I'm not sure how much of this has been covered in the states, but if you haven't heard what's been unraveling this week at News of the World you should really look into it. Here's a bit of a summary..
News of the World is a Sunday publication published by News Internationl and is a subsidary of News Corporation (aka the press kingdom of Rupert Murdoch). Although it does have the usual crap, celebrity stories, NoW does publish a few good news articles here and there and isn't a tabloid in the American sense of the word. The publication has been in trouble in the past for hacking into celebrity cell phones to retrieve voicemails and messages for stories. Sienna Miller, a British actress, even sued the publication for hacking into her cell-phone. On Monday, The Guardian, a daily and legitimate newspaper, broke the story that News of the World had hacked into phones of not only the families of victimes of the 2005 bus and tube bombings here in London, but the voicemail of a 13 year-old girl who went missing in 2005 and was later found dead. They hired people to hack phones just to gain a little information for a tabloid story. While the young girl was missing, her messages were deleted by hackers, giving her parents hope that she was alive and had access to her phone, which was false. There are also claims that the paper paid off policeman who were involved in the investigation of the girl's murder in order to get information. Since this story came out on Monday the public has been shocked at the 'cruel' and 'disgusting' acts of the paper. Early in the week, Prime Minister David Cameron, appeared before Parliament and addressed the news, enforcing an intense investigation into News of the World and their actions. As all of this was happening Rupert Murdoch, which is a name many Americans would associate with Fox News, defended those in charge at News International and stated they would cooperate with police in any further investigation. It all came to a conclusion this afternoon at about 4:30 when they announced News of World would be publishing its last paper this Sunday. The whole week advertisers were announcing they were pulling out of the paper and I believe there was only one organization who hadn't left before they announced its end.
When the news broke the publication would be closing there were mixed emotions around the office. Although NoW did publish some celebrity trash here and there, there were a lot of opportunities for great coverage for clients at Weber Shandwick. I'm in no way defending the paper or its actions, but there were accounts expecting coverage this coming weekend. In my opinion, as a supplement of The Sun, a daily publication in London, I believe the content of NoW will come back to the UK in the near future, just under a different name. I highly doubt Mr. Murdoch would close one door, without opening another.
I've never had my heart set on reporting for a newspaper, but as a journalism major I can't believe some people would even consider these kind of actions just to sell a newspaper and make a little money. Let alone, people would actually carry them out.
If you want to read the story from the source, check it out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/07/news-of-the-world-to-close
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