Timelines: What internationally known tabloid newspaper published its first edition on Oct. 1, 1843?

Saturday, October 1, 2011

THEN

October 1, 1843, the first edition of tabloid newspaper News of the World is published in London. News of the World’s first publisher is John Browne Bell. Even at the outset, the newspaper’s emphasis on sensational journalism is apparent.

As the least expensive paper on newsstands at the time, News of the World quickly achieves staggering commercial success. By 1880 it is selling approximately 30,000 copies a week. Forty years later, having added an emphasis on sports to its content, the paper’s circulation reaches more than three million.

By its peak in the 1950s, News of the World editions regularly sell approximately eight million copies. In later years, News of the World boasts the highest-selling Sunday newspaper in the English-speaking world, with 7.4 million readers each week.

NOW

Last July, News of the World closed its doors amidst a highly publicized phone-hacking scandal. Owned by News Group Newspapers which is part of News International, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, News of the World’s sales averaged 2.8 million copies per week prior to its shut down.

Accusations that journalists paid police officers and hacked into the voicemails of murder victims and relatives of U.K. soldiers killed in action, rocked the newspaper prompting a shut down and testimony before British parliament from the paper’s leaders Rupert and son James Murdoch. Both James and Rupert Murdoch denied any knowledge of the illegal activity.