By Des Freedman, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London

Rupert Murdoch’s decision to shut down the News of the World, the UK’s top-selling newspaper, is extraordinary – not because the closure of a national title is a rare event and not because it signals the admission of liability on the part of the parent company to criminal behaviour. It is extraordinary because hundreds of News International staff are likely to pay the price for the unravelling phone hacking scandal while corporate executives, most notably Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch who apparently spent a matter of minutes in the newsroom announcing the closure, will now try to wash their hands of the whole affair. These are precisely the people who presided over the newsrooms and boardrooms and who were happy to see both circulation and profits increase.