More than 150 years after London's Fleet Street opened its doors to Britain's media industry, leading publishers and newspaper editors on Wednesday waved goodbye to the infamous “street of shame” at a special thanksgiving service.

Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who spurred the departure by moving his News International titles to east London in 1986, quoted Ecclesiasticus “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us” to a congregation including his eldest son, Lachlan, deputy chief operating officer of the News Corp media empire.