The last edition of the News of the World is understood to have sold more than four million copies yesterday – with some £3m of revenue set to go to good causes as a result.
According to The Times, the News of the World typically took around £3m revenue per issue making some £300,000 profit on sales which had been running at around 2.6 million a week. Many newsagents yesterday had sold out by around 8am of the souvenir edition which contained no paid-for ads, but instead promoted a number of charities.
Meanwhile, today News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch was in Wapping, having flown from the USA yesterday, seeking to limit further damage to his media empire from the phone-hacking scandal.
Media scrutiny is shifting to those executives who gave assurances to MPs in 2009 that News International had investigated phone-hacking at the News of the World and could find no evidence that the practice had spread beyond jailed royal editor Clive Goodman.
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These included former executive chairman of News International Les Hinton (now chief executive of Dow Jones), then editor of the News of the World Colin Myler and head of legal for News International Tom Crone.
The Sunday Times yesterday revealed that nine journalists and three police officers were likely to face charges in connection with phone-hacking and police corruption.
It reported that six News of the World journalists had acted as ‘gatekeepers’to Glenn Mulcaire – the private investigator employed by the paper who was jailed for phone-hacking in 2007.
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Crucially, the Sunday Times has reported the existence of an internal report commissioned by News International executives in 2007 which reportedly uncovered evidence that hacking was more widespread at the paper than previously thought.
Yesterday Rupert Murdoch was photographed leaving his London home with News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.
When asked by reporters what his priority was, he replied, pointing at her: ‘This one.”
According to reports, Brooks is this week expected to face questioning from police about the phone-hacking affair.
So far journalists have been identify a 63-year-old man arrested in Surrey on Saturday night in connection with the matter.
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