20 more reasons to never buy The Sun
Credit to Em5y from RAWK for this. Original link: http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=23802.0
An argument often put forward with regard to the S*n boycott is ‘the guilty people are no longer part of the paper – why still punish them?’. A lazy argument really – if this is the case, why dont the present incumbents swallow their pride and admit to their dirty history? But the S*n has a long history of kicking people when they are down.
‘the guilty people are no longer part of the paper – why still punish them?’
Be under NO illusions – The S*n is still up to it’s tricks – you never know when it will turn on you.
There are already 96 reasons you should never buy the rag – here are 20 more which show that they have not learnt their lesson. I have included the links from where I found these stories so you may read about the rag and its shameful past in more detail.
1). GOTCHA – The S*n and it’s reporting of the Falklands war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/falklands/story/0,11707,657850,00.html
MacKenzie happily embraced the legend of “Gotcha”. Indeed, the day after the Belgrano’s sinking, the Sun’s front page, “ALIVE! Hundreds of Argies saved from Atlantic”, played down the fact that 368 men were killed. Later, comparing death to a game of football, MacKenzie produced the headline: “BRITAIN 6 (Georgia, two airstrips, three warplanes), ARGENTINA 0.”
By now, MacKenzie had opened a second front, seizing the chance to fight another war – for circulation – by attacking the Daily Mirror which, alone among the tabloids, adopted an anti-war stance. A Sun leader spoke of “the traitors in our midst”, such as “the timorous, whining Mirror” (and, incidentally, “the pygmy Guardian”). MacKenzie was making an overt attempt to win over the Mirror’s audience by appealing to their sense of patriotism. The Mirror hit back with an editorial headlined “The Harlot of Fleet Street”, which called the Sun “coarse and demented”, a paper which had “fallen from the gutter to the sewer”, and concluded: “The Sun today is to journalism what Dr Joseph Goebbels was to truth.”
Though Petrie later argued that the Sun had supplanted the Mirror as the paper beloved by soldiers and sailors, the paper’s official historian quoted a serviceman who said, “Your headlines often made us feel sick”, and that there were “ritual burnings of the Sun” on the task force vessels.
MacKenzie, convinced that he was properly articulating his readers’ views, was unconcerned. He even laughed off Private Eye’s spoof Sun headline, “KILL AN ARGIE AND WIN A METRO”, joking: “Why didn’t we think of that?”
2). Anything to stay popular…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/15/newsid_3068000/3068749.stm
Five years after its arrival on Fleet Street, the Sun was up for sale partly because of losses dating back to its predecessor, the Herald.
As a broadsheet, the paper was attracting a daily readership of one million.
There were two key players interested in buying: the millionaire Labour MP Robert Maxwell and the right-leaning Australian newspaper proprietor Rupert Murdoch, who already owned The News of the World.
Mr Murdoch clinched the deal and immediately relaunched the Sun as a tabloid – shortly followed by the introduction of the Page Three girls.
In 1978 The Sun overtook its closest rival The Mirror in the circulation war.
In 1986 Mr Murdoch introduced new print technology and moved the Sun to Wapping.
In 1997 the Sun returned to its Labour roots and backed Tony Blair for Prime Minister.
In 2002 the paper’s circulation was about 3.6 million.
3). Page 3
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1122926,00.html
The Sun has launched a scathing personal attack on Labour MP Clare Short, branding her a “killjoy” and “fat and jealous” of its Page 3 girls.
It hit out at the maverick Labour MP after she renewed her attack on Page 3 girls, branding pictures of topless models “degrading pornography”.
Using a montage of Ms Short’s face superimposed on a topless model, it likened her to the back of a bus and and “jokes” that making her into a Page 3 girl would be “mission impossible”.
4.) It’s attitude towards Asylum seekers…
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1104109,00.html
The Press Complaints Commission has been branded “disgraceful” after it decided not to force an apology out of the Sun for a story claiming asylum seekers in London had poached and eaten swans.
The Sun published a small clarification in Saturday’s paper over a front page report in July about the disappearance of swans in Beckton, which alleged police had caught asylum seekers with swans which they were preparing to roast.
The newspaper admitted nobody had been arrested over any such offence, but maintained that numerous members of the public had accused eastern European refugees of killing the birds to eat.
5.) Lies…Lies….Lies
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1004408,00.html
The Sun today apologised to Kate Adie and paid an undisclosed sum in damages after falsely accusing the veteran war reporter of endangering the prime minister’s life by revealing details of a foreign trip.
Adie agreed an out of court settlement with the Sun over a front page story headlined “Sack Kate Adie – fury at security boob”, in which the newspaper claimed she had revealed top secret details about Tony Blair’s visit to the Middle East.
6). Uncaring about the individual.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,931562,00.html
The Sun has apologised for a second time to a man whom it wrongly identified as a child sex offender.
On March 29 the tabloid published a picture of a man over the headline “Face of kid ban pervert”. The adjoining article stated that the photograph was of Christopher Harris, who had been banned from going near children for life after assaulting girls in Great Yarmouth.
However, owing to a mix-up by a picture agency, the photograph was in fact of David Gazley, a man with no connection to any such offences.
7). Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,909837,00.html
The Sun has become embroiled in a row over accuracy after the 14-year-old boy named in today’s front-page story claimed the article was wrong.
George Barlow burst into tears as he denied the newspaper’s claims that he had been “insulted” by Prince Philip.
Under the headline “You old Git, Phil”, the newspaper reported that the gaffe-prone Prince had insulted the teenager while on a visit to his school.
The Sun said the Prince had “sneered” at Mr Barlow, a fan of the royal family who wrote to the Queen to request a visit to his school in Romford, Essex.
“Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then. Ha, Ha!” The Sun reported the Prince as saying.
8 ). Invasion of privacy.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,903724,00.html
Pressure for the government to tighten controls on the press intensified yesterday when the Sun outed the Labour MP Clive Betts.
Fellow MPs raised the issue of press intrusion at Labour’s weekly parliamentary meeting yesterday morning, attended by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. Intrusion is already the subject of an inquiry by the select committee on culture, media and sport, chaired by Gerald Kaufman, a champion of statutory controls.
9). Right wing and racist.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,879372,00.html
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/images/0,11312,879370,00.html
Press watchdogs are to investigate the Sun following complaints about a satirical feature on asylum seekers, yardies and drug dealers who, the paper claimed, are flourishing “under New Labour”.
One week into her job as Sun editor, Rebekah Wade provoked accusations of racism with the paper’s controversial reinterpretation of the much-loved children’s characters the Mr Men
10). The culture of the newspaper
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1083071,00.html
Rupert Murdoch’s company, News International, paid £500,000 to silence allegations of serious sexual harassment against a former editor of the Sun newspaper, a Labour MP claimed yesterday.
Stuart Higgins was accused of crude and offensive behaviour towards his executive secretary during the time he edited the paper between 1994 and 1998. The Labour MP Clive Soley told parliament that staff on Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper had suffered “sexual harassment and bullying”.
11.) Courting controversy to attract readers.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1065603,00.html
Campaigners for children’s rights have severely criticised the Sun’s “Shop a Yob” campaign to name and shame youngsters who are subject to anti-social behaviour orders.
The policy adviser to the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which represents more than 180 organisations, expressed her concerns about the initiative.
“We’re very worried about it. It smacks a little of lynch mob behaviour,” said Terri Dowty.
As part of Shop a Yob the Sun has published the photographs, names and ages of youngsters who have anti-social behaviour orders against them.
12). Nicole Kidman
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1062727,00.html
The Sun has apologised to Nicole Kidman and agreed to pay her libel damages and legal costs over false allegations that she had an adulterous affair with Jude Law.
The allegations, which appeared in the Sun on March 5, caused the Hollywood actress “considerable embarrassment and distress”, her solicitor, Keith Schilling, told Mr Justice Eady at the high court today
13). The Beckham Kidnap Plot.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/medialaw/story/0,11614,973840,00.html
The News of the World exposé of an alleged plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham was based largely on the unsupported testimony of a serial fantasist with a history of mental health problems.
Last week the Crown Prosecution Service announced that all the charges relating to the kidnapping were to be dropped because the main witness, Florim Gashi, 27, was unreliable.
The CPS reached this decision after learning that Gashi had been paid £10,000 by the newspaper. But an Observer investigation has found that much of the evidence provided by Gashi had been fabricated and that other key elements had been engineered to support his version of events.
14). Prize draw blunder.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/thesun/story/0,12950,1050380,00.html
The Sun suspended four journalists after a major error in a money-winning competition left the tabloid liable to pay out more than £1m to readers.
A features executive, two subeditors and a page-builder were suspended over a production error that doubled the number of winners in the Starstuck competition, although not all of those eligible have claimed their prize.
All four, however, were quickly reinstated following an investigation into the mistake, which appears to have occurred while editions of the paper were being changed.
15). Frank Bruno
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1047966,00.html
The Sun was last night forced into a humiliating about-turn following a storm of protest over a front-page headline that labelled former boxer Frank Bruno “bonkers”, after he was taken to a psychiatric hospital.
In the first edition of the paper the front page splashed with the headline “Bonkers Bruno Locked Up” above a story that labelled him a “nut”, prompting a storm of protest from readers and mental health charities.
Realising it had misjudged the public mood, the Sun’s editor, Rebekah Wade, was forced into a climbdown, changing the headline to read, “Sad Bruno in Mental Health Home”, with the accompanying story labelling him a “hero”.
16). Cheriegate
http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,7494,988753,00.html
The Sun has been found guilty of “one of the most serious forms of physical intrusion into privacy” by watchdogs over taped telephone calls involving the boyfriend of Cherie Blair’s lifestyle guru Carole Caplin.
The press complaints commission said the paper was wrong to have published the transcripts of the conversations between Australian conman Peter Foster and his mother.
17). George Galloway – Traitor.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,928738,00.html
George Galloway MP today branded the Sun newspaper guilty of “cancerous racist pornographic propaganda” after it described him as “an enemy of the state”.
“The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch; so patriotic that he has been a citizen of three different countries in 15 years, a kind of serial patriotism which is the last refuge of such scoundrels,” Mr Galloway said.
18). A reporters view…Why I quit the Sun.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,925903,00.html
Last week, Katy Weitz resigned as a feature writer on the Sun because of the strength and tone of its support for the war in the Gulf. Here she sets out her motives
19). Racism
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/story/0,9860,895674,00.html
The Sun newspaper has been banned from Leeds University student union shops in protest against its portrayal of asylum seekers
The motion, proposed by student Rebecca Allen and seconded by Tim Nicholson, was passed yesterday with 121 votes for and 111 against at the university’s annual general meeting.
Ms Allen said the motion had been prompted by “unnecessary racist articles” that had appeared in the paper.
The motion read: “The Sun newspaper is now carrying out a vicious campaign against asylum seekers and the basic human right of asylum in general.”
The newspaper, which sells 3,000 copies a month in union shops, will not be available for one month, or until it drops its “racist campaign”, the motion said.
20). The fire service boycott.
http://www.kirkbytimes.co.uk/news_items/boycott_sun.html
Kirkby Times is more than willing to draw attention to the recent attacks by the Sun Gutter Rag on the Fire Brigade. Not surprisingly, the Sun or SCUM as its known in Merseyside, has decided to approach the strike guns blazing for Blair and as usual employing its well known tactic of attacking any Union which dares to ask for more than 2 0r 3% payrises. The Journalists who work for the Sun, are not only paid more than the Fire Brigade, they have actually deluded themselves that they are some sort of service to society. Its time now for a new generation of Merseysiders and indeed anyone in the UK and beyond to Boycott this Gutter Rag. Through the Internet we can help to destroy the monopoly the mass media hold on passing on information.
The S*n loses millions because of our boycott – but their belief is that over time, younger people will ensure it is all forgotten about. Please visit http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough and educate yourself and others about what happened that day.
Education is the key.
Justice for the 96.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Tags: Don't Buy The Sun
