Murdoch to shut tabloid after hacking scandal

Rupert Murdoch, Australian-American media mogul and the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, arrives at the Sun Valley Inn before the start of the second day of the Allen and Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho July 7, 2011.

Agence France-Presse:

London - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch dramatically ordered the closure of the News of the World tabloid Thursday as a spiralling scandal over illegal phone hacking threatened to taint the rest of his business empire.

The axing of the 168-year-old tabloid, which will print its last edition on Sunday, comes after it faced claims that it hacked the phones of a murdered girl, dead soldiers' families, celebrities, politicians and royals.

"Having consulted senior colleagues, I have decided that we must take further decisive action with respect to the paper," said Murdoch's son James, chairman of News International, the British newspaper wing of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

"This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World," he added.

The final edition would be free of advertising and any proceeds from the paper would go "to causes and charities that wish to expose their good works to our millions of readers," he said in a statement.

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