The Sun
The Sun | |
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The Sun in January 2005, featuring Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi official. |
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Type | Daily newspaper available Monday to Saturday except Christmas Day. |
Format | Tabloid |
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Owner | News International |
Editor | Rebekah Wade |
Founded | 1964 |
Political allegiance | Right-wing and Populist |
Headquarters | Wapping, London |
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Website: www.thesun.co.uk |
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 3,107,412 copies daily in the first half of 2006.[1] The daily readership is just over 7,800,000 and it has more than twice as many readers in the ABC1 demographic as its upmarket stablemate The Times, although much less as a proportion of total sales. It is published by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
Contents |
History
The Sun before Murdoch
The Sun was launched on September 15, 1964 as a replacement for the Daily Herald, of which Mirror Group had acquired 51 per cent ownership when it took over Odhams Press in 1961. The Herald, 49 per cent owned by the Trades Union Congress and until recently tied to supporting official Labour Party policy, was selling more than 1.4 million copies a day at the time of the takeover. But its ageing working-class readers were unattractive to advertisers, and the paper's new owners (who in 1963 renamed their printing and publishing empire the International Publishing Corporation) did not want the Herald to compete with The Daily Mirror. Market research conducted by suggested that there was demand for a new mid-market left-of-centre daily which reflected perceived changes in Britain's demographics, and IPC persuaded an initially reluctant TUC to sell its shares to allow the relaunch of the Herald as The Sun.
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. [2] He would later remark: "I am constantly amazed at the ease with which I entered British newspapers." [3]
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 ageing readership. Lamb hastily recruited a staff of about 125 reporters, who were mostly selected for their availability rather than their ability. [4] 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 [5]. 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. 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. 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.[6]
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, with less clothes than their Mirror counterparts. After a year, this would eventually become 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.[7]
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 track and caused a small stir by endorsing Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 general election.
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, 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 was a very strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher and her policies, and maintained its support for the Conservatives when Thatcher was succeeded by John Major in 1990. On the day of the 1992 election, its front-page headline was "If [Labour leader] Neil Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights", and two days later The Sun was so convinced of its contributions to the Conservative victory that it declared "IT WAS THE SUN WOT WON IT".
The Sun goes Labour again
The Sun switched support to Labour in March 1997 when the General Election saw Labour leader Tony Blair become Prime Minister. Since then it has supported Labour in each of the subsequent three elections, despite criticising some of their policies. Some say this was down to the paper's general disillusionment with the Conservative party since Black Wednesday. Others have argued that the newspaper changed its stance as it knew there was zero chance of the Conservative Party winning the 1997 General Election, and therefore afterwards would not have been seen as having backed a loser.
The Sun today
The Sun relies on stories about the entertainment industry, gossip concerning the British monarchy, and sports, as well as news and politics for its content, with many items revolving around celebrities.
In addition to writers covering celebrities-about-town and the latest soap opera storylines, the paper is always on the lookout for celebrities in trouble or scandal. Pictures are preferred and The Sun often uses pictures taken by paparazzi.
Its serious news stories frequently focus on themes of immigration, security scandals, domestic abuse and paedophiles. The Page 3 pin-up girl is invariably a girl between the ages of 18-28, posing topless.
The current editor is Rebekah Wade, the first female editor in the paper's history.
The Sun has attempted to create a term for itself in Cockney rhyming slang as The Currant Bun.[8]
Controversy
National controversy
Page 3
The Sun under Murdoch has been a consistent subject of controversy. From the early 1970s, both feminists and many cultural conservatives objected to the Page 3 girls, which they saw as pornographic. 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]
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.[9]
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.
Racism
The Sun Website's Showbiz column was recent criticised for an article on Hilary Duff having a Bollywood theme to her new video that was labelled "Hilary PoppaDuff". [2] 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
The paper infamously 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 Boys" — 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.[10]
Hillsborough
- Further information: Hillsborough disaster - The Sun newspaper controversy
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 [11]. 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.
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.[12]
Freddie Starr "ate my hamster"
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. [13]
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 was so strong and immediate that by its second edition the headline had become: Sad Bruno In Mental Home.[14]
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 "", 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.[15].
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 dispells 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.
Swearing
The Sun was once opposed to printing bad language, to the extent that "tits" would often be spelt "t*ts". This policy has recently been relaxed.
Politics
The Sun routinely refers to foreign leaders in unflattering terms — such as dubbing President Jacques Chirac of France "le Worm" — and is consistently and deliberately offensive to the French and the Germans at every opportunity. When France declared itself against the Iraq war the editorial said "The French President is an unscrupulous, conniving, preening, lying, cheating hypocrite". George Galloway is quite frequently referred to in denigrating language and accused of befriending Saddam Hussein and his sons. It has been argued that this displays a level of hypocrisy; when a British journalist named Farzad Bazoft was hanged by the Hussein regime for alleged espionage, The Sun published a conviction of Bazoft for minor theft when he was a student. This information was allegedly supplied by MI5 in accordance with a request by the Thatcher government. [citation needed]
More recently, The Sun labelled many British Members of Parliament as traitors, regardless of their political parties, for failing to vote in favour of controversial anti-terrorism laws.[16] In the run up to the vote on Tuesday 8 November 2005, The Sun featured bombs victim John Tulloch on its front page with the words "Tell Tony He's Right" in their headline, despite Tulloch being vociferously opposed to the measure and to the Government's action.[17]
More than else, 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.
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 hooligans 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. 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.
Editors
- (current Managing Editor)
- Sydney Jacobson (1964–1965) (previously editor of the Daily Herald before the name change)
- (1965–1969)
- Larry Lamb (1969–1972)
- Bernard Shrimsley (1972–1975) (Lamb was "editorial director", supervising both the Sun and NOW)
- Larry Lamb (1975–1980) (Lamb took an enforced six month sabbatical before being sacked by Murdoch)
- Kelvin MacKenzie (1981–1994)
- (1994–1998)
- David Yelland (1998–2003)
- Rebekah Wade (2003–)
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 20p. 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 done 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. "Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose" [3] This drew heavy criticism, even from those who opposed the SNP.
Related newspapers
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",[18] whereas the Irish edition described it as giving "the Brits a tanning".[19] 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 modelled 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.
References
- ^ "The Sun facts & figures", Newspaper Marketing Agency.
- ^ Greenslade, Ch. 9
- ^ Chippindale and Horrie, Ch 1.
- ^ Chippindale and Horrie Ch. 1
- ^ Chippindale and Horrie, Ch 1
- ^ Greenslade Ch. 9
- ^ Chippindale and Horrie
- ^ "Cockney rhyming slang dictionary", cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk.
- ^ Masters, Dave. "Send us web's sickest sites", The Sun, 10-1-2007.
- ^ Medic, Nick. "How I took on The Sun - and lost", 15-7-2004.
- ^ Chippindale and Horrie
- ^ "No apology for Hillsborough story", BBC, 2007-01-12. Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4973880.stm#hamster
- ^ Persaud, Raj. "Knocking Bruno when he is down", British Medical Journal, 4-10-2003.
- ^ Morgan, Piers. "'No stereotypes were harmed in the making of this film'", The Daily Telegraph, 17-09-2005.
- ^ Kavanagh, Trevor. "Terror bill defeat", The Sun.
- ^ Coward, Ros. "'They have given me someone else's voice - Blair's voice'", The Guardian, 10-11-2005.
- ^ Hall, Mick. "Ken Loach hits back at English tabloids", Indymedia Ireland, 1-6-2006.
- ^ Greenslade, Roy. "A classic example of newspaper spin", The Guardian.
Further reading
Stick It Up Your Punter! The rise and fall of The Sun, Peter Chippindale & Chris Horrie, Heinemann 1990.
Press Gang, Roy Greenslade, Macmillan, 2003.
See also
- Tabloid ("red top")
- Yellow Journalism
- Hold Ye Front Page
- Page Three Girl
- Dear Deidre
- The Premier
- Striker (comic)
- Freddie Starr
External links
- The Sun - Official website
- BBC: On This Day 1964
- BBC, 14 September 2004, Forty Years of the Sun
- Newspaper Marketing Agency Facts & Figures
- Wapping: legacy of Rupert's revolution, January 15, 2006 - The Observer: