Letter from the editor: An interesting thought

Funny lot, you i readers. Funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar. Keep it pithy if you want to get letters published, we said, and you have – mostly.

But, there’s one thing we never thought to include in our tip-list: Name and address please. The phone-hacking saga remains your major concern, but there is a trend this past 48 hours towards letters reminding us there are other important stories around.

Just when we thought it was safe to divert from a “hacking” splash, then News Corp withdraws its bid for BSkyB. We had no choice this morning, but it’s an interesting thought: what would have been the big stories this past week were it not for News International?

The developing story that may supercede hacking this week is the eurozone debt crisis that just won’t go away. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that British Gas got off lightly with its shocking price rise, announced the day after the News of the World’s closure was first revealed. The demise of Southern Cross – news that will trouble so many of our families – may well have made more headlines, as might the troubling violence in Northern Ireland.

Hacking also stole column inches from the huge, emotional Harry Potter premiere, Britain’s biggest ever. But here’s a cheery story you may have missed. It’s slight, but a tale of our times: US Marine Sgt Scott Moore asked, via YouTube from Afghanistan, the Black Swan star Mila Kunis to November’s Marine Corps Ball in North Carolina. Live on American TV, Kunis said yes. We need such stories as a little light relief amid the relentlessly gloomy diet of the current news cycle, and here was technology being used as a positive force – for once. Until tomorrow’s splash!