In Rupert Murdoch's world, you should always expect the unexpected (not to mention ulterior motives)

To most everyone's amazement, ownership has responded to the News of the World scandal at Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper by shutting it down.

by Ken

I'm sure you've heard about the incredible story in the U.K., where it was discovered that a reporter for the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World hacked into the cell phone of a kidnapped girl and tampered with messages, and then it was learned that quite a lot more of such hacking may have gone on.

Well, trust that in MurdochWorld you can expect the unexpected. Word just in:

WRAPUP 3-Hack job! Murdoch axes paper to save deal

Thu Jul 7, 2011 4:40pm EDT

* After scandal, media mogul says News of the World to close

* Phone hacking allegations had alienated readers, lost advertisers

* Politicians across board critical, but have ties to media group

* Government denies delaying approval of BSkyB takeover bid (Adds details)

By Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan

LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - In an astonishing response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch shut down the News of the World on Thursday, Britain's biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain's war dead, the tabloid haemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch's hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB .

Yet no one, least of all the paper's 200 staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron's long and controversial career.

"News International today announces that this Sunday, 10 July 2011, will be the last issue of the News of the World," read the preamble to a statement from Murdoch's son James, who chairs the British newspaper arm of News Corp .

Staff gasped and some sobbed as they were told of the planned closure of the 168-year-old title, the profits of whose final edition will go to charity.

"No one had any inkling at all that this was going to happen," said Jules Stenson, features editor of News of the World, outside the News International offices.

It seemed a bold gamble, sacrificing a historic title that is suffering from the long-term decline of print newspapers to stave off a threat to plans to expand in television: "Talk about a nuclear option," said a "gobsmacked" Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University. . . .

MEANWHILE BACK HOME, AT THE PRESIDENT'S
TWITTER "TOWN HALL," EVERYONE LOOKS BAD

This is one of those stories where everyone comes out looking pretty squalid. It starts with the president for engineering the silly stunt of his Twitter "town hall," and it comes back to him for apparently not having anything useful to say in response to the question, however it came to be asked.

But mostly it shines a light on the swamp critters manning the barricades for American business and those of the Republican Party leadership. Really now, is there anyone who cares less about the fate of small business than the plutocrats who now pull the strings of the thugs and dingbats of the Right? Does anyone believe that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor gives the tiniest damn beyond what he can extract for political gain? Or, for that matter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Do small businessman not understand how much contempt Chamber CEO and President Tom Donohue has for them?

Al Kamen posted this item this afternoon washingtonpost.com's "44" blog:

Did Obama Twitter townhall lure small business owners?

By Al Kamen

Did Republicans succeed in steering the first presidential Twitter townhall to questions that would put President Obama on the spot?

There are reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Hill Republicans tried, apparently with little success, to do just that.

But at one point, Twitter co-founder and moderator Jack Dorsey said this:

“Speaking of startups, there’s a ton of questions about small businesses and how they affect job creation. This one comes from Neal: ‘Small biz create jobs. What incentives are you willing to support to improve small business growth?’

Obama finessed the question. But “tons of questions?” Do the hard-working small-business owners, the drivers of the economy, folks such as the boutique trial lawyers , the personal-injury lawyers, the doctors, the accountants, the dentists and the bodega owners, really afford to waste time in midday tweeting questions to Obama?

Then we recalled an e-mail we got at the beginning of the townhall from Brian Patrick, communications director for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), citing a Wall Street Journal blast at Obama’s efforts for small businesses and with a subject line: “#AskObama: What about small business?”

We e-mailed but the modest Patrick said he couldn’t claim credit for Neal’s question.

Still. . .

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