The difficulty is that nothing, not even the arrival in Britain of Rupert Murdoch bearing reassurance, can automatically put the Sun on the survival list now. The procedures that Murdoch and his News Corporation board have sealed in place make such certainties impossible. This is an almost fatalistic process.News Corporation in New York has its managements and standards committee operating here. That committee, led by Lord Grabiner QC, is independent of Wapping. It does not tell Dominic Mohan, the Sun editor, when some of his most senior staff are about to be arrested; it simply passes millions of emails to the police, on site, running Operation Elveden, the investigation that is hunting corrupt cops, civil servants – and journalists offering cash for information.
Elveden, as its supreme commander, deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, told Lord Justice Leveson last week, is boosting its numbers from 40 to 61 in order to trawl this Sun material in detail. These inquiries are "nearer the beginning than the end".
Meanwhile Sun journalists are being arrested at a rate not far short of two a week as this investigation proceeds. At this pace, there may be nobody left to bring out the paper in 12 months – and any reassurances will be redundant. Nor is there much that Murdoch can do about it.
But then take three weighty factors into account. One is that there's all the difference in the world between arrests and charges. Scotland Yard, even today, may not want to see dozens of reporters and editors hauled into court to defend themselves, each in different circumstances, against charges of "aiding and abetting" crime. Was anyone here, waving a cheque book, pursuing a clear public interest story? Will it, some weary years on, seem sensible to adopt a blanket approach?
Another is whether reporters paying up for a story are responsible or merely following higher editorial – and thus company – demands. Where does the buck stop? At James Murdoch, at Rupert himself? No one can be sure what a jury would conclude. Journalists, under the Press Complaints Commission code, have a duty to protect their sources.
But these sources are now being shopped by the company that offered to shield them (before it changed its mind under the duress of its own disgrace). Twelve good men and true may have their own, unpredictable views on this.
And then there's the bigger picture. Take away the £650m or more in revenue that the Sun brings in every year and what's left of News International – the Times and Sunday Times – would look simply unsustainable.
They've made total losses of £175m over the last three years, paid for by Sun and News of the World profits: an implicit deal that has kept Murdoch's restless shareholders at bay. But, without his two redtops, the burden is big enough to make Russian oligarchs, let alone the News Corp board, flinch.
Would anybody want to come to the rescue in such dire circumstances? Most relevantly, what would be the future of the retail and distribution trade that depends on mass titles? There are thousands upon thousands of corner-shop and freighting jobs at risk here. No wonder Fleet Street is muttering "Be careful what you wish for" under its breath.
