back of fresh allegations of phone hacking against the News of the World. We are currently reviewing our options."
The allegations sent social media users roaring into action, with calls for boycotts of the newspaper appearing on Twitter and Facebook, and companies coming under sustained pressure to pull their advertising from the Sunday newspaper.
Those wishing to direct their fury at the firms who advertise through the News of the World were provided with a one-stop page where they could automatically tweet their concerns to companies such as the Co-operative, WH Smith, EasyJet, Butlins and Renault.
Sample tweets included: "Dear @WHSmithcouk Do you consider it ethical to stock a newspaper prepared to hack a murdered girl's phone?" and "Dear @WW_UK, will you be reconsidering Weight Watchers' advertising spend with #notw given we now know they hacked Milly Dowler's phone?"
Others went further, calling for direct boycotts of the companies themselves unless they took their advertising money elsewhere.
Twitter users have also posted the number of the News of the World's newsdesk online and encouraged people to call up and make their anger felt.
One journalist said he had been told by a News of the World employee that a succession of people were ringing the newsdesk, "shouting the c-word down the phone, and hanging up".
The Guardian media columnist and blogger Roy Greenslade gave readers a list of five things they could do to register their disapproval.
His first suggestion was a mass boycott of the News of the World: "Treat it just as the people of Merseyside did when the Sun ran its infamous Hillsborough story in 1989 following the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters."
Greenslade, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, also added his voice to those calling for an independent public inquiry into the hacking affair.
The push for a public investigation into the matter will be launched tomorrow at the House of Lords by a group of media academics, lawyers, MPs and peers.
Martin Moore, the director of the Media Standards Trust, which is co-ordinating the campaign for a public inquiry, said: "We've been pressing for a public inquiry for a long time, but a few weeks ago, when we started to realise that the civil cases would be closed down by November without disclosure, we realised that it was increasingly urgent to get a public inquiry."
The latest revelations, he added, had convinced the organisers that now was the time to act.
A poll on the Guardian website today/yesterday showed that 96.9% of respondents were in favour of a public inquiry.
However, as a few tweeters pointed out, the ethical failings exposed by the recent allegations may not have been confined to the News of the World newsroom.
One tweeter said: "Ask yourself how many bloggers you read would fall so low as delete messages from murdered girl's phone so delaying police enquiry?"
Another tweeter wondered whether or not the rest of Fleet Street would now think twice before picking up News of the World "exclusives".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/05/npower-reviews-news-world-advertising
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