The Sun

The Sun

The Sun is a UK-based tabloid newspaper published by News International.

History

'The Sun along with its Sunday version The News of The World' is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s organisation News International.

Rupert Murdoch moved production of the newspaper away from its traditional home in Fleet Street to new premises in Wapping East London in 1986. The move was designed to modernise production practices, reduce costs and perhaps more importantly remove the influence of the powerful Fleet Street print unions.

The move to Wapping had, according to journalist Nick Davies, "Released a chain reaction of internal changeswhich have had a devastating effect on truth-telling journalism".

Controversies

In May 1982 The Sun reported the sinking of the Argentine Navy Cruiser The Belgrano with the headline “Gotcha”. The sinking of the Belgrano caused 323 deaths, more than half of the Argentine deaths in the entire conflict.

In April 1989 The Sun under the headline “The Truth”, reported that during the Hillsborough stadium football disaster Liverpool football fans had attacked policemen while they tried to help injured victims of the crush. The sub-headlines on the piece read: "Some fans picked pockets of victims"; "Some fans urinated on the brave cops"; "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life".

Media monopoly

MP's protesting against Murdoch's acquisition of The Sun were concerned with the effect a media monopoly could have on democracy in the United Kingdom. This is according to a report by the Labour Government in 2001 because "A healthy democracy depends on a culture of dissent and argument, which would inevitably be diminished if there were only a limited number of providers of news" .

The main concern with Rupert Murdoch's media monopoly is that he can use it to manipulate public opinion and therefore put pressure on politicians who oppose his business interests. In October 2003 in the United States a study by the nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes showed that 60% of U.S. citizens believed either that, clear evidence had been found of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda; W.M.D. had been found in Iraq; world public opinion favored the U.S. going to war with Iraq. 80% of the people who believed these falsehoods received their news primarily from Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. The clear bias of Fox News has not been displayed in The Sun but Krugman argues that "a number of former Sun employees have said that there was pressure to slant coverage — and everyone I’ve seen quoted defending Mr. Murdoch’s management is still on his payroll" .

The media interests of News International in the United Kingdom include:

• BSkyB (39% Stake)
• The Sun
• The Sun
• The Sun
• The News of The World
• The London Paper
• Harper Collins (Publishing house)

In the United States Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp owns:

• Myspace
• The New York Post
• Fox News
• 20th Century Fox
• Fox Searchlight Pictures

ABC and Readership Figures

The Sun has an average daily net circulation of 2,899,310 according to the latest figures from ABC, these figures cover the period from the end of November 2008 to the end of December 2008.

According to The National Readership Survey 38% of Sun readers belong to socio-economic group ABC1, with the other 62% belonging to socio-economic group C2DE. 52% of Sun readers are over 44 and 48% are aged between 15-44. The male-female divide amongst Sun readers is 56% male and 44% female. This data was captured over one year from October 2007 to September 2008.