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Phone hacking scandal brings down 168-year old newspaper
Calcutta News.Net
Thursday 7th July, 2011
The British tabloid newspaper , News of the World, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is to be shut down.
The closure comes amidst a widespread phone-hacking scandal in which victims of terrorism, widows of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, celebrities and politicans were targeted. It has also been disclosed in the past 24 hours that a number of British police have been receiving payments from the newspaper, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.
News International Chairman, and Deputy CEO News Corporation, James Murdoch, the Europe-based son of Rupert Murdoch, made the announcement of the shut-down on Thursday. Murdoch Jnr. was at pains to explain the company's action. Speaking to Sky Television, another Murdoch-owned subsidiary, James Murdoch said the main reason for the closure was that the publication had lost the trust of its readers.
Addressing News of the World staff erlier in the day, Mr Murdoch Jnr. said, "You do not need to be told that The News of the World is 168 years old. That it is read by more people than any other English language newspaper. That it has enjoyed support from Britain's largest advertisers. And that it has a proud history of fighting crime, exposing wrong-doing and regularly setting the news agenda for the nation."
"When I tell people why I am proud to be part of News Corporation, I say that our commitment to journalism and a free press is one of the things that sets us apart. Your work is a credit to this," Mr Murdoch told NOTW staff.
"The good things the News of the World does, however, have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong. Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our Company."
"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself," he said.
"In 2006, the police focused their investigations on two men. Both went to jail. But the News of the World and News International failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose," James Murdoch said.
"Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued."
"As a result, the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter. We now have voluntarily given evidence to the police that I believe will prove that this was untrue and those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences," he said.
"This was not the only fault."
"The paper made statements to Parliament without being in the full possession of the facts. This was wrong," James Murdoch told newspaper staff.
The News International chairman went on to tell staff of the closure, insisting the company had no choice. He said 200 jobs would be lost as a result of the closure.
Earlier, a News International spokesman said it would be “absolutely appalled and horrified” if the claims that police officers accepted bribes for information were true. The company is under pressure to explain how senior executives were nort aware of the payments as they would have had to have been authorised at a very senior level.
The latest allegations follow outrage over reports News of the World personnel may have intercepted voicemails sent to the phones of murder victims and their families. Those suspected to have been targeted include several schoolgirls murdered in 2002 and relatives of victims of the 2005 London transport bombings. In all, more than 4,000 people are believed to have been subjected to the illegal telephone bugs.
In remarks to the British parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron called for “public” and “independent” inquiries into the allegations and into the failure of the original police probe into the hacking, VOA reported.
Also Thursday News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch described the allegations of phone hacking and payments to police as deplorable and unacceptable.
"I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively cooperate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks' leadership," Mr Murdoch said in a statement.
"We are committed to addressing these issues fully and have taken a number of important steps to prevent them from happening again."
The phone hacking allegations against News of the World go back several years. In 2007, a News of the World reporter and a private investigator hired by the paper were jailed for intercepting the mobile phone messages of British royal officials.
Prior to Thursday's announcement, a number of companies suspended advertising deals with the newspaper in response to the widening scandal, including automakers Ford, Vauxhall and Mitsubishi, British bank Halifax, and travel company Virgin Holidays. News of the World advertising revenues have been running at more than $1 million a week in 2011. The sum is insignificant however when compared to News Corporation's total billings of $32 billion per annum.
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