News International phone hacking scandal

The News International phone-hacking scandal is a controversy involving the now defunct News of the World and other British newspapers published by News International, a subsidiary of the then News Corporation. Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Whilst investigations conducted from 2005 to 2007 appeared to show that the paper's phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family, in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings had also been hacked. The resulting public outcry against News Corporation and its owner Rupert Murdoch led to several high-profile resignations, including that of Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton, News International legal manager Tom Crone and chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Paul Stephenson, also resigned. Advertiser boycotts led to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011, after 168 years of publication. Continued public pressure shortly forced News Corporation to cancel its proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

News of the World

The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English-language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English-language circulations. It was originally established as a broadsheet by John Browne Bell, who identified crime, sensation and vice as the themes that would sell copies. The Bells sold to Henry Lascelles Carr in 1891; in 1969 it was bought from the Carrs by Rupert Murdoch's media firm News Limited. Reorganised into News International, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation, it was transformed into a tabloid in 1984 and became the Sunday sister paper of The Sun. The newspaper concentrated on celebrity-based scoops and populist news. Its fondness for sex scandals gained it the nicknames News of the Screws and Screws of the World. It had a reputation for exposing national or local celebrities' drug use, sexual peccadilloes, or criminal acts, setting up insiders and journalists in disguise to provide either video or photographic evidence, and phone hacking in ongoing police investigations. Sales averaged 2,812,005 copies per week in October 2010.

News of the World (album)

News of the World is the sixth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released in 1977. Containing the hit songs "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Spread Your Wings", it went 4x platinum in the United States, and achieved high certifications around the world, selling over 7 million copies.

News of the World was the second album to be produced solely by the band (the first being A Day at the Races) and recorded at Sarm West and Wessex Studios, London and co-produced and engineered by Mike Stone.

Production

Having received some criticism that their first completely self-produced project, A Day at the Races, was a "boring" album, Queen decided to shift their musical focus towards the mainstream but remain as the producers of the next album.

After completing the A Day at the Races tour, the quartet re-entered the studio to begin work on their sixth studio offering in July 1977, enlisting Mike Stone as assistant producer at the Basing Street and Wessex Studios in London. They scaled down their complex arrangements and focused on a "rootsier" sound (as Brian May put it). However the staple of the Queen sound, multi-tracked harmonies and guitar orchestrations, still exist on this album, albeit a bit more subtly. News of the World shows Queen's songwriting less dominated by May and Freddie Mercury, with Roger Taylor and John Deacon composing two songs each. The group completed recording and production of the album two months later in September and released the album on 28 October 1977.

News of the World (song)

"News of the World" was a single by British group The Jam released on 11 March 1978. It reached No. 27 in the UK Singles Chart. "Aunties And Uncles (Impulsive Youths)" and "Innocent Man" appeared as its B-side. The title refers to the then extant British tabloid newspaper, News of the World.

It is not included on any of the band's studio albums and featured the band's bass player Bruce Foxton on lead vocals. It was also the only Jam single to be written by Foxton apart from "Funeral Pyre", which was co-written by all three Jam members: Weller/Foxton/Buckler.

The video for the single was filmed on the roof of Battersea Power Station in London.

The song is used as the theme tune for the British satirical panel game Mock the Week.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Bruce Foxton, except where noted. 

References