Britain’s News of the World was published for the last time on Sunday after the tabloid was axed amid the phone-hacking scandal, as its owner Rupert Murdoch flew in to take charge of managing the crisis. After 168 years of scoops and scandals, Britain’s top-selling weekly newspaper hit newsstands for the final time with the headline “Thank You and Goodbye.”
While most of the paper was dedicated to celebrating the newspaper’s many world exclusives and campaigns, it also included an apology to readers in an editorial, which said: “Quite simply, we lost our way.” But the decision to axe the paper is unlikely to end the row, and as Murdoch arrived in London there were fresh calls for his News Corp’s bid to take full control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB to be delayed. Late on Saturday, News of the World editor Colin Myler led staff out of its offices in Wapping, east London, after an emotional day preparing the final edition.
“I want to pay tribute to this wonderful team of people here, who, after a really difficult day, have produced in a brilliantly professional way a wonderful newspaper,” Myler told reporters outside. He held up the final front page, a montage of some of the paper’s best-known splashes and a message saying: “After 168 years, we finally say a sad but very proud farewell to our 7.5 million loyal readers.”
The “Screws”, as the News of the World is affectionately known, made its name with sensational scoops about sex, crime and celebrities. But it has been dogged by allegations of phone hacking for years and claims this week that a murdered girl and the families of dead soldiers were targeted turned the row into a national scandal.
