News Of The World Staffers Take Parting Shot At Management In Final Crossword Puzzle

from the parting-shots dept

Mon, Jul 11th 2011 10:06pm — Mike Masnick

With the closure of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, due to the ongoing criminal investigations and revelations of highly questionable practices involving spying on private citizens and hacking into their voicemails, many people did wonder if the staff would have any sort of message for their bosses in the final edition. Apparently former editor Rebekah Brooks was adamant that staffers not mock them in the final edition, but she failed:

"Rebekah tried everything to stop the staff having the last word and she utterly failed.

"She brought in two very senior Sun journalists to go though every line on every page with a fine tooth comb to ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive.

"But they failed and we�ve had the last laugh.�

How? They hid it in the puzzles section. Apparently, a bunch of clues for the various puzzles were not-so-subtle references to the whole thing, including "criminal enterprise," "catastrophe," "stench," and "racket."

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Filed Under: crossword, news of the world, rebekah brooks
Companies: news corp.

16 Comments

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The eejit (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 11:03pm

Well? What do you expect? They were knowingly sold out by higher-ups for a number of years, and deliberately misled investigators on numerous occasions since 2007, when this first fully broke.

Heads should roll. Literally.
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mike allen (profile), 11 Jul 2011 @ 11:04pm

Good for them.I repeat the one question no one has asked news international HOW FAR HOW DEEP? we havehad one of the "victims" saying that the hacking was printed in the New york times.
referance http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14090499
So is the whole of news international corrupt.
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 12:52am

Re:
It'a also
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 2:20am

Re: Re:
Damnit, TD ate my comment.

It's also relevant that the reason given for the investigation not being re-opened at the start of last year was because an election was being called, and "[He] didn't want to win an election by using low points-scoring."
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 2:26am

Re:
Rupert Murdock owns the New York Times?
Quick someone call the; The New York Times Company and inform them that they have been indentured to the lord of darkness.
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Killercool (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 2:35am

Re: Re:
Now I know critical reading skills are not your strong point, but that was never said. The conclusion implied that the offending materials were shared between papers, showing a disregard for legality by publishing them.
As naive as it may be, I'm inclined to assume that simple good faith was involved; in other words, they (NYT) didn't think their peers were pulling shenanigans.
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mike allen (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 2:59am

Re: Re: Re:
thank you for making my point to the AC for me.
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mike allen (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 3:04am

latest on this is.....
Gordon Brown (former british Prime mnister has stated that "the sunday times used known criminals to gather information on him"
Murdoch has asked G.Brown for proof.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14119225
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James (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 4:09am

What I have never understood is why anyone would ever read the News of The World anyway? The mere fact that the title of the news paper is surrounded by a red box should immediately tell you its going to have POOR standards in every department :P
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Nelson, 12 Jul 2011 @ 4:36am

( harmonica )
Ha ha
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out_of_the_blue, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:26am

Oooh, clues in a crossword! That'll learn Murdoch.
And what's he going to do? Fire them from a paper than no longer exists? -- I'm all for resistance to tyrants and Murdochs, but this is just a few spiteful words by low-level conspirators after the operation was exposed.
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abc gum, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:31am

Re: Oooh, clues in a crossword! That'll learn Murdoch.
"And what's he going to do?"

"She brought in two very senior Sun journalists to go though every line on every page with a fine tooth comb to ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive."
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Trails (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:10am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sometimes you have to be a bit more explicit. Sometimes you have to explain with puppets. Depends on the audience really.
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JayTee (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:20am

Re: Re: Oooh, clues in a crossword! That'll learn Murdoch.
and the funny part of this is that "two very senior Sun journalists" couldn't do the crossword puzzle! Says it all about the level of intelligence at the Sun :D
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 8:18am

Re: Oooh, clues in a crossword! That'll learn Murdoch.
Doy uo recall how Galileo got his messages out in spite of being watched all the time and having people scoured?

Through paper. This is exactly the same principle.
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turbokitty (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 10:04am

Crossword Creativity
Proving there is intelligent life yet standing, among journalists, given half the chance to prove themselves =)
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