Jump to content

The Sun (United Kingdom): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
ClueBot (talk | contribs)
1,596,818 edits
m Reverting possible vandalism by Ajp2000 to version by Rudget. False positive? Report it. Thanks, User:ClueBot. (431820) (Bot)
Ajp2000 (talk | contribs)
62 edits
mNo edit summary
Line 95: Line 95:
===Positive impact===
===Positive impact===


The [[Band Aid 20]] charity pop single, which raised around £15million for Africa after its release in 2004, was the idea of a Sun executive, who persuaded Sir [[Bob Geldof]] to become involved and gave the recording and release of the record blanket coverage. The campaign won the paper a British Press Award in 2005. The single was a re-recording of Band Aid’s 1984 original Do They Know It’s Christmas and featured, among others, [[Bono]], [[Sir Paul McCartney]] and members of [[Radiohead]] and [[Coldplay]].
The [[Band Aid 20]] charity pop single, which raised around £3million for Africa after its release in 2004, was the idea of a Sun executive, who persuaded Sir [[Bob Geldof]] to become involved and gave the recording and release of the record blanket coverage. The campaign won the paper a British Press Award in 2005. The single was a re-recording of Band Aid’s 1984 original Do They Know It’s Christmas and featured, among others, [[Bono]], [[Sir Paul McCartney]] and members of [[Radiohead]] and [[Coldplay]].


The [[Help for Heroes]] charity, championed by The Sun, raised £7million in the eight months to June 2008 for injured British servicemen and women – a record for a start-up British charity. The campaign won two British Press Awards in 2008.
The [[Help for Heroes]] charity, championed by The Sun, raised £7million in the eight months to June 2008 for injured British servicemen and women – a record for a start-up British charity. The campaign won two British Press Awards in 2008.

Revision as of 17:34, 3 July 2008

The Sun
File:Sun front.jpg
The Sun in January 2005, featuring Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi official.
TypeDaily newspaper available Monday to Saturday except Christmas Day.
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)News International
EditorRebekah Wade
Founded1964
Political alignmentRight-wing and Populist
HeadquartersWapping, London
Websitewww.thesun.co.uk
This article is about the British tabloid newspaper. For the solar star, see Sun. For other uses, see Sun (disambiguation).

The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland with the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at an average of 3,121,000 copies a day between January and June 2008 and with a daily readership of approximately 7,900,000, of which 56 per cent are male and 44 per cent female. By circulation it is the eighth biggest newspaper in any language in the world, one place behind its Sunday stablemate the News of the World, although their circulations are close and these places were briefly reversed during May 2008. It reaches 2.9 million readers in the ABC1 demographic and 5.0 million in the C2DE demographic, compared to the 1.5 and 0.1 million respectively of its upmarket stablemate The Times. It is published by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. [1][2]

History

It was a broadsheet with a logo featuring an orange disc. The relaunched paper did not live up to IPC's expectations, however. Circulation continued to decline, and it was soon losing even more money than the Herald had lost. In 1969, IPC decided to throw in the towel. Robert Maxwell offered to take it off their hands and retain its commitment to the Labour party, but said there would be redundancies, especially among the printers. Rupert Murdoch had already bought the News of the World, a sensationalist Sunday newspaper, the previous year, and he was in the position of seeing the printing presses in the basement of the old Bouverie Street building sit idle for six days in the week. Seizing the opportunity to increase his presence on Fleet Street, he made an agreement with the print unions, promising fewer redundancies if he got the paper. He assured IPC that he would publish a "straightforward, honest newspaper" which would continue to support Labour. IPC, under pressure from the unions, rejected Maxwell's offer, and Murdoch bought the paper for £800,000, to be paid in instalments. [3] He would later remark: "I am constantly amazed at the ease with which I entered British newspapers." [4]

The early Murdoch years

Murdoch appointed Larry Lamb as his editor. Lamb was scathing in his opinion of the Mirror, the paper where he had recently been senior sub-editor. He shared Murdoch's view that the measure of a paper's quality was best measured by its sales, and he regarded the Mirror as overstaffed, and primarily aimed at an aging readership. Lamb hastily recruited a staff of about 125 reporters, who were mostly selected for their availability rather than their ability. [5] This was about a quarter of what the Mirror currently employed, and Murdoch had to draft in staff on loan from his Australian papers. Murdoch immediately relaunched The Sun as a tabloid, and ran it as a sister paper to the News of the World [6]. The Sun used the same printing presses, and the two papers were now managed together at senior executive levels.

The Sun was launched as a rival to The Daily Mirror, which it copied in several ways. It was the same size and its masthead had the name in white on a red rectangle of the same colour as the Daily Mirror. The front page had the same general style and it could easily be picked up by mistake. Sports news was on the back pages in both. The text was written for a slightly lower reading age. It rapidly overtook the Mirror in sales to become the fastest growing daily.[7] Inside the Mirror's "Lively Letters" was matched by "Liveliest Letters", and the comic strip "Garth" by a comic strip "Scarth" featuring a frequently naked woman.

Later strips included Striker, set in the world of football; Axa, about a barbarian woman in a post-apocalyptic world; Hagar the Horrible, the comic adventures of a home-loving Viking warrior; and George and Lynne, a domestic gag-a-day strip about a couple and their friends and neighbours. George and Lynne were normally pictured naked but discreetly covered.

From the start, sex was used as an important element in marketing the paper. While the Daily Mirror frequently featured a pin-up photograph of a young woman in bikini or lingerie, ostensibly as a fashion item, The Sun dispensed with the excuses; it featured what were openly glamour photographs of women, wearing fewer clothes than their Mirror counterparts. After a year, this became the regular topless picture known as the Page Three Girl. Features such as 'Do Men Still Want To Marry A Virgin?' and 'The Way into a Woman's Bed' began to appear. Serialisations of erotic books became a staple; the publication of extracts from The Sensuous Woman, at a time when copies of the book were being seized by Customs, produced a scandal and a gratifying amount of free publicity.[8]

Despite the industrial relations of the 1970s - the so-called "Spanish practices" of the print unions - The Sun was very profitable, enabling Murdoch to expand to the United States from 1973.

Politically, The Sun in the early Murdoch years remained nominally Labour, although in the two 1974 elections, the paper's attitude to Labour was "agnostic", according to Roy Greenslade in Press Gang (2003). The then editor, Larry Lamb, was originally from a Labour background, with a socialist upbringing. Deputy editor Bernard Shrimsley was a middle-class uncommitted Conservative.

The Sun changed tack and caused a small stir by endorsing Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 general election with the unequivocal front page headline of May 3, VOTE TORY THIS TIME.

Thatcherite king of the tabloids

In the meantime, The Sun had overtaken the Daily Mirror in circulation by 1978, partly thanks to extensive advertising on ITV, voiced by actor Christopher Timothy. From 1981, The Sun used Bingo as a promotional tool to increase its circulation still further.

In 1986 Murdoch shut down the Bouverie Street premises of The Sun and News of the World, and moved operations to the new Wapping complex in East London, blocking union activity and greatly reducing the number of staff employed to print the papers; a year-long picket by sacked workers was eventually defeated (see Wapping dispute).

The Sun under editor Kelvin MacKenzie was a very strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher and her policies, and maintained its support for the Conservatives when she was succeeded by John Major in 1990. On the day of the general election of April 9, 1992, its front-page headline, encapsulating its antipathy towards the Labour leader Neil Kinnock, read "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights". Two days later The Sun was so convinced its front page had swung a close election for the Conservatives it declared "It's The Sun Wot Won It".

Circulation peak

Between 1994 and 1996, The Sun's circulation peaked. Its highest average sale was in the week ending July 16, 1994, when the daily figure was 4,305,957. The highest ever one-day sale was on November 18, 1995 (4,889,118), although the cover price had been cut to 10p. The highest ever one-day sale at full price was on March 30, 1996 (4,783,359). In common with almost all other UK national newspapers, the circulation has since declined.

The Sun goes Labour again

The Sun switched support to Labour on March 18, 1997, six weeks before the landslide General Election victory which saw Labour leader Tony Blair become Prime Minister. Its front page headline read THE SUN BACKS BLAIR and its front page editorial made clear that while it still had reservations about some New labour policies it believed Blair to be "the breath of fresh air this great country needs." John Major's Conservatives, it said, were "tired, divided and rudderless". The paper has supported Labour in both the subsequent two elections, in 2001 and 2005, despite being a persistent critic of some of its policies, particularly on closer ties with Europe.

The Sun today

Content

The Sun relies heavily on stories and occasionally scandals involving celebrities and the entertainment industry, contained in its general news pages as well as in sections such as Bizarre (pop music stories and gossip) and TV Biz (television stories, concentrating on soaps and reality TV).

An award-winning section titled Something for the Weekend, published each Friday, covers a wide variety of other contemporary music and arts not normally found in the main part of the paper. Coverage of the British monarchy is regular or even daily, albeit without the dominance it had in the paper in the 1990s during the life of Princess Diana. Politics is always found on Page 2 but can be elsewhere in the news pages. World news is scattered throughout the new pages, rather than in a self-contained section, with stories given prominence in line with their strengths as perceived by the paper. Crime coverage has increased during 2007 and 2008, mainly to reflect the paper’s “Broken Britain” campaign to highlight the increased lawlessness it perceives to be rife. Other themes high on The Sun’s news agenda are illegal or legal immigration, child sex abuse and security lapses. NHS scandals are frequently covered, though the paper also has a Health section which covers general health issues and treatments.

Page 3, prominently displaying a model aged between 18 and about 27 posing topless, is still a daily feature in the paper, as it has been since 1970.

The Sun has a large sports section, placed at the back of the paper and with football as its mainstay, though personal stories about prominent sportsmen and women will often be found in the news pages.

The current editor is Rebekah Wade, the first female editor in the paper's history.

Rupert Murdoch, head of The Sun's parent company News Corporation, speaking at a 2007 meeting with the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, which was investigating media ownership and the news, said that he acts as a "traditional proprietor". This means he exercises editorial control on major issues such as which political party to back in a general election or which policy to adopt on Europe.[9]

Awards

The Sun has been a regular winner at the British Press Awards, the "Oscars" of British journalism. Here is a list of winners since 2000:

2000 – Front Page of the Year (Moon eclipse); Cudlipp Award (for excellence in tabloid journalism): John Perry, Neil Roberts, Phil Leach for Hold Ye Front Page; Sports Photographer of the Year: Richard Pelham.

2001 – Front Page of the Year (I’m Only Here For De Beers); Reporter of the Year: John Kay.

2002 – Scoop of the Year: Briony Warden, Internet baby traders.

2004 - Reporter of the Year: John Kay; Photographer of the Year: Terry Richards; Sports Reporter of the Year: Neil Custis.

2005 - Front Page of the Year (Hutton Report Leaked); Reporter of the Year: Trevor Kavanagh; Cudlipp Award (Band Aid 20 campaign); Financial Journalist of the Year: Ian King; Cartoonist of the Year: Bill Caldwell.

2006 – Front Page of the Year (Harry The Nazi); Reporter of the Year (Oliver Harvey); Showbusiness Writer of the Year: Victoria Newton.

2008 – Reporter of the Year: Tom Newton Dunn; Scoop of the Year: Tom Newton-Dunn; Cudlipp Award (Help for Heroes campaign); Campaign of the Year (Help For Heroes).

Positive impact

The Band Aid 20 charity pop single, which raised around £3million for Africa after its release in 2004, was the idea of a Sun executive, who persuaded Sir Bob Geldof to become involved and gave the recording and release of the record blanket coverage. The campaign won the paper a British Press Award in 2005. The single was a re-recording of Band Aid’s 1984 original Do They Know It’s Christmas and featured, among others, Bono, Sir Paul McCartney and members of Radiohead and Coldplay.

The Help for Heroes charity, championed by The Sun, raised £7million in the eight months to June 2008 for injured British servicemen and women – a record for a start-up British charity. The campaign won two British Press Awards in 2008.

The Sun’s long-running Free Books For Schools promotion and campaign, in which readers collected tokens from the paper to be exchanged for school books, put 3.5million books worth nearly £20million into the 98 per cent of UK schools which registered for the scheme. The achievement won The Sun a Business In The Community award.

Two books written and produced by The Sun were endorsed by the Government for use in schools. Hold Ye Front Page, which told 2,000 years of world history in spoof Sun pages, sold almost 100,000 copies. The then Education Secretary David Blunkett, later a Sun columnist, recommended every school should have one as an “essential” tool for teaching history. Giant Leaps, a science version along similar lines jointly produced with the Science Museum (London) in 2006, was endorsed by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who read from it during a speech at Oxford University, and by Education Secretary Alan Johnson, who hailed it as a breakthrough for science teachers. The book was a finalist in 2007 for the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books General Prize, the most prestigious award for popular science writing.

Headlines

The Sun is famous for its headlines – be they witty, poignant, pertinent, outrageous or blatantly offensive. Some of the most memorable front page headlines include:

THE BIG D-DAY DIDDLE (February 16, 1971) – The claim that traders were using decimalisation as a ruse to hike prices.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS? (January 11, 1979) – Reporting the attitude of a seemingly oblivious Prime Minister Jim Callaghan as he returned from holiday in the middle of the so-called “Winter of Discontent”

VOTE TORY THIS TIME (May 3, 1979) – Backing the Conservatives for the first time since The Sun’s relaunch as a Labour-supporting paper.

STICK IT UP YOUR JUNTA (April 20, 1982) – As Margaret Thatcher rejected a peace move by Argentina during the Falklands War.

GOTCHA (May 4, 1982) – Outrageous headline revelling in the sinking of the Argentine ship the General Belgrano.

A NEW SUN IS RISING TODAY (January 27, 1986) – After the paper’s highly controversial move to Wapping.

FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER (March 13, 1986) – Entirely made-up story about a then-famous British comedian.

GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE (October 27, 1989) - Resignation of Nigel Lawson as Conservative Chancellor.

UP YOURS DELORS (November 11, 1990) – A message to French EU commissioner Jacques Delors, who was promoting the single European currency.

BASTARDS OF BAGHDAD (January 22, 1991) – As Saddam Hussein paraded two captured British airmen on TV during the first Gulf War.

PADDY PANTSDOWN (February 6, 1992) – Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal-Democrat party, admits a five-month affair with a secretary.

IF KINNOCK WINS TODAY WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE BRITAIN PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS (April 9, 1992) – Backing the Conservatives again at the 1992 General Election.

IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT (April 11, 1992) – Claiming credit for the Conservative victory.

NOW WE'VE ALL BEEN SCREWED BY THE CABINET (September 17, 1992) – A joke at the expense of the Conservative government, rocked by sex scandals and then responsible for the Black Wednesday crisis during which mortgage rates rocketed.

TOE JOB TO NO JOB (September 25, 1992) – Resignation of Cabinet Minister David Mellor over an affair.

I WAS CARLOS THE JACKAL'S DRIVING INSTRUCTOR (August 18, 1994) – Revealing that a British man, Ron Fisher, taught Venezuelan Carlos how to drive before he became, as he was in 1994, the world’s most famous terrorist.

THE SUN BACKS BLAIR (March 18, 1997) – Switching political sides for the General Election in 1997.

ZIP ME UP BEFORE YOU GO GO (April 9, 1998) – On the arrest of pop star George Michael in a public toilet in Los Angeles.

IS THIS THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN BRITAIN? (June 24, 1998) – Front page editorial attacking Prime Minister Tony Blair for pushing Britain towards further European integration.

I’M ONLY HERE FOR DE BEERS (November 8, 2000) – Jewel thieves attempt to steal a De Beers diamond at the Millennium Dome, a failed tourist attraction in South-East London.

DAY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (September 12, 2001) – Covering 9/11.

SLING YOUR HOOK (January 21, 2003) – Over the hook-handed Islamic preacher Abu Hamza, a Sun hate figure who was later jailed for inciting terrorism.

SHIP, SHIP HOORAY (January 14, 2004) - The suicide of serial killer Dr Harold Shipman.

HARRY THE NAZI (January 13, 2005) – Scandal of Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE KOREA? (October 10, 2006) – As North Korea tested a nuclear weapon.

PORNOCCHIO (March 19, 2008) – A reference to the “glamour modelling” past of Sir Paul McCartney’s ex-wife Heather Mills as the judge in their divorce case called her a liar

Controversy

National controversy

Page 3 girls

Main article: Page Three girl

The Sun under Murdoch has been a consistent subject of controversy and scandal news. From the early 1970s, both feminists and many cultural conservatives objected to the Page 3 girls, which they saw as pornographic and misogynistic. In 2006 when the paper ran a story on a website to track down missing sex offenders, they used the headline Pervhunt.Com, despite the actual website having a different name. However a Popbitch.com member bought the rights to the Pervhunt.com name and redirected it to the Sun's Page 3 Rookies webpage, containing Page 3 models of ages 18-20. [1]

The comic strip AXA was first published on The Sun's Page 3. According to Enrique Badia Romero, The Sun was looking for an "erotic science-fiction strip". Romero had been working on AXA on the side for a long time and saw an opportunity to get it published.

Sickest website campaign

The Sun launched a campaign in January 2007 asking their readers to report to their investigative department the "sickest websites" they find on the internet. This follows a recent exposé The Sun uncovered about websites dealing in human organs.[10]

Populism

After The Sun had abandoned Labour by 1979 for Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives, these critics were joined by left-wingers objecting to the paper's allegedly 'right-wing' populist political line, which, according to criticism, was jingoistic, racist and homophobic[citation needed].

Racism

The Sun Website's Showbiz column, then edited by Victoria Newton, was recently criticised, as a picture of Hilary Duff having a Bollywood theme to her new video was captioned "Hilary PoppaDuff". [2] The hastily-changed caption was caught by the Holy Moly and VickyWatch [3] websites. This came despite the Sun being outspoken against the allegations of racism on Celebrity Big Brother earlier in the year, where a similar insult was used.

Sensationalism

More generally, the Murdoch Sun has been criticised since its launch for its sensationalism, which on occasion has led it to publish stories on the most spurious evidence, and for its focus on celebrities for its news and feature coverage. It has regularly been accused of appealing to the lowest common denominator and dumbing down public discourse. In a skit on the Benny Hill Show, two photographers from London's "mainstream" papers are showing taking photographs of a beautiful model in the regular manner, while two other photographers, identified by their press cards as from The Mirror and The Sun are shown photographing her upskirt.

Miners' strike

The newspaper supported the government in the miners' strike of 1984-85 and there were incidents where staff threatened to resign over what they saw as deliberate misinformation. To this day, the paper's circulation in the old mining areas of Britain remains much smaller than in the country as a whole[citation needed].

Jingoism

File:The Sun Gotcha.jpg
The torpedoing of the Belgrano was celebrated on the front page of the British tabloid newspaper The Sun

The paper published the headline "GOTCHA" when, during the Falklands War, the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed, although that headline was dropped when it was known that the ship had sunk and the extent of Argentinian casualties became clear. Support of British troops — referred to as "Our lads" — in action is invariably unequivocal. The Sun's ultra-patriotism has, however, outgrown the racism some claim it came close to embracing in the 1970s and 1980s — the nadir was its coverage of the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985. It has been as forceful on asylum-seekers as the Daily Express and the Daily Mail. On July 4, 2003 it printed a front page story under the headline "Swan Bake" claiming that asylum seekers were slaughtering and eating swans. It later emerged that the story had no factual basis but The Sun defiantly published a follow up story headlined "Now they're after our fish!". Following a Press Complaints Commission adjudication a "clarification" was eventually printed - on page 41.[11]

Hillsborough

Further information: [[:Hillsborough disaster - The Sun newspaper controversy]]
The controversial Hillsborough edition.

The worst moment journalistically for The Sun's sensationalism was its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster in Sheffield, where 96 people died and 730 were injured. Under a banner of the headline "THE TRUTH" the paper claimed that some fans picked the pockets of crush victims, that others urinated upon members of the emergency services as they tried to assist and that some even assaulted a Police Constable "whilst he was administering the kiss of life to a patient" (19 April 1989). Despite the bold headline - the work of Kelvin MacKenzie- the story was based on allegations which were either made by unnamed and unattributable sources, or were hearsay accounts of what named individuals had said - a fact made clear to MacKenzie by Harry Arnold, the reporter who had written it. Although the disaster had occurred before TV cameras and a mass of sports reporters, no evidence was ever produced to substantiate the allegations made in the story [12]. It caused outrage amongst the people of Liverpool and the paper still sells poorly in the city to this day. It is unavailable in many parts of the city, as many newsagents refuse to stock it. It was revealed in a documentary called "Alexei Sayle's Liverpool" that many people in the city won't even take the newspaper for free, and those who do result in destroying the paper, either by burning it or ripping it up.

On January 2005 The Sun's managing editor Graham Dudman claimed their coverage of the Hillsborough disaster was "the worst mistake in their history", he further added, "What we did was a terrible mistake. It was a terrible, insensitive, horrible article, with a dreadful headline; but what we'd also say is: we have apologised for it, and the entire senior team here now is completely different from the team that put the paper out in 1989." Although Dudman made this claim/apology in January 2005 he rehired Kelvin MacKenzie (the editor responsible for their biggest mistake in history) as a columnist in May 2006. Furthermore, on January 11 2007, MacKenzie went on record as a panellist on BBC1's Question Time as saying the apology he made after the disaster was a hollow one, forced upon him by the paper's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. MacKenzie further claimed he was not sorry "for telling the truth" but he admitted that he did not know for sure whether some Liverpool fans urinated on the police, or robbed victims.[13]

Freddie Starr "ate my hamster"

The 13 March 1986 edition of The Sun, with the famous headline.

On 13 March 1986 The Sun carried as it main headline: "FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER". According to the text of the story, the British comedian Freddie Starr had been staying at the home of Vince McCaffrey and his 23-year old girlfriend Lea La Salle in Birchwood, Cheshire when the incident took place. Starr was claimed to have returned home from a performance at a Manchester nightclub in the small hours of the morning and demanded that Lea La Salle make him a sandwich. When she refused, he went into the kitchen and put her pet hamster Supersonic between two slices of bread and proceeded to eat it.

Freddie Starr gives his side of the story in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped. He says that the only time that he ever stayed at Vince McCaffrey's house was in 1979 and that the incident was a complete fabrication. Starr writes in the book: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal." The man behind the hamster story was the British publicist Max Clifford. When asked in a television interview with Esther Rantzen some years later whether Starr really had eaten a hamster, his reply was "Of course not." Clifford was unapologetic, insisting that the story had given a huge boost to Starr's career. In May 2006 the BBC nominated "FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER" as one of the top British newspaper headlines of all time. [14]

The headline was later used in part as the title for the Commodore 64 computer game Rockstar Ate My Hamster.

Mental health

On September 22 2003 the newspaper misjudged the public mood surrounding mental health. When the former boxer Frank Bruno was admitted to hospital, early editions read Bonkers Bruno Locked Up across its front page. The reaction to the very popular Bruno being labelled "Bonkers" was so strong and immediate that by its second edition the headline had become: Sad Bruno In Mental Home.[15]

Homosexuality

In the early 1980s, the paper was excoriating the Greater London Council, led by Ken Livingstone, giving financial support to various gay rights groups. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the paper campaigned against "pulpit poofs", as it described gay Church of England clergy, and in 1987 published a front-page article falsely accusing the pop musician Elton John of having sexual relationships with rent boys and indulging in under-age sex. A furious John successfully sued the paper for libel and damages. The paper settled out of court for a million pounds and printed a full, front page apology titled "Sorry Elton". During the 1980s the paper carried a number of articles related to the supposed sexual orientation of a number of famous people, including one particular article written by Piers Morgan titled 'The Poofs of Pop', where the paper gave its verdict on whether endless male pop stars were gay or not.[16].

When Peter Mandelson was "outed" by Matthew Parris (a gay former columnist on The Sun) on Newsnight in November 1998, the paper asked whether Britain was governed by a "gay mafia", as there were then several openly gay members of the British cabinet. The newspaper apologised the following day. The Sun's U-turn on its views of homosexuality dispels the notion that their editorial position on the subject in prior years was based on a religious pretext, rather it was strictly sensationalist journalism for commercial purposes. This would explain the present tone in which their entertainment sections now hype and promote rather than ridicule or pour scorn over TV programmes that are based on alternative lifestyles.

In 2005, Chelsea player Ashley Cole was subject of a 'gay orgy' story in The Sun and The News of the World. After a lengthy court appeal by Cole, the remarks published by both papers were taken back and a healthy compensation fee was payed to Mr. Cole for causing such an ordeal. Subsequently, some football fans have created anti- Cole homosexual taunting terrace chants that are often sung when Chelsea play the opposition's fans in question.

Politics

The Sun prides itself on its patriotic, pro-British stance. It is strongly opposed to the surrendering of British sovereignty to the EU and has, in the past, referred to foreign leaders who it deemed hostile to the UK in unflattering, and arguably borderline racist terms; such as dubbing former President Jacques Chirac of France "le Worm"; When France declared itself against the Iraq war the editorial said "The French President is an unscrupulous, conniving, preening, lying, cheating hypocrite". The Sun has traditionally taken a very strong stance on political issues, traditionally favouring the Conservative party, most famously in the 1992 General Election, where, following a close campaign and aggressive pro-Conservative editorials from The Sun, the paper famously declared It's The Sun Wot Won It after the Conservative victory. Following the election of Tony Blair, however, it changed its stance to support New Labour. This followed an attempt by Tony Blair to "court" the influence of The Sun by granting exclusive interviews and writing columns for the paper. In exchange for Murdochs support, Blair agreed not to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. [17] Under the current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, the paper's stance has been less clear, with the paper being very critical of many of Brown's policies and more generally supportive of the policies of Conservative leader, David Cameron.


More than any other issue, The Sun is passionately opposed to the European Union, taking every opportunity to thrash policy that promotes further European integration, often using Napoleonic or WW2 era fighting language.[4]

In June 2008 The Sun's stance moved from propaganda, to appointing its own candidates in elections, when editor Rebekah Wade and proprietor Rupert Murdoch requested that columnist Kelvin MacKenzie stand against former MP David Davis in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. Davis had resigned his seat in protest after MPs narrowly approved increasing the limit for keeping prisoners suspected of terrorist offences without trial from 28 to 42 days. MacKenzie stated "The Sun is very, very hostile to David Davis because of his 28 day stance and The Sun has always been very up for 42 days and perhaps even 420 days.".[18][19]

International controversy

British tabloids are popularly perceived abroad as offensive and tasteless. Here are some notable examples of The Sun's more controversial headlines:

"Urs hole" British tabloids and English football fans joined their efforts in harassing Swiss referee Urs Meier after the English lost in the Euro 2004 quarter-final where Meier disallowed an English goal, which would have won the match, for a foul on the goalkeeper. English media and football fans were not happy with this decision, blaming Meier, calling him "Urs hole" and "idiot ref". After his personal details were published by British tabloid newspapers, Meier received more than 16,000 abusive e-mails, and also death threats. Reporters of The Sun even travelled to Switzerland and placed an English flag at his home. As a result, he was placed under police protection. At the airport, Meier was picked from the plane and had to hide for seven days, and could not meet his children for four days. Ironically The Sun later criticised Chelsea FC manager José Mourinho for intimidating referee Anders Frisk in a Champions League match against FC Barcelona.

"From Hitler Youth to Papa Ratzi" Headline of 20 April 2005 about German Joseph Ratzinger being elected Pope Benedict XVI.

"I'm Big in the Bumdestag" Headline of 17 April 2006 about a paparazzo picture taken of German chancellor Angela Merkel's rear during a change of clothing while on holiday in Italy. Additional puns were "the cheeky chancellor" and "the Iron Frau", and "much improved bottom line" in regard to economy.

"Racist in Peace" Headline of 19 June 2007 reporting the death of British comedian Bernard Manning, who had died the previous day aged 76. The headline mocked Manning's controversial jokes which were often offensive towards black people.

"Ship Ship Hooray" Headline of 14 January 2004 reporting the death of British serial killer Dr Harold Shipman, who had been found hanged the previous day in his prison cell. The article urged readers to feel good about Shipman's death, as in taking his own life he had saved the British taxpayer the cost of keeping him locked up for years. A diagram of Shipman's suicide was also printed in the article, urging fellow inmate and murderer Roy Whiting to follow Shipman's example. [5]

Editors

Scottish edition

There is also a Scottish edition of The Sun launched in 1987, known as The Scottish Sun. Based in Glasgow, the paper sells for just 25p. The Scottish Sun is often referred to as "a downmarket, English-based tabloid" by the Record. It duplicates much of the content of the English edition but with additional coverage of Scottish news and sport. In the early 1990s, the Scottish edition became notable as the first major newspaper to declare support for the pro-independence Scottish National Party. At the time the paper elsewhere continued to support the Conservatives, who were then becoming an increasingly marginalised force in Scotland. This stance, however, became somewhat problematic following The Sun's adoption of support for Labour elsewhere in the UK, given that the SNP were seen as Labour's main challengers and fiercest rivals in Scotland. The Scottish edition was forced to employ some convoluted logic to justify its eventual withdrawal of support for the SNP in favour of pro-union Labour.

However, the Scottish Sun had performed a major U-turn by the time of the Scottish Parliament election, 2007, in which its front page featured a hangman's noose in the shape of an SNP logo, stating "Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose" [6] This drew heavy criticism, even from those who opposed the SNP.

Polski Sun

Main article: Polski Sun

In June 2008, the Sun became the first national newspaper to produce a Polish language version [7]. Six editions were produced for Poland's group matches in the Euro 2008 football tournament.

Other newspapers published by other companies within the UK with "tabloid values" are the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star, and the Daily Sport. Of these, only the Mirror supports the Labour Party. The others are Conservative, although The Sun has supported New Labour from 1996. See List of newspapers in the United Kingdom for a comparison of The Sun with other newspapers.

Note: the sister Sunday paper of The Sun (also published by News Group Newspapers) is the News of the World – the Sunday Sun is an unrelated tabloid newspaper, published in Newcastle upon Tyne.

  • In the Republic of Ireland, an Irish edition of The Sun, known as The Irish Sun, is published. This contains much of the same content as the main UK edition, but with some Irish news and editorial content, as well as advertising. It tends to replace articles that would be seen as anti-Irish with ones more palatable to their readership there. One notable example is how the release of the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley was covered, with the UK editions describing it as "designed to drag the reputation of our nation through the mud" and "the most pro-IRA ever",[20] whereas the Irish edition described it as giving "the Brits a tanning".[21] It uses a slightly bigger sheet size than the UK version, and costs €0.90.
  • The first newspaper to carry the Sun masthead was published in 1792 by the Pitt government to counter the pro-revolutionary press at that time.
  • The Toronto Sun in Canada modeled itself on the newspaper, including a sunshine girl (who has never been topless). The "Sun" masthead has since spread to many other cities in Canada.
  • The Sun has also been adopted in Nigeria as "The Sun" or the "Daily Sun", With the page-3 girl dubbed "The Sun Girl". The Nigerian counterpart shares the same iconic red and white masthead with the British paper.
  • In The United States, The New York Post, owned by Murdoch's News Group Newspapers as well, is a somewhat milder counterpart of The Sun, with broadly conservative views of American politics, and extensive coverage and gossip of celebrities which often serve as the full front page headline even when other local papers are reporting something more significant.

References

  1. ^ "The Sun facts & figures". Newspaper Marketing Agency.
  2. ^ "The Times facts & figures". Newspaper Marketing Agency.
  3. ^ Greenslade, Ch. 9
  4. ^ Chippindale and Horrie, Ch 1.
  5. ^ Chippindale and Horrie Ch. 1
  6. ^ Chippindale and Horrie, Ch 1
  7. ^ Greenslade Ch. 9
  8. ^ Chippindale and Horrie
  9. ^ "Minute of the meeting with Mr Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation". Inquiry into Media Ownership and the News. New York: House of Commons Select Committee on Communications. 17 September 2007. pp. p. 10. {{cite conference}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Masters, Dave (10-1-2007). "Send us web's sickest sites". The Sun. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Medic, Nick (15-7-2004). "How I took on The Sun - and lost". {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Chippindale and Horrie
  13. ^ "No apology for Hillsborough story". BBC. 2007-01-12. Retrieved 2007-02-23. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight Home | Telegraph wins newspaper vote
  15. ^ Persaud, Raj (4-10-2003). "Knocking Bruno when he is down". British Medical Journal. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ Morgan, Piers (17-09-2005). "'No stereotypes were harmed in the making of this film'". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/tor8v/?focuswin
  18. ^ "Ex-Sun man to challenge Davis". The Sun. 2008-06-13. Retrieved 2008-06-13. The Sun columnist said he was approached by the paper's proprietor Rupert Murdoch and current editor Rebekah Wade who suggested he could step up to the challenge." ""The Sun is very hostile to David Davis because of his stand," he said.
  19. ^ BBC News - Ex-Sun Editor to "take on" Davis, accessed 13 June 2008
  20. ^ Hall, Mick (1-6-2006). "Ken Loach hits back at English tabloids". Indymedia Ireland. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ Greenslade, Roy. "A classic example of newspaper spin". The Guardian.
  22. ^ "Cockney rhyming slang dictionary". cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk.

Further reading

  • Peter Chippindale & Chris Horrie Stick It Up Your Punter! The rise and fall of The Sun, 1990, Heinemann; 1999, Pocket Books
  • Roy Greenslade Press Gang, 2003, Macmillan

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sun_(United_Kingdom)&oldid=223341981"