The Sun
- See Sun (disambiguation) for other meanings of the word "Sun", and other newspapers known as "The Sun"
The Sun, a daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom, has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at around 3,400,000 copies daily in mid-2004. It is published by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, The Sun was created out of the Daily Herald in 1964 and sold to Murdoch and made into a tabloid size in 1969. The current editor is Rebekah Wade, wife of ex-Eastenders actor Ross Kemp, hence the copious, flattering coverage of whatever piece of televisual garbage he happens to be appearing in at the time.
By reputation, the quality of the newspaper's journalism is subordinate to the copious pictures of scantily clad young women in its pages. Its editorial line is markedly conservative and anti-European Union. However, following talks between Tony Blair and Murdoch it came out in support of the Labour Party during the 1997 general election campaign, running the front-page headline "The Sun backs Blair" on election day, and has broadly supported the Labour government since then. Its "page three girls" are famous, but the paper has made efforts to reduce their presence, with the feature not appearing at times when the news agenda is of a serious nature. There have been campaigns to ban page three, most recently by Clare Short. It often publishes vulgar slurs and jokes about foreign countries, the favourites being France and Germany, or the European Union in general; as an example, it printed a special edition to be distributed in France depicting president Jacques Chirac as a worm on the first page.
A major source of resentment against The Sun is its coverage of immigrants and asylum seekers to the United Kingdom. The paper has been accused of using dubious facts and exaggerated information in its reporting on this issue, and of deliberately inciting racism and prejudice.
The Sun is notorious for its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster in Liverpool, where it printed allegations against Liverpool football fans that were later found to be untrue. This caused a boycott of the Sun in Liverpool. It made a full page 'apology' on July 7, 2004, 15 years after the disaster, which has been criticised by some as self-serving [1] (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1255987,00.html). For more on this controversy, see 'The Sun newspaper' section in 'Hillsbrough disaster'.
Note: the Sunday equivalent of The Sun in the UK is the News of the World – the Sunday Sun is an unrelated tabloid newspaper, published in Newcastle upon Tyne.
See List of newspapers in the United Kingdom for a comparison of The Sun to other newspapers.
Editors
- Kelvin MacKenzie (1981–1994)
- Stuart Higgins (1994–1998)
- David Yelland (1998–2003)
- Rebekah Wade (2003–)
Related newspapers
Content and editorially similar newspapers published within the UK are the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Star, and the Daily Sport.
External link
- Official website (http://www.thesun.co.uk/)
ja:ザ・サン
pl:The Sun
Categories: British newspapers | News Corporation subsidiaries