The tabloid, long known for its dubious undercover reporting techniques, had gravely offended the British public by hacking into the cell phone voicemail of a missing teenage girl, possibly even interfering with the police investigation into her murder.A report from the AP:
What was an acceptable, if illegal, tactic used to gather scoops on drug-using celebrities, philandering politicians or cheating film stars suddenly became completely unacceptable when missing children, the relatives of soldiers slain in Afghanistan or the families of victims of London's 2005 terror attacks were targeted.
And from Don Surber: FUBAR of the century
Ouch.Sir Rupert Murdoch just shut down the News of the World, a London-based weekly newspaper that sells 2.8 million papers each Sunday and is said to have the largest readership of any English newspaper in the world.The reason: Its editors broke the law by hacking the telephones of up to 4,000 people — including murder victims.This is craziness. This is go-to-jail stuff. I cannot imagine any newspaper in the United States — not even the National Enquirer — doing such a thing.Sunday will be its last edition after 168 years, Murdoch’s son, James, announced.The company is eating what looks to be a billion-dollar asset.
