Death of a Century Old Legacy

Death of a Century-Old Legacy

The News of the World magazine had been in circulation since 1843 and widely considered the best English-speaking newspaper in the world. At the time the News of the World closed their doors, they had a circulation of more than two and a half million subscribers. In the Digital Age that type of circulation number was unheard of because many more people started to find their news on their smart phones or other online mediums. The foundation started to crack amidst rumblings of unethical behavior by the journalists on how they obtained their information. The news world had become almost as cloak and dagger as many James Bond movies shown during the times. Everyone was looking to crack the next big news story, have their name on the top of the byline and gain media notoriety and fame based on his or her breakthrough of news and information. Many believe that what the News of the World did was unethical and they deserved to be shut down; meanwhile there are others within the journalistic industry that feel this was just a product of the ways the news was being gathered at the time.

The News of the World newspaper got their start with a focus of being a newspaper for the hardworking Englishmen who were literate. The paper was started by John Browne Bell in 1843 and was widely considered the cheapest newspaper around. It sensationalized many news stories and the salacious nature of the reporting made it even more popular. It was not until George Riddell changed the distribution methods that the newspaper was able to take off. During the 1950s the News of the World was read by more than nine million people every day. The downfall of the publication happened in 1969 when Rupert Murdoch's News LTD. Organization bought the newspaper. This purchase was not well received by the British community as many believed that the newspaper should stay in the hands of an Englishman. In 1984 the last major change of the newspaper came to when the print of the paper stopped looking like a newspaper and began to look like a tabloid. This heightened the sensational headlines that the News of the World had become famous for.

In August 2006, News of the World Royal Correspondent, Clive Goodwin, was arrested for hiring a private investigator to intercept the voicemails of Royal staff (Day, 2006). Scotland Yard began an investigation, while News International, News of the World's parent company, told everyone that Clive Goodwin was acting on his own, against company policy. Investigators completed their review of the case and confirmed News International's claims that Goodwin acted on his own (Rusbridger, 2011). News of the World's editor, Andy Coulson resigned just hours after Goodwin's sentencing in 2007 denying any involvement in the scandal. In line to be the next Prime Minister, David Cameron, names Andy Coulson as Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. Naming Coulson to such a high position within the Conservative Party drew the attention of journalists who quickly uncovered a connection between Cameron and the News of the World hacking scandal. This ultimately would bring about the end of Cameron's political career and destroyed his chances of becoming Prime Minister.

(Photograph of David Cameron and Andy Coulson, Retrieved 11 November 2012)

In 2009 investigative journalist Nick Davies approached his editor and stated that he had source claiming James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch owner of News International, had just paid $1 million to cover up evidence of criminal activities.(Rusbridger, 2011) Continuing the investigation The Guardian discovered that phone hacking was not unique to Clive Goodwin at News of the World. Following this the Director of Public Prosecutions assembled an investigative team to revisit the evidence (Leigh & Davies, 2009). This investigation, only hours long, also came to the conclusion that these were rogue journalists and did not represent a culture of criminal behavior at News of the World (Rusbridger, 2011).

(Photograph of James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch, Retrieved 11 September 2012)

The investigation gradually fell out of the spot light. Then in July 2011 Guardian newspaper reported that employees of News of the World hacked into the voicemails of missing school girl Milly Dowler who was kidnapped in March 2002. The Guardian revealed that News of the World staff accessed the girl's voicemail account and then deleted messages so they could listen to the next ones. This activity gave Milly's family false hope, believing that she may still be alive because of the deleted messages. Investigators believed News of the World did the same to the parents of two 10-year-old girls who were abducted and murdered in August 2002 (Davies & Hill, 2011). These acts above all others caught the public's ire and initiated full Parliamentary reviews and other criminal investigations. As the months went on investigators quickly discovered that phone hacking was a routine tool for journalists at the news company. They had used it on thousands of victims,