It's also true that the paper's latest editorial contained this paragraph: “We apologised prominently 12 years ago, again four years ago on the front page, and do so unreservedly again now.”īut, alas, The Truth, the brutal truth, is that the failure to feature the story on its front page again in the wake of that historic inquest jury verdict was a colossal mistake. Meanwhile Alan Green, the BBC's match commentator on the day of the Hillsborough horror, lambasted “Kelvin Mackenzie and his cohorts” over their original coverage on the Today programme.Īt this point, it's fair to point out that current Sun editor Tony Gallagher and his senior team weren't around in 1989 and bear no responsibility for that notorious front page and the legacy of contempt it has left in so many minds. We've been criticised today for not having Hillsborough on our first edition front page. The Times has since issued a remarkable public explanation describing the omission as a "mistake". Quite what inspired that mysterious first edition 'misjudgement' is certainly a source of much fevered private speculation among media insiders. ![]() In fact his own paper also came under fire from critics online and elsewhere – some claiming a Murdoch empire conspiracy – for making no mention of Hillsborough in its first edition front page, although it quickly included a large page one photo of the jubilant families and a cross-reference to a thorough two-page inside spread in subsequent editions. Tony Barrett, Merseyside football writer for Sun stablemate the Times, simply tweeted 'Unbelievable' when the Sun front page emerged late last night. Match of the Day presenter and former England striker Gary Lineker was just one of the celebrities to take to Twitter as the Sun's Hillsborough-free front page appeared, calling the decision “as disgusting as it is unsurprising. For starters, the newspaper was banned from the press conference held by the Hillsborough families and their lawyers after the verdict, with a pointed opening remark to that effect in front of the live TV news cameras. Well, a helluva lot was certainly being thrown the Sun's way. Later he issued a statement, saying: “As I have said before, the headline I published was wrong and I am profoundly sorry for the hurt it caused.”Įlsewhere, the Sun's political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, appearing on Sky News' nightly newspaper review, repeated that the police were the 'core' story rather than the Sun, but wisely acknowledged understanding why that 1989 front page was still the source of huge anger, saying: “We deserve everything that is thrown our way.” Tough nut MacKenzie, doorstepped by ITN on the afternoon of the verdict, looked close to tears (a sight I thought I'd never see) as he apologised to the victims’ families, slammed the South Yorkshire police but did himself no favours by implying that he, too, was some sort of victim who had been duped by the police. ![]() Within hours of the jury's verdict after the two-year-long marathon of Britain's longest inquest hearing, online petitions were being launched urging a nationwide boycott of the paper and the sacking of its leading columnist, Kelvin MacKenzie – the editor behind the grotesque 'The Truth' smear 27 years ago. By any count, the Sun gave far less coverage to the Hillsborough inquest result than any other UK national newspaper, despite it dominating domestic broadcasting news bulletins and receiving huge international airtime too. ![]() Inevitably, both on social media and among many mainstream media platforms, the image of the Sun's infamous 'The Truth' front page from 1989 was being flashed around the world like a tsunami of shame relived, with its discredited claims of drunken fans urinating on police and stealing from the dead. It was a dismissal doomed to infuriate the Hillsborough families, and the city of Liverpool, where the Sun has long been boycotted, but also prompted a deluge of social media hostility far removed from Merseyside or the mindless trolling community. But the police smeared them with a pack of lies which in 1989 The Sun and others in the media swallowed whole.” It also printed a short leader, "Justice at last", which contained the inadequate paragraph: “The supporters were not to blame. Call it catch-22, perhaps, but in the end the Sun's current editorial team made the wrong call, scoring a huge own goal and triggering a massive backlash in the court of public opinion by omitting a single reference to the Hillsborough story from its front page and relegating coverage to pages eight and nine, under the headline 'JUSTICE 27YRS ON'.
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