The Drum Leader: News of the World closure

Yes, the strategy is high risk and may in the long term be deemed a mistake. But it is the decisiveness of the move I respect. Few organisations - with PLC boards, non-exec directors and legions of that type of shareholder who demand relentless year on year growth - could have made this type of decision.

Adding a certain symmetry to the move is the fact, of course, that the News of the World was Murdoch's very first national paper, when he bought the dull broadsheet after a tussle with Robert Maxwell.

It could be argued that this was the foundation stone of the empire we know today. And now, all these years on - with his son James officially at the helm, and Murdoch in his twilight years - he has moved to close the paper.

It does show the old dog may be advanced in years, but is not stuck in his ways. Cynics may say the closure is simply the spinning of a streamlining that News International was planning anyway.

But that does not make the move any less impressive. Crisis PRs will admire the fact that he has at least given the company a chance of defusing a row that may have derailed their BSkyB takeover; which at the end of the day is far more important to the company than its newspaper business.

It will also, perish the thought, allow them to take the high ground if and when the scandals spread to other newspaper publishers. Will they be as quick to close offending titles?

Nobody can condone the antics of the phone hackers, and any criticism of a management culture that allowed such practices to thrive is well founded.

But in the face of such adversity the Murdoch team have shown that trait which is so lacking in much of corporate life today.

Leadership. Love or hate them, you at least have to admire them for that.