Editorial: Tabloid's brand fatally damaged

This morning (NZ time), the presses roll on the final issue of the News of the World, Britain's biggest-selling Sunday paper.

Its demise will not be widely mourned in the UK where the public has been baying for blood.

The paper's brand has been fatally damaged by revelations of cellphone hacking, which extended to journalists clearing the voicemail of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, who would later be found murdered.

It was a new ethical nadir in the British tabloid media, whose history is littered with low points. But Rupert Murdoch's decision to pull the plug was transparently cynical and self-serving.

He wants to rescue his stalled bid to buy outright the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, which is bound to face loud opposition after recent revelations of what those on his payroll did.

But in pursuit of that goal, he is happy to sacrifice a masthead and its staff, almost all of whom were not working there when the hacking was done, or even implicated in the vile actions.

The celebrity world was the NOTW's natural hunting ground and it has been interesting to see B-listers in this neck of the woods suggesting that it was good to see "tabloid scum" getting their comeuppance. Not only do they miss the point (those responsible have long gone) but they apparently discern some link between the NOTW and publications in this country.

The link is hard to see. This newspaper may have said a few disobliging things about certain celebs in the past seven years, but plenty that the same attention-loving darlings have lapped up and tweeted.

We've made mistakes too. There have been people on our staff who have let us - and you - down. But we've been happy to put our hand up and call those responsible to account for their actions.

Newspapers here don't plumb the depths where Fleet St's redtops swim. We'll keep it that way - because we know that's what you expect.