Phone hacking

James Murdoch has announced that Sunday's edition of the British tabloid News of the World will be its last.

"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account," the deputy chief operating officer of News Cooperation told staff. "But it failed when it came to itself."

Murdoch said that all the revenue from the final edition would go to good causes.

The News of the World is Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper, read by some 7.5 million people with sales of 2.6 million. The paper was first published 168 years ago.

Affront to war dead

The paper has been at the center of the phone-hacking scandal, which deepened Thursday with claims that tabloid journalists listened to voice mail messages from relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

News International, the parent company of the News of the World, said it would be "absolutely appalled and horrified" if the allegations were true. The Telegraph newspaper alleged that the phone numbers of British soldiers were found in the files of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who has already been jailed for phone hacking.

Police apparently contacted servicemen's families to warn them that their phones may have been hacked.

Rose Gentle, mother of fusilier Gordon Gentle, who was killed by a roadside bomb in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2004, told the BBC she was "totally disgusted" by the allegations.

"I'd never buy that paper again, if this is true, they need to be brought to justice for this, they need to pay for this," she said.

"This is most clearly a terrible, terrible abuse of journalistic freedom and it's a complete forgetting of the fact that with freedoms come responsibilities," journalism expert Julian Petley of London's Brunel University told Deutsche Welle.

Deepening scandal

The revelations caused outrage about the way British tabloids gather information and prompted an emergency debate in parliament on Wednesday.

The main allegation is that journalists, or investigators hired by them, hacked into mobile phone voice mailboxes to listen to messages left for celebrities and politicians.

The disclosure that the phone hacking also involved victims of crime led to a public outcry after it emerged that a private detective had hacked into voice mail messages left on the mobile phone of a missing schoolgirl in 2002. The detective apparently listened to messages left by her anguished relatives, and may even have deleted some messages to make room in her inbox, potentially giving her family false hope that she was still alive. The girl had in fact already been murdered.

Since then, the list of those whose phones may have been hacked has continued to grow and the story has dominated the front pages of every major British newspaper.

The list includes victims of the July 7, 2005 London bombings, when Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people, and the parents of Madeleine McCann, a British girl who disappeared on a family holiday in Portugal four years ago.

Crisis for Murdoch

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday he was "revolted" by the allegations and backed calls for an inquiry.

But he resisted calls to prevent Murdoch from buying out BskyB, a news and entertainment broadcaster, in which Murdoch has a minority stake.

Richard Lance Keeble, acting head of Lincoln School of Journalism, has been highly critical of the Murdoch empire.

"The extent of monopoly there is completely unacceptable, particularly given the ruthless way [Murdoch] runs these operations," Keeble told Deutsche Welle.

Murdoch said he found the allegations of hacking, and reports that journalists also bought information from police, "deplorable and unacceptable" and that his company would "fully and proactively cooperate with the police."

"There is a seductive quality to scandal and smear," Keeble explained. "But at the same time we're also very critical of it and that ambivalance is exploited very cleverly by the tabloid press ... I think advertisers should think seriously about boycotting newspapers that don't live up to high standards. I don't think we should rely on government and inquiries. We have the power as individuals to affect history."

Should heads roll?

Cameron refused to back calls for the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International who was editor of the News of the World when the hacking allegedly took place.

In an e-mail to staff on Tuesday, Brooks said she was "sickened" by the new allegations and said it was "inconceivable" she had sanctioned the hacking.

The News of the World's royal correspondent and Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for hacking into the phones of royal aides.

After campaigning by celebrities and politicians who suspected they too had been spied on, police launched a new inquiry in January.

Author: Joanna Impey
Editor: Martin Kuebler