This Sunday, millions of British people will face an unexpected and potentially challenging decision. After 168 years of relying on The News Of The World to keep them updated on all the crucial issues going on in the world, they may have to do the unthinkable and - gasp - buy a proper newspaper instead!
Of course, they'll probably just take the easy option and switch seamlessly to The Mail, which is a bit like discovering Katie Price has moved out of your flat and shacking up with Kerry Katona as a classier alternative. But the demise of TNOTW is nevertheless highly significant, and not only because even Observer-reading lefties like The Sage have to concede that it's Britain's - indeed, the English language's - best selling newspaper.
Many commentators are suggesting that pulling the plug on an irretrievably tainted brand is merely a cunning ruse by News International to sidestep the real issues of wider organisational culpability, cutting off a gangrenous limb in order to save the rest of the body. Most expect 'The Sun On Sunday' or something equally predictable to be launched in its stead sooner rather than later once the dust has settled a little, allowing Murdoch and his 'evil empire' to continue business as usual.
This may well all be true, but The Sage is cautiously optimistic that this appalling episode also represents a defining sea change in the way newspapers operate in this country. For the past few decades, our press has steadily become more and more sleazy and ammoral, willing to take any steps necessary to obtain stories that will sell. The rampant celebrity culture is part of this problem, but the man on the street's reaction to a private investigator hacking the phone of a footballer or actor who can't keep their trousers on generally ranges from mild disapproval on whether it's 'in the public interest' to bored indifference. Allegedly hacking the phones of ordinary people - including a teenage murder victim and the relatives of servicemen and women killed in action - takes things to a whole new level of callous, unethical insensitivity. Even the most rabidly bigoted, sensation-loving red top reader must surely abhor the depths to which the NOTW is accused of plunging.
Who knows how many newspapers have employed similarly base practices in the past, but one things for sure, they won't be doing it any more, as the risk of exposure and subsequent excoriation by the whole of British society is simply too great. Even if a sizeable chunk of their readers stick with them, this week has proved that the all-important corporate advertisers almost certainly won't, and David Cameron's promised judicial enquiry will inevitably result in closer regulatory scrutiny of press behaviour. Furthermore, in the wake of this scandal all party leaders will also presumably go out of their way to avoid being too closely linked with Murdoch and his ilk, which will hopefully reduce the media's all too pervasive influence on political matters.
Freedom of the press is an integral part of this country's guiding principles, and should never be compromised by governments or anyone else. But newspapers themselves also have a duty to maintain certain standards of decency and moral conduct as part of this process. By dragging their profession to the very bottom of the gutter, The Sage can only hope that TNOTW has shamed its peers into making sure that nothing like this ever happens again.
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