Will the dirty business of journalism survive hackgate?

How long will it take for journalism to recover from what has been done in its name by the News of the World? It’s possible to argue that our profession or trade, or whatever you want to call it, will regroup and find new ways of holding the powerful, the rich and the famous to account. Rat-like cunning is an eminently transferable skill as the 200 hacks laid off from Wapping this weekend should be able to demonstrate.

It can’t be said too many times that this scandal was initially brought to the public’s attention not by the police nor by parliament but by journalists. There is no one more rat-like and no one more cunning than the Guardian’s Nick Davies. And I mean that as a compliment.

But there are genuine concerns that the baby will be thrown out with the bath water. Andrew Gilligan wrote eloquently last weekend of the need for journalists to sail