After getting entangled in a very nasty phone-hacking scandal … News of the World printed their very last newspaper Sunday (Jul 10) with the headline “Thank You & Goodbye.”
In case you aren’t familiar with the story, News of the World (a British tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp — the same people who used to own MySpace), used private investigators to hack into voicemails from various celebrities and public figures of interest to the newspaper.
The paper’s royal editor Clive Goodman and his associates were arrested, and later charged, in 2006 on phone hacking allegations made by the British monarchy in 2005. Goodman was jailed for 4 months in 2007, while his PI Glenn Mulcaire received a 6-month prison sentence.
Further revelations emerged regarding the extent of the phone hacking in 2009 and 2010 … and in July of 2009, The UK’s Guardian (a rival paper) made a series of allegations of wider illegal phone hacking activities amongst NOTW editors, which sparked legal action form a number of celebrities, including actress Sienna Miller.
Fast-forward to 2011, and the paper has done away with the scandal completely by simply folding.
