The Sun newspaper
On the Tuesday following the
disaster,
Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of
The Sun, a British
tabloid newspaper owned by
Rupert Murdoch, used the front page headline 'THE TRUTH', with three sub-headlines: 'Some fans picked pockets of victims'; 'Some fans urinated on the brave cops'; 'Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life'.
The story accompanying these headlines claimed that 'drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims' and 'police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon'. A quote, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed that a dead girl had been abused and that Liverpool fans 'were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead'.
In their history of
The Sun, Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie wrote:
'As MacKenzie's layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office [but] MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. [Everyone] seemed paralysed, "looking like rabbits in the headlights", as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it—they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a "classic smear".' Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry into the disaster disparaged
The Sun's story and was unequivocal as to the disaster's cause:
'The real cause of the Hillsborough disaster [was] overcrowding, the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.' Following
The Sun's report, the newspaper was boycotted by most newsagents in
Liverpool, with many refusing to stock the tabloid and large numbers of readers cancelling orders and even refusing to buy from shops which did stock the newspaper. Liverpools skyline, as seen from the River Mersey. ...
MacKenzie explained his reporting in
1993. Talking to a
House of Commons National Heritage
Select Committee he said "
I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was I believed what an MP said. It was a Tory MP. If he had not said it and the chief superintendent had not agreed with it, we would not have gone with it." This explanation was not accepted by families of Hillsborough victims. Even fifteen years after the Hillsborough disaster, the circulation of
The Sun in Liverpool is still reckoned to be only 12,000 copies a day where previously it was around 200,000. 1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003) Events Media:January January 1 - Czechoslovakia divides. ... In some bicameral parliaments of a Westminster System, the House of Commons has historically been the name of the elected lower house. ... A Select Committee of the British Parliament is a committee made up of a small number of members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues. ... The Conservative Party is the largest political party on the centre-right in the United Kingdom. ...
The Sun itself issued an apology "without reservation" in a full page opinion piece on
7 July 2004, saying it had that "committed the most terrible mistake in its history."
The Sun was responding to the intense criticism of
Wayne Rooney, a Liverpool-born football star who then still played in the city (for
Everton), who had sold his life story to the newspaper. Rooney's actions had incensed Liverpool dwellers still angry at
The Sun.
The Sun's apology was somewhat bullish, saying that the "campaign of hate" against Rooney was organised in part by the
Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, owned by
Trinity Mirror, who also own the
Daily Mirror, arch-rivals of
The Sun. Thus the apology actually served to anger some Liverpudlians further. The
Liverpool Echo itself did not accept the apology, calling it "shabby" and "an attempt, once again, to exploit the Hillsborough dead." July 7 is the 188th day of the year (189th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 177 days remaining. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Wayne Rooney playing for the England football team Wayne Rooney (born 24 October 1985) is a footballer who currently plays for Manchester United and the England national football team. ... Evertons crest Everton F.C. is an English football club from the city of Liverpool and was founded in 1878. ... The Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post are two newspapers published by Trinity Mirror on Merseyside in the United Kingdom. ... Trinity Mirror is a large United Kingdom newspaper and magazine publisher. ... Alternate newspaper: The Daily Mirror (Australia) The Daily Mirror is a popular British tabloid daily newspaper. ...
In fairness to
The Sun, it should be noted that many other newspapers also detailed the same allegations on the same day, which apparently originated from a source within South Yorkshire Police attempting to divert blame, but the
Sun attracted particular opprobrium for its use of the huge "THE TRUTH" headline.
