The News Of The World

The News of the World was a British Sunday tabloid newspaper published by News Corporation. Its stock-in-trade was celebrity gossip, salacious tittle-tattle, sensationalized crime stories, and sports.

The paper recently became embroiled in a number of scandals relating to alleged payments to police officers for information, and hacking into the phones of celebrities and politicians. The ongoing scandal deepened in July 2011 when it was alleged that a private investigator working for the paper had hacked into the voice-mail of the families of dead UK soldiers as well as the families of victims of high-profile crimes.

The most disturbing allegation relates to the case of a murdered British girl, and that the investigator hacked into the girl's phone while she was missing, not only listening to her messages, but also deleting them. This gave the family false hope that she was still alive, and potentially obstructed the ongoing police investigation.^[1]

Andy Coulson, a former editor of the newspaper who then became a top aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, was arrested on July 8, 2011 in connection to the allegations.^[2]

On July 7, 2011, News Corporation announced it was closing the News of the World after 168 years, and laying off 200 employees. Its last edition was published on Sunday, July 10, 2011. It was replaced with the Sun on Sunday.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ↑ Even war widows on newspaper's phone hacking list
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Britain newspaper closing