HOW PHONE HACKING SCANDAL ENDS THE REIGN OF POPULAR BRITISH TABLOID NEWSPAPER 

Did you know that the News of the World, the biggest-selling newspaper in the world in the 1950's, ceased publication in 2011 after 168 years in print following revelations of ongoing phone hacking scandal?

The News of the World was a weekly national red top tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one of the highest English-language circulations. The newspaper was originally established as a broadsheet by John Browne Bell, who identified crime, sensation and vice as the themes that would sell most copies.

The newspaper was first published as The News of the World on 1 October 1843, by John Browne Bell in London. Priced at three pence (equal to £1.31 in 2021), even before the repeal of the Stamp Act (1855) or paper duty (1861), it was the cheapest newspaper of its time and was aimed directly at the newly literate working classes. It quickly established itself as a purveyor of titillation, shock, and criminal news. Much of the source material came from coverage of vice prosecutions, including lurid transcripts of police descriptions of alleged brothels, streetwalkers, and "immoral" women.

Before long, the News of the World established itself as the most widely read Sunday paper, with initial sales of around 12,000 copies a week. Sales then suffered because the price was not cut following the abolition of newspaper taxes and the paper was soon no longer among the leading Sunday titles, selling around 30,000 by 1880, a greater number but a smaller proportion, as newspaper sales had grown hugely. 

The title was sold by the Bell family in 1891 to Henry Lascelles Carr who owned the Welsh Western Mail. As editor, he installed his nephew Emsley Carr, who held the post for 50 years. The real engine of the paper's now quick commercial success, however, was George Riddell, who reorganised its national distribution using local agents. By 1912, the circulation was two million and around three million by the early 1920s. Sales reached four million by 1939. This success encouraged other similar newspapers, of which the Sunday People, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror are still being published.

The paper's motto was "All human life is there". The paper's name was linked with sports events as early as 1903 when the golfing tournament The News of the World Match Play Championship began (now under British PGA auspices). The newspaper sponsored the 1924 Women's Olympiad held at Stamford Bridge in London. The News of the World Darts Championship existed from 1927 on a regional basis and became a national tournament from 1947 to 1990. There was also a News of the World Championship in snooker from 1950 to 1959 which eclipsed the official professionals' competition for a number of years. In athletics, the Emsley Carr Mile race was started in 1953 in memory of the former editor, and is still run annually. The paper's Football Annual was a long-standing publication (sponsoring it until 2008), and a Household Guide and Almanac was also published at one time.

By 1950, the News of the World had become the biggest-selling newspaper in the world with a weekly sale of 8,441,000 and individual editions sold over 9 million copies. As with other Sunday newspapers, the News of the World was published on Saturday whenever Christmas Day fell on Sunday. It concentrated in particular on celebrity scoops, gossip and populist news. Its somewhat prurient focus on sex scandals gained it the nickname Screws of the World. In its last decade it had a reputation for exposing celebrities' drug use, sexual peccadilloes, or criminal acts, by using insiders and journalists in disguise to provide video or photographic evidence, and covert phone hacking in ongoing police investigations. Sales averaged 2,812,005 copies per week in October 2010.

From 2006, allegations of phone hacking began to engulf the newspaper. These culminated in the revelation on 4 July 2011 that, nearly a decade earlier, a private investigator hired by the newspaper had intercepted the voicemail of missing British teenager Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. On 21 March 2002, Amanda Jane "Milly" Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home from school and not being seen since walking along Station Avenue in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, that afternoon. Following an extensive search, Dowler's remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Yateley, Hampshire, on 18 September.

Dowler's murder played a significant role in the News International phone hacking scandal. In 2011, reports revealed how journalists at the News of the World newspaper had accessed Dowler's voicemail after she was reported missing, giving her parents false hope she was still alive. The resulting outcry from the British public contributed to the closure of the newspaper and led to a range of investigations and inquiries into phone hacking and media ethics in British media.

Amid a public backlash and the withdrawal of advertising, News International announced the closure of the newspaper on 7 July 2011. The scandal deepened when the paper was alleged to have hacked into the phones of families of British service personnel killed in action. Senior figures on the newspaper have been held for questioning by police investigating the phone hacking and corruption allegations, alongside former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan.

Arrested on 8 July 2011 were former editor Andy Coulson and former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, the latter jailed for phone hacking in 2007. The former executive editor Neil Wallis was arrested on 15 July 2011 and former editor Rebekah Brooks, the tenth person held in custody, on 17 July 2011.

It was announced on 7 July 2011 that, after 168 years in print, the newspaper would print its final edition on 10 July 2011 following revelations of the ongoing phone hacking scandal, with the loss of 200 jobs. The paper announced that all profits from the final edition – 74 pence out of the £1 cover price – would go to "good causes", and advertising space would be given to charities; the remaining 26 pence for each copy went to retailers selling the paper and to wholesalers. Shutting the newspaper cost News Group Newspapers around £240m.

James Murdoch claimed that the company was fully co-operating with ongoing police investigations. The edition of 10 July 2011 of the News of the World carried its final headline, "Thank You & Goodbye", superimposed on top of a collage of past front pages. The back cover featured an out-of-context quote from George Orwell in 1946, and a recent quote from a NotW reader. The final edition also included a 48-page pullout documenting the history of the paper. On 9 July 2011, after production of the final edition wrapped, editor Colin Myler led the staff out of the building, where he held a press conference thanking the staff and its readers, concluding, "In the best tradition, we are going to the pub."

The paper's final, and unattributed, editorial, stated that "Phones were hacked, and for that this newspaper is truly sorry... there is no justification for this appalling wrongdoing." The final edition sold 3.8 million copies, about a million more than usual. There was soon speculation that News International would launch a Sunday edition of The Sun to replace the News of the World, and it did, on 26 February 2012.

Source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World