Passionate readers trooped into corner shops on Sunday to pick up the last edition of the 168-year -old 'News of the World' tabloid, as Rupert Murdoch arrived here to take charge of his UK media empire amid a controversy that his company used illegal news gathering practices.
Priced at one pound, the collector's edition described itself on the cover as 'The world's greatest newspaper, 1843-2011,' and signed off with the simple words: 'Thank you & goodbye' against a collage of its well known past front pages.
"THANK YOU AND GOOD BYE," the front page headline in the last edition said today, days after Rupert's son James Murdoch, Chairman of News International who owned the tabloid, decided to shut down the paper in the face of the raging phone hacking scandal, where money was swapped for scoops.
There were tears and hugs as journalists left their office last night after producing the final edition of what is described as an "astonishing paper (that) became part of the fabric of Britain, as central to Sunday as a roast dinner."
Rupert, 80, is expected to deal with the crisis prompted by latest revelations about News of the World's hacking into the phones of victims of crime and terrorism, and kin of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, for information to be used in sensational stories in the tabloid.
He has condemned as 'deplorable and unacceptable' the allegations that the paper hacked into mobile phones of relatives of murdered children and victims of the London bombings.
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