News of the World, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled weekly tabloid that is at center of a widening phone-hacking scandal, will publish its final edition Sunday, Murdoch’s son James announced Thursday.
The 168-year-old newspaper, by far the most popular in Britain, and its parent company "failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose," James Murdoch said in a statement. “Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.”
The final edition will contain no advertising, and any money already received by the newspaper will be donated to charities, said James Murdoch, who heads the company’s European operations.
The tabloid, part of Murdoch's global News Corp. empire, which also includes Fox television, the Wall Street Journal and dozens of other media properties, is accused of hacking into the cell phone messages of victims ranging from missing schoolgirls to grieving families, celebrities, royals and politicians in a quest for attention-grabbing headlines.
Many large advertisers had withdrawn from the newspaper as more shocking details of the years-old scandal have come to light in recent days.
Police say they are examining 4,000 names of people who may have been targeted by the paper.
The English newspaper The Guardian reported on its web site Thursday that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has been told by police he will be arrested Friday. The report also said the paper learned a second former senior journalist at the paper would be arrested in the next few days.
The Sunday-only newspaper has acknowledged that it hacked into the phones of politicians, celebrities and royal aides, but in recent days the allegations have expanded to take in the phones of missing children, the relatives of terrorist victims and families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
In making the closure announcement to staff, James Murdoch said if the allegations were true “it was inhuman and has no place in our company.”
“Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad,” he said, “and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.”
The announcement has sparked speculation that the News of the World’s sister paper, The Sun, will now become a seven-day operation. The BBC reported Thursday that at least two Internet domain names involving variations of “Sun on Sunday” had been registered by unknown parties in the past two days.
Media analysts said the decision to close the newspaper appears to be a strategy to smooth the way for Murdoch’s plan to buy the 60 percent or so of British Sky Broadcasting that his media empire does not already own. The U.K. government is expected to make its final decision on the proposed deal by September.
The News of the World has been published since 1843. Rupert Murdoch acquired the newspaper in 1969 and it is currently the best-selling English-language paper in the world with a circulation of more than 2.6 million, according to recent figures.
Roger Alton, executive editor of The Times newspaper, which is also owned by Murdoch, told Sky News Thursday that it was an “extraordinarily sad day.”
Alton pointed out that Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, had once worked as a war correspondent for the News of the World. Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, told the BBC that “People shouldn’t forget that it had a terrific history.”
The newspaper has found itself at the center of a growing phone-hacking scandal this week. Keith Vaz, an opposition lawmaker who is also chair of the British parliament’s home affairs select committee, told Sky News that the decision to close the newspaper “shows that there was wrongdoing.”
“This is the right thing to do,” he added. “The brand that is the News of the World is probably forever tainted.”
John Prescott, a former deputy prime minister who has alleged that his phone was hacked, told Sky News that he favored an inquiry that examined practices used by Britain’s entire newspaper industry.
“This isn’t one rogue newspaper,” he said, adding that it is “poor old Indians and not the chiefs” who will lose their jobs and suffer due to the decision to shutter the tabloid.
Max Clifford, a leading publicist who settled out of court after suing the paper for hacking his phone, told the BBC that the “cancer that had been in the News of the World […] was too deep and too serious for them to save it.”
Clifford said “killing it off” might take some of the pressure off News International and Rebekah Brooks, its chief executive, who has faced rising calls for her to resign. Brooks was editor of the newspaper at the time the hacking allegedly took place. She has condemned the practice and said she knew nothing about it.
James Murdoch told the BBC Thursday that he is “convinced that Rebekah Brooks’ leadership of the company is the right thing,” adding that there’s “no question of her going […] her leadership is crucial right now.”
Clifford also alleged that practices such as phone-hacking were “widespread” in the British media for many years.