Because I had to: News of the World

We have heard about journalists, paparazzies and tabloids that are willing to cross moral borders just to get their hands on a juicy story that will sell. The consequences have many times been serious, for example princess Diana’s death. The British newspaper “News of the World” has once more shown the world how dirty the digging for stories can become.

News of the World used to be the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, selling almost 3 million copies every week. The newspaper was founded in 1843, but had to shut down after 168 years of publishing when the police revealed that the paper had hacked more than 4000 phones and bribed police officers.

It was the kidnapping and murder of thirteen year old Milly Dowler in 2002 that started it all. Milly’s family sued News of the World several years later, when it was revealed that the newspaper had hacked Milly’s phone, read and deleted messages after her disappearance. The paper had let the family believe that Milly was still alive by deleting messages to make place for new ones, their action was described as evil and inhumane. After this scandalous exposure the accusations against the paper became many. News of the World had not only hacked into celebrities’ and the British royal family’s phones, but also the phones belonging to families of soldiers who had died in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had bugged the phones of the ones who were left behind after the terror bombing in London 7^th of July 2005. News of the World made up their own news.

On the 7^th of July this year James Murdoch, the owner of the tabloid, made public that the edition about to be published some days later would be their last one. - News of the World’s mission was to make people responsible for their actions, but failed to do so for themselves, says James Murdoch. The staff at News of the World will be brought to court. It is still unknown what the tabloid will be punished for and how, but as the list of crimes and violations of individual rights is long, they probably won’t get away easy.