Newspaper in the dock

A campaign has been launched calling for The Sun newspaper to be closed down following the devastating report into the Hillsborough tragedy. On 19 April, four days after the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, used “THE TRUTH” as the front page headline, followed by 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 inquiry has proved that these awful and horrible allegations were wrong and MacKenzie has been forced to quite rightly apologise. This was an awful front page which was also wrong. Ever since then The Sun newspaper has been boycotted in Liverpool. The boycott has been vindicated by the report. However, rather than blaming the staff of The Sun for the whole sad episode, I believe that it is the editor and the owner of the newspaper who should take the full blame and not the whole staff of the newspaper who were even ordered out of the inquiry press conference on Wednesday. It was a disgusting front page which should never have been published. But it was MacKenzie who was at the helm. He has long since left The Sun. I can understand how the people of Liverpool feel but I do not agree with this campaign. The top-selling tabloid has been punished heavily over recent months because of the phone hacking scandal. It is staffed by many very good professionals who were not involved in the MacKenzie front page.