Phone hacking scandal closes News of the World
By Karla Adam and Paul Farhi, Thursday, July 7, 12:57 PM

LONDON — The News of the World, the British tabloid newspaper beset with
a widening phone-hacking scandal, will shut down as result of the
imbroglio, a top executive of its parent company said Thursday.

The News, a feisty, hugely profitable daily that has been continuously
published for 168 years, will cease publishing on Sunday, said James
Murdoch, the son of media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns
the newspaper.

In a statement, James Murdoch, News Corp.’s deputy chief operating
officer, said the newspaper’s reputation has been “sullied by behavior
that was wrong. ... If recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and
has no place in our company.”

News Corp. is Britain’s biggest newspaper publisher, with the News of
the World one of its four major titles. The others are the daily Times
of London, the Sunday Times and the tabloid Sun.

The stunning closure of Britain’s most popular Sunday paper comes as new
allegations about the tabloid’s conduct have come to light during the
past week. In the latest development, relatives of British servicemen
who died in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked by the
paper, which is also accused of intercepting voice mails of the families
of terror victims and a slain 13-year-old girl, the Daily Telegraph
reported Thursday.

The Daily Telegraph said that “personal details of the families of
servicemen who died on the front line” were discovered in records kept
by Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who worked for News of the World.

The revelation raised the possibility that the relatives’ phones had
been hacked. Earlier media reports accused the tabloid of intercepting
the voice mails of celebrities, aides to the royal family, relatives of
those killed in the 2005 terrorists attacks in London and the slain teen.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron called for a public inquiry
into the phone-hacking scandal, telling the House of Commons, “I feel so
appalled by what has happened; murder victims, terrorist victims who
have had their phones hacked is quite disgraceful. That is why it is
important that there is a full police investigation with all the powers
they need.”

Cameron also said there was a need to “improve the ethics and morals of
the press in this country.”
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There's equally good reason to shut down Fox News and these days, the WSJ.