Growing up, we were allowed to read The News of the World once a year. It was a treat. Without fail, it would be bought for the family from a Spanish newsagent as an essential 'perk' of being on holiday. "Thought we could rot our brains with The News of the Screws" my Father would say as he presented us with the paper by the pool. As young teenagers, it was the best thing ever. We were a Times/Telegraph family, but this paper was magical. It had pop stars. It had scandal.  It had the kind of banal nonsense that never failed to keep you entertained. It was entertaining in the way that Jeremy Kyle is entertaining, circus-like voyeurism. You'd feel a bit sick that people might get their news from the NOTW, but for gossip it was bloody brilliant. An occasional grubby treat, a Pot Noodle for the soul.

The extent of the hacking scandal is, without a doubt, sickening. But I can't help feeling that all the NOTW did was supply the UK's ever growing demand for salaciousness. Is it unfair to lay *some* blame with its readers? I don't think it is.

I've always been of the mindset that you read BBC News for facts and then head to the tabloids for the extra sass on a story. The respectable broadsheets, and our lovely BBC, won't publish unverified "facts" or misleading gossip (we hope) and this is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But as we become ever obsessed with people's private lives, which in itself is a horrible trait, there are papers that will do all they can to give the public what it wants - the sauce and scandal.

The most prominent recent example I can think of relates to the tragic murder of Joanna Yeates. Whilst she was missing, the nation was gripped by the 'story'. It wasn't a 'story' of course, it wasn't The Bill, it was a dead girl. Like most news these days, the story moved quickly so it was easier to follow online than in the papers themselves.

I followed the facts on the case (which was 'just' a disappearance at first) on BBC News, but kept finding myself heading to SunOnline and MailOnline for the extra information that the BBC hadn't yet published. A lot of the 'gossip' that the tabloids ran with soon became 'facts' on reputable news sites. Some turned out to be nonsense but I'd taken everything with a pinch of salt, as intelligent people do. Chris Jefferies, tried and convicted by Twitter, did of course turn out to be innocent in the investigation. Many of the people on Twitter who are so quick to bemoan tabloids were the same people who decided Chris Jefferies was a murderer because he "looked like one".

I certainly wasn't the only one following the Yeates case in the tabloids, many of the smart people that I follow on Twitter were also sharing links to the coverage from The Sun and The Daily Mail. Twitter can get itself up in arms about tabloids doing X/Y/Z, but the the truth is that I have never read so much Daily Mail coverage until I joined Twitter. All people seem to do is share Daily Mail links. 

I am pretty snobby when it comes to newspapers and I can't take anyone seriously if I know they get their world news from a tabloid, but I know many, many, many people - smart people - who supplement their broadsheet of choice with tabloids for gossip. And I am one of those people. I may not ever *buy* tabloids, but I check their websites daily. I care about fake tan and affairs and TOWIE, I'm not afraid to admit that a large chunk of my brain is dedicated to this drivel.

I find it hard to believe that the NOTW is the only tabloid to use such unethical practices to get stories. I also believe, strongly,that some of the best journalists work on tabloids and many of those will now be finding themselves unemployed.

The hacking scandal is sickening, but I can't help thinking some perspective is needed. Anyone who understands the basic laws of supply and demand must be able to see that part of this problem lies with the general public. Our stomachs might turn at the thought of hacking the phones of grieving relatives of murder victims and soldiers, but the NOTW has essentially been giving its readers what they want - that 'extra' information that the other papers simply wouldn't dare to print. 

There's a reason the News of the World is, or was, the most popular English language Sunday paper in the world. I think some of us need to look a bit closer at how ridiculous our need for sensationalism has become. If the demand wasn't there, I can't see why the hacking would have happened.

Next Sunday I will be in Mallorca, it would be the one week of the year where we buy The News of the World. It seems oddly coincidental that it will be the first weekend that the English speaking world goes without it.

I truly hope that there are no more hacking stories to be revealed, but I doubt this is the end of it. More importantly, I hope that the culture in Britain for demanding such 'news' will die down a bit now that we know the cost of it. But again, I doubt it will.