News Of The World Axed After Phone Hacking Scandal

James Murdoch has sent an e-mail to staff announcing that News of the World will be axed. The final edition will be put out this Sunday.

James Murdoch has sent an e-mail to staff announcing that News of the World will be axed. The final edition will be put out this Sunday.

Pressure has been building over the past four days after revelations that NOTW commissioned journalists to hack into the voicemail of murder victims families and 7/7 terror attack survivors. The ball began to roll when The Guardian revealed that NOTW hacked the phone of missing school girl Milly Dowler and deleted some of her messages, leading to her family to believe she could have been alive.

James Murdoch, the son of Rupert Mudoch issued a statement to all staff this afternoon saying that current NOTW Colin Myler will edit the final ever edition. The shocking announcement this afternoon brings to an end an iconic and powerful newspaper which dominated the news for  many years. The newspaper exposed weekly the lies and scandal of celebrities and politicians, which is now ironic that it was their practices which had made it so successful has now become its downfall.

Earlier today it was revealed that the government is to hault the bidding process for NewsCorp to take full control of BSkyB until September. It is claimed that this is due to the amount of submissions sent to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, although it is likely to have been a political move as many MP’s along with an online petition signed by members of the public calling for the government to stop the bid in light of the phone hacking scandal.

News of the World first began publishing in 1843, making it one of the UK’s oldest newspapers. In 1969 it was bought  by Rupert Murdoch. Yesterday Rupert Murdoch issued a statement in which he said allegations of phone hacking and making payments to police with respect to the News of the World are deplorable and unacceptable. He also backed Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the newspaper at the time when the Milly Dowler allegations are alleged to have happened.

 

Today The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported claims that Glenn Mulcaire’s notebook had names and contact numbers of families who lost loved ones during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mulcaire was convicted in 2007 along with Clive Goodman for intercepting voicemail messages from the Royal household.

Many staff at News of the World, soon to be unemployed are likely to be annoyed that they have lost their jobs, while Rebekah Brooks remains CEO of News International, the parent company of the newspaper. Sky News have said via sources that many staff, including editor Colin Myler are very angry, with their anger being vented at Rebekah Brooks.