LONDON — Britain’s best-selling Sunday tabloid, the News of the World, signed off with a front page message: “THANK YOU & GOODBYE,” leaving the media establishment reeling from the expanding phone-hacking scandal that brought down the muckraking newspaper after 168 years.
Journalists crafted the newspaper’s obituary before sending the final edition to the printing presses Saturday night, apologizing for letting readers down but not acknowledging recent allegations that staffers paid police for information.
“We praised high standards, we demanded high standards but, as we are now only too painfully aware, for a period of a few years up to 2006 some who worked for us, or in our name, fell shamefully short of those standards,” reads a message posted on the tabloid’s website. “Quite simply, we lost our way. Phones were hacked, and for that this newspaper is truly sorry.”
Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire owns the paper, will arrive in London today on a scheduled visit, a person familiar with his itinerary told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Assistant Police Commissioner John Yates expressed “extreme regret” that he did not act to reopen inquiries into phone hacking two years ago. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he said, “It’s clear I could have done more.”
Editor Colin Myler offered words of encouragement and sympathy to his staff on a “very difficult day.”
“It’s not where we want to be, and it’s not where we deserve to be,” he said in a memo seen by Britain’s Press Association. “But I know we will produce a paper to be proud of.”
