News of the World shut down amid scandal

LONDON (AP):

The Murdoch media empire unexpectedly killed off the muckraking News of the World tabloid yesterday after a public backlash over the illegal guerrilla tactics it used to expose the rich, the famous and the royal and become Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper.

The abrupt decision stunned the paper's staff of 200, shocked the world's most competitive news town and ignited speculation that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp plans to rebrand the tabloid under a new name in a bid to prevent a phone-hacking scandal from wrecking its bid for a far more lucrative television deal.

"This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World," James Murdoch, son of the media magnate, announced in a memo to staff.

Mushrooming allegations of criminal behaviour at the paper - including bribing police officers for information and hacking into the voicemail messages of celebrities, politicians and the families of murder victims - cast a dark cloud over the News Corp's multibillion-pound plan to take full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting, an operation far more valuable than all of Murdoch's British newspapers.

Faced with growing public outrage, political condemnation and fleeing advertisers, Murdoch stopped the presses on the 168-year-old newspaper, whose lurid scoops have ranged from Sarah Ferguson's claims she could provide access to ex-husband Prince Andrew to motor racing chief Max Mosley's penchant for sadomasochism.