By Ben Morris

The sound of The News of The World shutting down was something greeted by the majority of the population. But as what was once years and years ago, considered a great worldwide newspaper falls, is the end looming for printed journalism?

Despite the excessive amount of irony in this online piece of journalism, it should be pointed out that when I first joined Voice 21, it was being printed on a regular basis as a magazine. But with funding cuts and the latest surge of uncertainty to the credibility of news corporation’s print media, I begin to wonder if print journalism is in its last days. Old things are replaced by the new. Old forms of news, such as town criers or messenger pigeons have been replaced in the past with print journalism and with everything at your fingertips online for free these days, who is likely to make the journey down the road to pay money for the same information in a font so small it encourages people to visit their opticians?

When News of The World had first been revealed as the well-known multi-media establishment to have hacked into the phones of not only some very important people, but also a recently deceased missing girl’s voicemail to intercept desperate grieving messages, only to then delete older messages to free up space for more, I grew worried.

Since then, News of The World has been shut down and investigations are ongoing, with several senior police officers resigning over it, which could cause chaos for the London Olympic Games in 2012. There have been reports of another Sunday tabloid taking its place, but the tabloid (dubbed “The Sun on Sunday”) probably won’t get as many readers as News of The World did.

There’s a growing uncertainty on the trust of the news these days, between the hacking scandal, the BBC being accused of bias and The Sun’s security being breached by Lulzsec, who then put up a false story declaring Rupert Murdoch dead, people are beginning to wonder if what they read can be trusted anymore.

People are starting to find their news from elsewhere and journalism, specifically print journalism, is looking down the barrel of a shot-gun