Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation will close its tabloid News of the World after this Sunday's edition, as a result of an escalating phone hacking scandal, James Murdoch said on Thursday.
"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account," the deputy chief operating officer of News Corporation told staff. "But it failed when it came to itself."
The story behind this is pretty awful.
Rupert Murdoch promised full cooperation on Wednesday to resolve a scandal shaking his media empire after British Prime Minister David Cameron promised an inquiry into what he called "disgusting" phone hacking by a newspaper.
Responding in parliament to allegations that the News of the World eavesdropped on voicemail for victims of notorious crimes, including child murders and suicide bombings, Cameron said he was "revolted" and would order inquiries, probably into both the specific case and more widely into Britain's cut-throat media.
The opposition, keen to highlight Cameron's own ties to Murdoch and to two former editors at the eye of the storm, noted that any inquiry would not start, let alone finish, for months if not years. Critics accused the Conservative government of trying to bury the embarrassment of the long-running saga.
Murdoch, whose News International group faces boycotts from advertisers and readers as well as questions over a takeover bid for broadcaster BSkyB, made a rare public statement to say he too found the hacking, and reports of buying tips from police, "deplorable and unacceptable" and would ensure transparency.
But the 80-year-old Australian-born American media magnate made clear he was standing by Rebekah Brooks, the 43-year-old head of his British newspaper operation. She was editor in 2002 when, police say, a News of the World investigator listened to -- and deleted -- voicemails left for the cellphone of missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered.
News of the World went to any lengths imaginable to get the "story", and Murdoch's extensive ties to the UK government meant he had a hammer heavy enough to swing with impunity. Now Murdoch has thrown the tabloid under the bus, but it's pretty clear there's a deep swamp of lies, payoffs, cover-ups and criminal acts here, bad enough to cost News of the World enough advertisers that Murdoch folded the paper today.
The man behind FOX News and the Wall Street Journal here in the states has a serious, serious problem in Britain. Closing News of the World won't make this problem go away.
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