TEN SHAMEFUL MOMENTS FROM THE SUN’S PAST

In honour of the fact that The Sun seems to be so keen on digging through people’s social media histories to find any old tweets or Facebook posts that can be used against them, this blog thought it would be a good time to trawl through the paper’s own past to dredge up some misdemeanours that make silly offensive tweets from ten years ago look like child’s play.

Now, of course we are all aware of the shameful lies told about Liverpool football fans in the wake of the Hillsborough tragedy. Lies that mean that to this day, the paper is not sold in newsagents throughout the city.

But here are nine other episodes from The Sun’s history that the paper would probably prefer weren’t mentioned. It’s something you can share with others the next time you feel that The Sun needs a taste of its own medicine.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT REJOICED IN THE SINKING OF AN ARGENTINIAN SHIP

The Sun‘s jingoistic coverage of the 1982 Falklands War reached a peak (or nadir) when the Argentinian General Belgrano ship was torpedoed and sunk while outside the 200 mile exclusion zone and reportedly sailing back to port. The paper’s front page headline read GOTCHA. It emerged that nearly 400 people were killed in the strike. Sun owner Rupert Murdoch was reportedly against changing the headline and toning down the reporting for later editions once the casualties were known.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT REFERRED TO AIDS AS THE GAY PLAGUE

Throughout much of the 80s, The Sun and its sister paper the (now defunct) News of the World repeatedly referred to the AIDs virus as the ‘gay plague’ and were among the main culprits spreading misinformation and hearsay about the disease. In 1989, the paper published an article titled STRAIGHT SEX CANNOT GIVE YOU AIDS – OFFICIAL and claimed the idea that heterosexuals also caught HIV was ‘homosexual propaganda’. The press regulators criticised the paper for ‘gross distortion’ but the punishment was a measly apology printed on page 28 (sound familiar?).

 

THE TIME WHEN IT CLAIMED ASYLUM SEEKERS WERE EATING SWANS

In 2003, the paper ran with a front page story headlined SWAN BAKE, claiming ‘callous asylum seekers are barbecuing the queen’s swans’. Although the story was supposedly based on an official Metropolitan Police report, it turned out that there was no record of any such offence. Again The Sun was sanctioned by the regulators but a mealy-mouthed clarification on page 41 was its only punishment.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT RAN A FEATURE CALLED ‘THE POOFS OF POP’

The Sun regularly ran homophobic pieces throughout the 1980s, speculating on which celebrities might be gay and looking to ‘out’ people with slurry headlines where it could. When EastEnders broadcast the first soap gay kiss, the paper published a front page story titled EASTBENDERS.

‘The Poofs of Pop’ was an 80s feature where Piers Morgan and Peter Willis speculated on whether various male pop stars were gay or not and spent their time hassling agents for a confession. According to Morgan, Sun editor at the time Kelvin Mackenzie was obsessed with people’s sexuality. ‘He generally thought that anyone who played a ‘dodgy sport’ – i.e. not football or boxing – spoke in a posh accent, sang pop music or just walked in a funny way was ‘as bent as a nine bob note’. And his staff were encouraged to share his suspicions rather than commit professional and medical suicide by challenging them.’

 

THE TIME WHEN IT HACKED THE PHONES OF RELATIVES OF MURDER VICTIMS

Let’s not forget that employees of the News of the World, which was the sister Sunday paper of The Sun until its closure in 2011, hacked into the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of dead British soldiers and victims of the 7 July London bombings. Worth remembering this little nugget next time you see a Sun scoop on someone’s old tweets where they’re found to have used an offensive word once.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT RIDICULED MENTAL ILLNESS

In 2003, the paper covered the story of Frank Bruno’s deteriorating mental health with the sensitive front page headline BONKERS BRUNO LOCKED UP. Following public criticism, the headline in the later edition of the paper was changed to SAD BRUNO IN MENTAL HOME.

 

THE TIME WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH WAS CAUGHT TAX DODGING

The Sun may revel in reporting that the likes of Gary Lineker or Lewis Hamilton have been caught up in tax avoidance schemes, but as far back as 2001 an investigation into News Corp found that it had avoided £350 million in corporation tax over an 11 year period.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT PAID £22K TO A POLICEMAN FOR INFORMATION

In 2015, Sun reporter Anthony France was found guilty of buying 43 stories from PC Timothy Edwards for £22,000 between 2008 and 2011. Thirty-eight of the stories were published in the paper. Edwards pleaded guilty to committing misconduct in a public office in 2014 and was jailed for two years.

 

THE TIME WHEN IT COMPARED MIGRANTS TO COCKROACHES

In 2015, columnist Katie Hopkins called migrants crossing the Mediterranean ‘cockroaches’ who were ‘spreading like the norovirus’. She advocated using gunships rather than rescue boats to deal with them. Her comments led to the UN High Commission for Human Rights making a statement in which it compared Hopkins’ language to that used by Rwandan reporters to stoke up hatred in the run up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.

NIGEL FARAGE PASSES TABLOID JOURNALISM ENTRANCE EXAM

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is celebrating today after successfully passing his tabloid journalism entrance exam by being caught smearing an anti-fascist campaign group.

Mr Farage withdrew a claim made last December that anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate were ‘violent and undemocratic’ after being sued for libel and threatened with a court case. He issued a statement today saying he is ‘perfectly happy to acknowledge that Hope Not Hate does not pursue violent or undemocratic behaviour’.

The Sun and the Daily Mail and now understood to be in a battle to sign the controversial politician as a political reporter.

‘He made up his own facts about a group he doesn’t like and only retracted them months later after being forced to by legal proceedings’, said Sun political writer Tim Newton-Dick. ‘This is exactly the sort of thing we look for in a journalist. With his profile, track record of shit-stirring and propensity for accusing the BBC of left-wing bias, we could probably start him on a salary of around £125k.’

But the paper is under stiff competition from rival the Daily Mail, who also hinted that they would be prepared to offer a six-figure sum.

‘I’ve always said that if the Daily Mail could somehow be turned into a politician, it would be Nigel Farage’, said political editor Izzy Oakfield. ‘His slippery conduct throughout this case has confirmed this, right down to him saying he’s perfectly happy to acknowledge he was wrong. We at the Mail always say we’re happy to make things clear in our retractions. It’s nice to smuggle a small piece of bullshit into a correction.’

‘If he could have got away with issuing his statement at the bottom of page 17 in our paper rather than announcing it publicly, it would have been perfect’, she added.

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.

COMEDIANS ARE MAKING TOO MANY JOKES ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT, SAYS SUN NEWSPAPER

The Sun has once again accused the BBC of left-wing bias, saying that comedians on topical news quiz Have I Got News For You are making too many jokes about the government.

With Theresa May’s bumbling administration becoming more of an ‘omnishambles’ each day, many folk may feel that comics are simply doing their job by pointing out the ridiculousness of what’s going on and laughing about it.

Not The Sun, which has penned an article titled ‘LEFTY BIAS: BBC’S HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU HAS A SKEWED VIEW AND MAKES FIVE TIMES MORE JOKES ABOUT THE TORIES THAN LABOUR’.

This revelation comes after the paper conducted ‘research’ into the first five episodes of the current series and found that – shock horror – 139 jokes have been made about the Tories compared to only 28 against Labour.

Some people might put this down to the fact that one of the main objectives of satirical comedy is to ridicule those in power, and that the government of the day is always likely to take more shots than the opposition. Look back at old HIGNFY episodes from the Labour government years and you will see that they were the butt of more jokes than the Tories back then.

Others might also point out that, during the five weeks since the current series started, the government has been beset by mishaps ripe for comedy – from Theresa May’s disastrous party conference to losing two cabinet ministers within a week – while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has been relatively quiet.

But not The Sun. The paper wheels out Tory MPs Andrew Bridgen and Jacob Rees-Mogg to claim this is evidence of ‘left-wing propaganda’ and that Ofcom should intervene.

They seem to be forgetting that this is comedians making jokes, not serious news or current affairs. If the Tory party doesn’t want to be ridiculed so much, it should stop behaving in a laughable and ridiculous manner.

But there is a more serious and worrying undercurrent to this article and such attacks on satirical output. The Sun seems to be advocating a restriction on the free speech of comedians who target the government. One of the great things about this country is the freedom to poke fun at those most powerful without fear of sanction. We shouldn’t allow a tabloid newspaper, whose own output is ironically so bad that it seems like satire more often than not, to threaten that.

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.

NEARLY 18 MONTHS AFTER THE BREXIT VOTE, THE SUN STILL CAN’T TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR EU BILL

The Sun has misused figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and put out more misinformation about Britain’s annual payments to the EU.

It’s not the first time that the paper has failed to report honestly and accurately on statistics, something which has led it to be voted bottom in a recent public survey on trust and accuracy in UK media outlets.

Reporting on figures released earlier this week by the ONS about the UK’s contribution to the EU budget in 2016, the paper wrote that the bill was £13.9 billion after the rebate.

In an article headlined ‘PUT THAT ON A BUS’, it reported that ‘Boris Johnson WAS wrong to say we face EU bill of £350 million a week… because it’s actually £363 million, official figures reveal’.

Except that neither of these figures is the final bill at all. The net contribution was calculated as being £9.4 billion a year (around £180 million a week) once public sector credits were accounted for. This was reduced further to £8.1 billion (around £156 million a week) if private sector credits (e.g. funding for university research) is taken into account.

The £363 million a week that The Sun is so keen to use in its headline is the gross contribution. But as the ONS makes clear in its report, ‘this amount of money was never actually transferred to the EU’. Read the report and download the full data here.

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.