Murdoch shuts down scandal-hit weekly
Phone hacking allegations alienated readers and sent advertisers packing.
LONDON:
In a breathtaking response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch moved on Thursday to close down theNews of the World, Britain’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper.
As allegations mounted this week that its journalists had hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain’s war dead, the tabloid had haemorrhaged advertising and alienated millions of readers.
Yet no one, least of all the 168-year-old paper’s staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron’s long and controversial career.
Hailing a fine muck-raking tradition at the paper, which his father bought in 1969, James Murdoch told its staff that the latest explosion of a long-running scandal over phone hacking had made the future of the title untenable:
“The good things the News of the World does ... 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,”
UK govt calls for justice
All those responsible for wrongdoing at the News of the Worldnewspaper should be brought to justice, a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation announced it would close the tabloid.
“The prime minister has made clear, he is committed to establishing rigorous public inquiries to make sure this never happens in our country again,” the spokesman said.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 8th, 2011.
In a breathtaking response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch moved on Thursday to close down theNews of the World, Britain’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper.
As allegations mounted this week that its journalists had hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain’s war dead, the tabloid had haemorrhaged advertising and alienated millions of readers.
Yet no one, least of all the 168-year-old paper’s staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron’s long and controversial career.
Hailing a fine muck-raking tradition at the paper, which his father bought in 1969, James Murdoch told its staff that the latest explosion of a long-running scandal over phone hacking had made the future of the title untenable:
“The good things the News of the World does ... 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,”
UK govt calls for justice
All those responsible for wrongdoing at the News of the Worldnewspaper should be brought to justice, a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation announced it would close the tabloid.
“The prime minister has made clear, he is committed to establishing rigorous public inquiries to make sure this never happens in our country again,” the spokesman said.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 8th, 2011.