New of the World and the Milly Dowler murder

Thanks, Moggy – I didn’t need to read more than the first few words to understand Pagen’s reference! What a berk!:o

On the Wednesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper with national distribution 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” and “Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life”.

The newspaper cited the words of unnamed police sources and a Conservative MP for information relating to the alleged incidents.

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 quotation, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed a dead girl had been “abused”, and that Liverpool fans were “openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead”. These allegations contradicted the reported behaviour of many Liverpool fans, who actively helped the security personnel to stretcher away a large number of victims and gave first aid to many injured.

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 in the office) 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’.

Following The Sun’s report, the newspaper was boycotted by most newsagents in Liverpool, and large numbers of readers cancelling orders and refusing to buy from shops that stocked it. The Hillsborough Justice Campaign also organised a less successful national boycott that nevertheless did have an impact on the paper’s sales, which some commentators have given as a cause for continued drops in price, the introduction of free magazines, and video and free DVD offers. The issue was also addressed on the documentary Alexei Sayle’s Liverpool on BBC Two when it covered the subject of Hillsborough. The segment saw comedian Alexei Sayle with a newsagent attempting to give away copies of The Sun, but every customer declined. Eventually, Alexei and the newsagent took the copies outside and, despite the newsagent’s concern, set them alight.

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 (David Duckenfield) had not agreed with it, we would not have gone with it.”
MacKenzie repudiated this apology in November 2006, saying that he only apologised because the newspaper’s owner Rupert Murdoch ordered him to do so. He said, “I was not sorry then and I’m not sorry now” for the paper’s coverage.[53] MacKenzie refused again to apologise when appearing on the BBC’s topical Question Time on 11 January 2007.

The Sun issued an apology for their treatment of the Hillsborough disaster “without reservation” in a full page opinion piece on 7 July 2004, saying that it had “committed the most terrible mistake in its history” by publishing it. The Sun was responding to the intense criticism of Wayne Rooney, a Liverpool-born football star who still played in the city (for Everton, now for Manchester United) who had sold his life story to the newspaper. Rooney’s actions had incensed Liverpudlians still angry with 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”.

On 6 January 2007, during their team’s FA Cup defeat to Arsenal at Anfield, Liverpool fans in the Kop held up coloured cards spelling out “The Truth” and chanted “Justice for the 96” for six minutes at the start of the game. The protest was directed at Kelvin MacKenzie and The Sun, and at the BBC for employing MacKenzie as a presenter.

Poster urging the Liverpool public not to purchase the Sun newspaper.
Many people in the Liverpool area continue to reject buying The Sun as a matter of principle, and the paper’s sales figures within Merseyside remain very poor. It is the only major newspaper not to have articles published on Liverpool’s official website. As of 2004, the average daily circulation of The Sun in Liverpool was just 12,000 copies a day; an estimated 200,000 fewer than before the controversial article was published. Some Liverpudlians refer to the paper as simply: The Scum.

The controversy was referred to during the 2009 Labour Party conference. On 30 September 2009, after the decision by The Sun to switch its support to the Conservative Party in advance of the forthcoming general election, Union Leader Tony Woodley ripped up a copy of The Sun, saying “In Liverpool we learnt a long time ago what to do.”

However, subsequent articles in The Sun have since acknowledged that hooliganism was not a cause of the tragedy; on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy (15 April 2009) an article by journalist Mike Ellis condemned the 1991 inquest verdict of death by misadventure into the deaths of the 95 victims (the 96th victim Tony Bland did not die for another two years after this) as “tosh” and claimed that “death by negligence would have been a more accurate description”.

From Wiki, for what it’s worth.

Moggy

Pagen – well opinion differs, but at least we are agreed the whole saga is appalling and as I suggested a very large can of worms has been opened.

“The Sun and Liverpool springs to mind” – forgive a “senior”£ moment but please remind me….:)

I meant to add that, although somewhat diminished by the nature of this story, the parallel story of payments to the police by the NOTW are just as serious, and have deep implications for the media but much more significantly, the police.

Everyday this story becomes more and more sickening and disgusting. Its totally evil that in particular murder victims and soldiers families were hacked, Having lost my Mum recently I know the grief the families must be/been going through and nobody has the right to play with others lives like that.

I for one will never buy one of the news international groups newspapers again, and hope there will be a total boycott of the News of the World from buyers and advertisers. I would also like to see a huge fine on the Newspaper which would go the charities such as Help for Heroes.

While I am totally disgusted by what the News International group have done, I do wonder if the News of the World was the only newpaper using such sick methods of news gathering.

I fear this runs deeper through all the tabaloids and this just tip of the iceberg, and I do think this coming out now is connected to the Sky TV deal thats going through with the government rather than somebody trying to clean up the newspaper world.

For me its time for a total clean up of news reporting to prevent such awful things happening again, Until then No newspaper is going to cross my threshold.

I must have missed something here.

I’m sure I heard The News of The World and The Sun referred to as “newspapers”.

I have little time for him but he is not really the target – I really do not believe as his detractors maintain, that he wields all the levers of power – his empire is too big for that. I am not even convinced that he would have encouraged what went on. He is a popular hate figure so, for many, his downfall could not come too soon.

No, it is the perpetrators and their immediate bosses who must take the rap, if found guilty.

I wholly endorse your last paragraph. I expressed a similar hope yesterday before the latest revelations.

Those proved to be culpable, at every level, should face the full force of the law.

Now reported that the families of some of those lost in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked.

We’re an odd Country, we are happy to take the rise out of ourselves, we’re even happy to have the rise taken out of us, but even when involved in unpopular conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq, the majority of the people get behind and support our service personnel, supporting those in harm’s way even if we don’t support the mission.

Hacking the phones of celebrities and politicians is bad enough but it feeds the desire of some elements of society who can’t get through the day without knowing just how many affairs a particular celebrity has had. Listening to the phone messages of missing people, and going on to delete some of those messages is not just wholly immoral, it has to be illegal as it is interfering with an ongoing Police investigation. But what possible purpose can be served by listening to messages and conversations between the relatives of those who have fallen in the service of their Country?

I am a simple man, with simple thoughts and perhaps a simplistic view on morality, but this morning, as more and more revelations come to light, I can’t help hoping against hope that this is the straw that breaks the camels back.

Regards,

kev35

Moggy, Avaaz, has done some very good work in the past, and I signed up to their organisation sometime ago. I think the thing that was doing the rounds at the time, was the Whaling, by Japan, I signed their petition, against Japans Whaling.
It’s amazing just what many thousands of signatures, on a pre formed letter of protest will do.
If members of the forum sign up to their organisation, there will be things they will undoubtedly agree/disagree with , but there is no pressure to sign any petition.

Jim.

Lincoln .7

May I direct your attention to this site here?

Ultimately futile I don’t doubt, but at least it’s something.

I edited the letter so that mine made more reference to young Milly, her family and the other victims.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_messages_2/?vl

Moggy

My pee is boiling on this matter.
Deleting Police evidence and allowing Milly’s family to think she was alive and listening to voicemails. Just how low can this get?

I’m glad I don’t read any national papers. They all have their own version of a story and they all have a political or sensational bent on matters.

Seems a lot to me but I suppose with sales of 7.6 million and a readership of probably double that your ad is going to be seen by an awful lot of people.

NewsCorp’s turnover last year was about $33 billion (Australian) and with assets of over $54 billion I don’t suppose the loss of some advertising will hurt too hard – yet!!

not necessarily… it’s Murdoch after all. In this whole story I do not believe even for a second that NOTW does not know who authorised the phone taps considering when you work for a Murdoch company you cannot even buy a pencil without his knowledge.

It was said on the news yesterday that in a 100 page issue of the NoTW, the paper hopes to fill 35 pages with advertising generating an average of one million pounds per page! Multiply that by 52 issues per year and you get 1.82 billion pounds! Surelly that can’t be right? I must have misheard it…..

Regards,

kev35

Rudyard or the maker of exceedingly good cakes?

You can kipple as ruddy ‘ard as you see fit, Kev.

They can’t touch you for it.

The famous cousin? Yes. 🙂

The one who made exceedingly good pies?

Ford are doing the right thing, the more that jump ship will make the paper fail, the advertising revenue is probably the only thing keeping them viable as a tacky rag.

Dammit kev you beat me …. 🙁

Rudyard or the maker of exceedingly good cakes?

Regards,

kev35

Was that Kipling?

The famous cousin? Yes. 🙂

pagen.

I fear that the problem here is that by the time all these revelations are made (if they ever are) we will be looking at aspects of aspects and that this practice by the NoTW (and any others who come to light)will have permeated society so deeply that the public will forever be distrustful of the media and maybe even the Police. I’m sure there are quite a number of people in authority who not only need to scrutinise their consciences but will be having a damned good look at their personal finances too.You scratch the surface deeply enough and peiople bleed, I expect there will be a fair amount of blood letting before all this reaches a conclusion. I nearly said satisfactory conclusion but I doubt there can ever be one.

Regards,

Kev35

Inkworm – you omitted The Times – what was on its front page? Mind you Sky has not been slow to fill the airwaves with the story!