News Of The World Editor Addresses Staff On Last Day Of Paper
Jul. 12 2011, Published 11:28 a.m. ET
by RadarOnline.com Staff
As the News of the World scandal continues to grow in England, we’re getting a rare ‘fly on the wall’ look inside the paper’s newsroom on its emotional final day.
Thanks to a video posted on YouTube, we can watch editor Colin Myler's final address to the staff at the News of the World on Saturday, only hours before the paper published its very last edition in its storied 168-year history.
In the video, Myler -- standing atop a desk -- praises the staff and calls them the best in the business; he also tells them to hold their heads up high as they leave the building for the last time.
Watch the video on RadarOnline.com
As RadarOnline.com has previously reported, several employees of the paper -- including its former editor Andy Coulson -- have been arrested amid a phone hacking scandal and for allegedly bribing police for scoops. With advertisers bolting from the paper and its image irrevocably tarnished, the publication had no choice but to shut down.
Coulson, 43, surrendered to authorities last Friday morning at a south London police station after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Authorities want to know if Coulson was aware phone hacking was taking place at the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid and if he ever personally authorized journalists hacking into the voicemails of thousands of people, including celebrities, a murdered child and the relatives of slain British soldiers.
The investigation is also trying to determine if a handful of police officers were illegally paid for tips by the newspaper during Coulson’s editorship which ran from 2003 until his resignation in 2007.
The arrest is especially embarrassing to British Prime Minister David Cameron who appointed Coulson Downing Street director of communications after last year's general election.
Coulson was forced to resign in January over continuing allegations of phone hacking and the Prime Minister has been widely criticized for the decision to hire him in the first place.
Meanwhile, the scandal keeps growing: on Monday, news emerged that reporters with two other Murdoch-owned papers, the Sun and Sunday Times, had allegedly hacked into the medical and financial records of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The medical records included of Brown's four-year-old son, who has cystic fibrosis. Brown said he wept upon hearing the news.
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