No end to the Sun's sorry tale

The row over the red top's Hillsborough front page goes on, writes Mark Lupton

Monday January 31, 2005
The Guardian

Contrition and humility are not words normally associated with the Sun newspaper. Holding up its hands and admitting it made a mistake is not its style. But one mistake has cost it dearly for the past 15 years, and the paper's management appears to have realised by how much. On April 18, 1989, just three days after 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in the Hillsborough soccer tragedy, the Sun printed "The Truth" about what happened at the FA cup semi final in Sheffield. Quoting unnamed police sources, the Sun said "some fans" had urinated on the dead, pickpocketed bodies, and beaten up a police officer giving the kiss of life. Merseyside reacted with revulsion and a boycott of the paper was soon under way. Sales are still down from about 55,000 to 12,000 a day. Many newsagents refuse to sell it and those that do only keep a handful of copies.

Last year, the Sun printed a grovelling apology for what it described as the worst mistake in its history. The apology was publicly rejected by the families of Hillsborough victims, but what has not been reported is that Sun executives made strenuous efforts, before the apology was made, to secure the support of several families. A BBC documentary, due to be broadcast next month, filmed the delicate negotiations: "If countries can go to war and be friends in 15 years then can't the Sun and Merseyside do that as well?" asks Sun managing editor Graham Dudman in the film.

Dudman's intervention, which also included appearances on local radio phone-ins, came after the paper's deal to tell Wayne Rooney's life story attracted renewed vilification in the city. Rooney was lambasted in the local press for "betraying" his roots.

"He [Rooney] was being vilified locally in the papers, on the web and on the radio stations, and having abuse hurled at him, and all for talking to the Sun. And we thought, well this is getting ridiculous now so we'll apologise," Dudman says.

The editor responsible for The Truth front page, Kelvin MacKenzie, had said sorry when the Press Complaints Commission condemned the story as "insensitive, provocative and unwarranted". But last summer was the first time the paper had gone on the record to say it got it wrong. The Sun said: "Our carelessness and thoughtlessness following that blackest of days made the grief of their families and friends even harder to bear."

In the documentary, Dudman says: "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."

The apology's timing - after the Rooney deal - was pounced on as evidence of cynical opportunism. Liverpool's local newspapers - run by Trinity Mirror, owners of the Sun's arch nemesis the Daily Mirror - led the vitriolic counter-attack. It was clear more was needed from the paper if it was to get what it wanted - an end to the boycott. Dudman travelled to Liverpool in August in a bid to secure talks with the Hillsborough Family Support Group. His appeal for forgiveness included an offer to campaign for the families in their continuing fight for justice - if they accepted the apology. Four family members tentatively met him and after much persuasion agreed to put his appeal to the group as a whole. However, when the group met at Anfield, with Dudman waiting at a hotel to hear the outcome, it voted to refuse him an audience.

Dudman's visit represents a big setback for the paper. Although lines of communication were kept open shortly afterwards, dialogue between the two sides appears to have ground to a halt. Without an agreement with the families, it is difficult to see how sales could recover on Merseyside.

At the meeting with the four family members, Dudman argued that other papers had run similar stories to the Sun that day - all of which had obtained their information from the police. But it was the Sun's insistence that its version was the Truth which was to prove its undoing. It was also held partly responsible for a perception among the families of Hillsborough victims that they have never really had "justice" over what happened - no one has been held to account and a private prosecution against the police collapsed.

Ultimately, the Sun's struggle to convince Merseyside of its genuine contrition is held back by an overwhelming belief that its motives are cynical. Scousers think that it only wants the boycott overturned so it can start making money again in Liverpool. But if MacKenzie was ultimately responsible as editor - why not boycott anything associated with him, including TalkSport where he works?

"Of course, the Sun is about selling newspapers, that's what we do for our business," says Dudman. "But we are not a cruel or nasty or vindictive paper ... we really do mean it when we say we are sorry."

Shortly after 'the apology' there was an article in the media 'trade magazine' The apology wasn't aimed at us in the first place.

See below:


Marketing Week July 22 2004

"Glare of The Sun puts its olive branch in the shade"

The Sun's apology over Hillsborough is little more than a stunt to woo
readers in the South. Jingoism, hatred and racism are its core values.
By Sean Brierley.

Henry Mencken, the US journalist, once said: "Conscience is the inner
voice that warns us that someone might be looking." Two weeks ago The
Sun newspaper appeared to have a fit of conscience: it ran a front-page
apology for the libel it committed against Liverpool football fans in
April 1989, when it had claimed that they had robbed and urinated on the
bodies of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

The consequence of the Hillsborough debacle has been one of the longest
running and most successful brand boycotts in marketing history. The
newspaper is still popularly referred to as "The Scum" on the streets of
Liverpool today.

The reason for this was not that The Sun ran the story - the Daily Star
ran it too; it was the vicious nature of its attack and the fact that
for several days it kept the story running despite overwhelming evidence
that it was untrue. The people of Liverpool justifiably saw the attack
as a revelation of a deeper, real hatred for them. Although the Sun
apologised several days later, the damage had been done.

The funniest aspect of the latest "apology" was the wimpish attempt by
editor Rebekah Wade to blame former editor Kelvin MacKenzie. While
MacKenzie was undeniably responsible for the Hillsborough coverage - he
personally wrote the most offensive headlines- The Sun's management at
the time took no action against him. In fact, Rupert Murdoch later
promoted him to Sky television managing director in 1994.

As with the disaster itself, no one at The Sun was held accountable.
Merseysiders correctly interpreted no action being taken as a signal
that the newspaper's management did not regard them as important.

In stark contrast, this year the daily Mirror could have faced a boycott
over the fake pictures of British soldiers beating Iraqi prisoners. Yet
it didn't, because the management acted decisively and demonstrably by
sacking Piers Morgan and apologising unreservedly.

But this is much more than an issue about executive responsibility. It
gets to the heart of what is actually a branding issue. The reason why
MacKenzie was not sacked was because he was merely adhering to his
newspaper's own brand values, as he had been for a number of years. Or,
as The Sun might say "It weren't MacKenzie wot fu**ed it up, it woz the
brand."

The Sun's latest apology was aimed not at Scousers, but at its real
heartland: the South-east. It has been rightly interpreted by many in
Liverpool as a thinly veiled attempt to advertise the fact that it had
secured Wayne Rooney's autobiography. At the same time, it took a pop at
Liverpudlians for sustaining their boycott of the newspaper for 15
years, adding further insult to injury with the cheap claim that the
city's negative reaction to the Sun-Rooney tie-up had whipped up by the
local newspapers owned by commercial rival Trinity Mirror. The direct
implication was that the feelings against The Sun were misguided,
dubious and insincere.

Hillsborough exposed the myth that The Sun is a "national" newspaper.
The "Currant Bun" (the Mockney nickname it gives itself) is the bible of
the white-flight belt of Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey. Its
stock-in-trade is tribalism and a dark-age morality based on kinship and
vendetta. But its racist, flag-waving jingoism accurately reflects the
values of its core readership.

It has made fanaticism its core brand value: from humiliating big bore
contestants, celebrities and Swiss referees to rabid rantings against
foreigners in general. The Sun has turned this form of mob hatred into
its central brand value.

Throughout its history it has demonised defenceless targets: the
unemployed and single mothers in the seventies and eighties; refugees
today. The references to the World Wars during major football
tournaments are, in part, responsible for the rise in hooliganism that
we saw in Charleroi and more recently in the Algarve. In typical
fashion, the very football hooligans it helps to create it later brands
as "scum".

The vicious attacks on Liverpudlians was merely a logical extension of
its hate-filled South-eastern core brand values. But in spite of these
deep-seated brand problems all is not lost. For purely commercial
reasons, if not for ones of conscience, The Sun's management could
repair some of the damage on Merseyside.

The families of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster have had no
justice. The senior police officers responsible for opening the gates at
the Leppings lane end have escaped justice and the families of the
victims have never been compensated.

If Wade campaigned for justice for the Hillsborough 96, she might be
able to rebuild the newspaper's reputation and prove her Liverpool
detractors, and Mencken wrong.

Sean Brierley is a former deputy editor of Marketing Week and author of
the Advertising Handbook. "

désolé pour ces articles publiés en anglais.mais ils sont longs.
je ferai une traduction plus tard,là je dois partir

Sunday July 11, 2004
The Observer

It's 10pm in the Western Approaches pub and Stevie Gay, who often drinks here with Wayne Rooney's dad, is holding court. Suddenly he puts his pint of Carling on the table and turns serious, the smile fading from his lips. 'I was at Hillsborough. I saw them dragging people up by their scarves, trying to save them,' he says, mimicking the action with his hands. 'They were bringing them up the barriers and getting them on the pitch. I heard a scream: "This lad is dead." It was a horrible sight. All the dead bodies.'
Gay, 49, also remembers the newspaper headline that cuts as deep as ever in Liverpool and, more than 15 years after English football's worst disaster, still asks questions about the city's sense of identity in relation to the rest of Britain. 'The Sun said they were robbing the dead. It was all lies. If anyone was looking through people's pockets, it was for their IDs. The Sun is scum and nobody in this pub buys it.'

The Western Approaches - in drug- and crime-plagued Croxteth in inner-city Liverpool - was once Wayne Rooney's local and is still frequented by his father, siblings and cousins. On the cream-painted walls is a framed team photo of the Croxteth amateur boxing squad, naming its secretary as Richie Rooney. Tonight another young Rooney, who in blue T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms is the image of his famous cousin, is standing near the jukebox, watching darts. When an Observer reporter enters the room the laughter dies. There is a hostile silence. 'Gettout!' shouts someone. Journalists are not welcome here.

And some are less welcome than others. Those from the Sun must still answer for the sins of their predecessors. In April 1989, four days after 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the terraces at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, Britain's bestselling daily ran the front page headline 'The Truth'. Below it were three subheadings: 'Some fans picked pockets of victims'; 'Some fans urinated on the brave cops'; 'Some fans beat up PCs giving the kiss of life'. All were lies. The Taylor Inquiry after the disaster found that fans had responded quicker than the emergency services, performing several acts of heroism.

Copies of the Sun were burnt in the city's streets and many newsagents refused to sell it. It has still not fully recovered: while the paper sells 3.3 million copies nationwide, it shifts only 12,000 in Liverpool. One rival publication calculated that, given an average cover price of 20p over 15 years, editor Kelvin MacKenzie's catastrophic misjudgment has cost owner Rupert Murdoch around £55 million in lost circulation.

Enter Wayne Rooney, superstar of Everton and hero of England's recent Euro 2004 campaign. The 18-year-old's decision to sell his life story - 'world exclusive' revelations that he and his fiancée love each other, watch EastEnders and have a dog called Fiz - for £250,000 to the Sun and its sister paper, the News of the World , was guaranteed to test his folk hero status like nothing else. As in 1992, when Liverpool manager Graeme Souness took the paper's shilling, radio phone-ins were jammed. Fans wrote letters or emails saying they were 'sickened'. Red-blue rivalries on the field were irrelevant: Everton and Liverpool fans are united in hatred of the Sun.

Leading the condemnation of the deal is Jimmy McGovern, writer of the TV drama documentary Hillsborough. He said last night: 'Footballers today are on massive wages because 96 fans died at Hillsborough and Lord Justice Taylor had to drag the game into the modern era. Footballers should never forget it. Local lads especially. Locally born footballers have an enormous responsibilty to the Hillsborough dead. That is hard, I know. They are only young men. But, tough, they have it. So for Wayne Rooney to sell his story to the Sun is a disgrace.'

For men like Stevie Gay, who lost friends at Hillsborough and used to take young Wayne to watch boxing, there is a potential conflict of loyalties. But he had no doubt where the responsibility lies. 'He's been badly advised, and his agent has made a few quid. Wayne has proved himself to the world, and no one should blame him.'

Others in The Western Approaches shared a fierce allegiance to Rooney that is matched only by their revulsion towards the Sun. John McCormick, 64, a retired labourer, said: 'The Sun is a disgrace. I won't have it in the house. It doesn't matter how often they apologise because it's too late. I will never forgive the Sun. I can imagine Wayne Rooney's family are upset. If I was his dad I'd have given him a smack. But he was only three years old at the time of Hillsborough. He's been misdirected by his agent and should get rid of him.'

Rooney's agent is Paul Stretford, the millionaire founder and chief executive of the Proactive Sports Group. Stretford is understood to have been aware of the anti-Sun sentiments on Merseyside but advised Rooney to sign the deal anyway, without Everton's knowledge. What Stretford hadn't bargained for was last Wednesday's Sun , which in response to local complaints issued a full-page apology for 'the most terrible mistake in its history', and claimed on its front page that Rooney had been 'hurt by a hate campaign' against him.

Stretford was incensed that it implied Rooney backed the apology, and rushed out a statement: 'Proactive, Wayne and his fiancée Colleen believe that the Sun 's repeated apologies for its terrible mistakes in its reporting of the Hillsborough disaster are entirely a matter for that newspaper. We all wish to make it clear that the sentiments expressed in the Sun were the views of that newspaper alone and we were not asked to, nor did we, endorse them.'

The Sun's mea culpa appeared to have backfired by turning a local story into a national one. The apparent self-flagellation was condemned as a cynical ploy because it also managed to accuse the Liverpool Post and Echo newspapers, owned by the rival Trinity Mirror group, of stirring anger towards Rooney for commercial gain. 'b******s,' said Jon Brown, deputy editor of the Echo. 'For the Sun to accuse anyone of stoking things up is deeply ironic. There has been no pressure, overtly or subtly. It was a cheap shot and the staff here were furious. Fifteen years ago the Sun published something without thinking about it. They did the same this week. They turned into it more of an issue than we ever did. I'm sure there are people at the Sun now regretting prodding a stick into a hornets' nest.'

He added: 'The Sun's coverage of Hillsborough still has ramifications today in the vilification of Scousers, of an entire culture and community. It blackened the reputation of the city and it has still not recovered. If you go anywhere in the world Liverpool has a great reputation. If you go anywhere in England, it's different. The Sun has repeated the mass slander this week by saying Rooney is the victim of a hate campaign. There is no hate campaign. The Sun suggested there were mobs of vicious Liverpudlians gunning for Rooney and his girlfriend. The word "hate" is ridiculous. People here are proud of what he's achieved. You could ask a thousand people here if they hate Wayne Rooney and you wouldn't get a single yes.'

Pride, insularity, self-pity and living in the past have all become part of the lexicon applied to Scousers by outsiders. Liverpool is in the throes of a dramatic transformation and will be European City of Culture in 2008. But confrontations such as last week's crystallise its uneasy relationship with the rest of the country. Alan Bleasdale, the writer of TV dramas including Boys from the Black Stuff, said: 'There is radical change in this city. The only time we look back is when people pick our scabs and the wounds bleed. How often have you heard Scousers sentimentally wallowing in the past? Only in recent days in response to events elsewhere in the country.'

Phil Hammond, who lost his 14-year-old son Philip at Hillsborough, said: 'There are a few papers prejudiced against Liverpool. The Daily Mail printed a picture from the internet of Wayne Rooney doing a cartwheel and lots of stolen things falling out of his pockets, with the joke being: "You can take the lad out of Liverpool but you can't take Liverpool out of the lad." '

Rogan Taylor, who was chairman of the Football Supporters' Association at the time of Hillsborough, said: 'The people of Liverpool are not soft. Like Jews, Poles, blacks and others who keep getting whacked, they know who they are and who their enemies are. Liverpool is like the Poland of England.

'You should see it in the context of 150 years of prejudice from the ruling Protestant class towards the Irish Catholic settlers. The opinion columns of the Mail and Express today could easily be transported from the Times in 1845, asking questions like: "What kind of people are they? They like drinking and dancing and telling stories - what do these people think life is?" You could see the same subtext post-Hillsborough. "Why don't people take responsibility for themselves? Their culture is different from ours." The Sun splash pushed it to the limit at the end of a troubled decade.'

He added: 'Our memory is elephantine. Accusing people of robbing the dead is as close to unforgivable as you can get. If Murdoch and MacKenzie came to apologise, that would be interesting. But we haven't seen them, have we?'

A spokeswoman for Murdoch said: 'I am sure he completely agrees with the statements in the Sun.' Kelvin MacKenzie, now head of the TalkSport radio station, refused to comment last week. But in 1993 he told the Commons national heritage committee: '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.'

To the ongoing resentment of the Hillsborough families, neither MacKenzie nor the Sun has disclosed the identity of the source. The paper last week put assistant editor Graham Dudman on a round of radio phone-ins, in which he insisted the 1989 staff were no longer employed and pointed out that current editor Rebekah Wade was a 20-year-old student at the time. But Bleasdale said: 'The hierarchy of the Sun is different but the owner is the same, the philosophy is the same and the contempt is the same. To use a football analogy, it's just a transfer of players. You should try to forget but you should never forgive.'

Derek Hatton, the Liverpool council deputy leader-turned-radio presenter, said: 'I sat next to Rebekah Wade at a party for Max Clifford's birthday a few months ago and we were talking about Hillsborough. She didn't know that much about it, and why should she? Wayne Rooney at 18 ought to know more about it because there isn't a footballing kid of 18 in Liverpool who doesn't know exactly what happened at Hillsborough. I get a bit pissed off with people defending him. I'm the biggest fan of Wayne as a footballing genius but he has to bear some sort of responsibility.'

There are clearly some who agree. Those leaving Liverpool's Anfield ground on Friday morning were confronted by the giant words 'ROONEY SCUMBAG' daubed in white paint on the wall of a house opposite.

The war of words

Disaster
Liverpool fans are pulled from the crush that killed 96 at the Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield in April 1989.

Accusation
The Sun front page of 19 April 1989 claims fans dishonoured the city's dead. The source for the story has never been revealed.

Kiss and sell
Wayne Rooney sold his 'world exclusive' story to the Sun, telling of his love for fiancée Colleen McLoughlin.

Apology
The Sun devotes an entire page on Wednesday to saying sorry over Hillsborough... but upsets Liverpool all over again in the process.

Originally posted by Rushian.

qu'ils aillent se faire enculer le sun c de la merde ca et meme pire que ca!!

si il y a une chose que j'ignorais c'est que la majorité des fans d'everton réagissent d'une façon unitaire avec les fans de lfc lorsque l'on parle du sun.

je sais qu'il ya de la guéguerre en tre les fans d'efc et les fans de lfc,que c'est une guéguerre ridicule,mais je ne savais pas que les fans d'efc soient aussi solidaires de nous.

ce qui est scandaleux dans les prétendues excuses du sun c'est le fait qu'ils aient sous entendu que le liverpool echo avait profité du boycott du son par les liverpudlians.

on leur parle de 96 morts et eux sont dégouttés d'avoir perdu des sous.
i'll never forgive them,that's fuckin' too late....

ba c bidon leur mentalite.......!!
vive le Liverpool Echo!!

PARRY WELCOMES CARLSBERG DECISION
Paul Eaton 15 August 2008

Rick Parry today welcomed Carlsberg's decision to withdraw from a planned promotion with The Sun newspaper.
Speaking this afternoon, the Liverpool Chief Executive said: "We raised the issue with Carlsberg as soon as we became aware of it.

"We held talks at the highest level with Carlsberg and are delighted they have responded in the right way so promptly."

Carlsberg had planned a promotion with The Sun whereby vouchers would be published in the newspaper entitling readers across the UK to a free pint of lager.

A statement released on behalf of Carlsberg Sponsorship Director Keld Strudahl read: "Carlsberg apologises for any offence caused by the planned free pint promotion in The Sun.

"Carlsberg is very proud of its long association with Liverpool Football Club and the people of Liverpool over the past 16 years, so we have decided not to proceed with the activity."

source : offal

------------------------------------

Calsberg avait prévu de faire une pub dans le S** pour une promo sur la bière mais a décidé de ne pas la faire après une réunion avec Parry.

Bonne réaction de la part de Carslberg ! Ils n'ont pas besoin de ce torchon !

YNWA - JUSTICE FOR THE 96

C'est déjà moyen que carlsberg aie penser à se faire de la pub dans ce torchon...