The unoffical SUN newspaper

The Unofficial Sun newspaper page of Lonympics

History of the newspaper, History of page 3, Links

The Sun was launched in nineteen sixty four to replace the Daily Herald, which Mirror Group Newspapers. had owned. The Herald, had until its sale to Mirror Group in 1960, been a Labour Party supporter. But the working class readership was not to advertisers.

In 1969 Mirror Group sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch an Australian media baron. A move supported by the print unions because Murdoch promised job security, even though this promise was broken in the opinion of many. Murdoch had built up a newspaper industry in Australia using a format of sport, tabloid journalism and nationalism.

Murdoch repackaged the paper in tabloid format, and ran The Sun as a sister for the News of the World, the tabloid Sunday newspaper he bought in 68.

The major introduction that is the major cause of the popularity of the paper was the Page Three Girl in 1969, a pinup of women. In 1970, page 3 became nude, and the sale of the newspaper went up, and within a year circulation had roared 40%.

Politically, The Sun remained labour yet not passionately. Editor, Larry Lamb, was from a socialist upbringing.

But from the election of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative leader in 1975, The Sun changed track, and it urged readers to vote for her in the 1979 general election. With headlines such as "Crisis what crisis!" when the labour PM, denied that the nation was in crisis. The headline was to make the PM look out of touch.

The Sun had overtaken the Daily Mirror in circulation, thanks to advertising on ITV, voiced by actor Christopher Timothy. From 1981, The Sun used Bingo as a promotional tool to increase its circulation.

The newspaper started to become more and more euroskeptic in the eighties, some would say this was campaigning against CAP and the visionary EC president Delors. With the famous headline such as "Up Yours Delors". The newspaper became increasingly euroskeptic throughout the eighties and nineties. Some would say due to Thatcherite beliefs that Europe was too left wing. Some would say the newspaper staff were naturally xenophobic toward any European nation.

The newspaper was right wing, nationalistic and sometimes xenophobic throughout the eighties. The paper published the headline "GOTCHA" when, during the Falklands War, the Argentinean cruiser General Belgrano was sunk.

Maxwell the owner of the mirror managed to make sure the two newspapers would build up a strong rivalry. In the eighties the Mirror would support labour and the Sun Tory. Both Murdoch and Maxwell were massive figures of the eighties as famous and well know as the politicians, and some would say as influential. Two Lord Breverbrooks battling against eachother. They were courted by politicians, but despised by sections of the intelligentsia, the ordinary public, some broadsheet newspapers who saw there newspaper product as vulgar, or dumbing down. And ofcourse the massive ideological battle ground of the eighties caused the left to resent Murdoch and the right to resent Maxwell automatically.

The Maxwell pension scandal caused further bitterness to victims of Maxwell's corruption. While the trade unions often despised Murdoch for getting rid of jobs. In 1986 Murdoch shut down the Bouverie Street print works of the The Sun and News of the World and moved operations to the new Wapping complex, blocking unions and reducing staff employed in the papers; a long running picket from sacked workers was defeated. The increased profitability of the tabloids helped Murdoch to launch Sky satellite channels and to pursue predatory pricing of The Times against its own rivals.

The worst moment journalistically for The Sun' was its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, where 96 people died. Under a banner of the headline "THE TRUTH" the paper published false claims, including allegations that "Some fans picked pockets of victims" and "Some fans urinated on the brave cops" and "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life". This caused horror with the people of Liverpool. Many Liverpudlians refuse to buy the paper in protest. The editor of the paper claimed that he was used by the establishment to print the stories. This caused many to refer to the Sun as "the scum".

The Sun was a passionate champion of Margaret Thatcher and her policies, against miners, privatization, and euroskpetic manouvres, and maintained its support for the Conservatives after Thatcher was succeeded by John Major in 1990.

In the eighties Michael Heseltine resigned from the government over a Westland aircraft company dispute. Murdoch had supported a buy out of an aircraft company. Heseltine did not support this. The PM supported the Murdoch plan. Heseltine resigned in despair. Many would take from this the conspiracy theory that Murdoch is not that interested in which party wins the election but simply uses a successful newspaper format to create a massive circulation newspaper to gain influence over the public, to then gain power over those in power, and then expect them to back his businesses.

Many feel that Murdoch's euro skeptic position is simply due to his failure to break into Europe. He broke into the USA, and became a USA citizen to buy up media, yet has failed to dominate the rest of Europe in the way he dominates the UK. Many European media industries are protected from major foreign influence.

On the day of the 1992 election, the front page headline was "If Neil Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights", and two days later the Sun was so convinced of its contributions to the Conservative victory that it declared "IT WAS THE SUN WOT WON IT".

By now the Sun newspaper was seen as an integral part of the Tory. establishment. The labour party saw it as a viscous weapon to spread lies and propaganda for the Tories and against Labour.

Then in 1997, with the Tories in meltdown due to corruption, scandal, and economic mistakes, the Sun made the massive shock on supporting Blair's new Labour for the 1997 election. Following the election of Tony Blair to the leadership of the Labour Party in 1994. Many say the newspaper simply supported labour to keep in touch with the readership, and that much of the staff of the newspaper were still passionately Tory. They still supported the same right wing policies, and too be honest the editorial line was closer to Tory. than Labour. Yet Blair did work hard to attract Murdoch to support him visiting Murdoch in Australia, writing columns for the paper.

After the election the Labour government relaxed laws on media ownership that made it easier for Murdoch to buy up a larger share of the print and TV market. Backing the theory that Murdoch uses the paper to get power over government for this business advantage.

Since then with Labour constantly ahead in the opinion poll rating, the Sun has been loyally Labour in elections while at the same time still continuing what is in reality a right wing editorial that still seems closer to the Tory. party than Labour.
William Hague(Tory. leader 1997- 2001) was mocked in many issues of the paper. and his credibility was damaged.

The newspaper was still often negative to labour on various occasions referring to labour as "the gay Mafia.", When numerous ministerial and cabinet men were "outed". These gibes gave the impression there was still a desire from some in the newspaper to turn the paper back to the Tories

The Tories now the see the Daily Mail as their paper. Labour still see the Mirror, (and Daily Record in Scotland), as their natural tabloid paper. But the Sun seems to be the flexible political paper, up for grabs. Often giving it more power than papers that are very similar in circulation. It is the floating voter of the newspaper industry, and is read by the typical floating voter that the parties look for.

Murdoch has built up his media industry in the USA, India, and China. Fox news is for American TV as the sun newspaper is for the British press.

The current editor Rebecca Wade, the first female editor in the paper's history, has been involved in media fame herself after

Page Three girl

Page 3 was founded in 1969 but was at first non nude. Page Three girls has been central to the success of the Sun. Sun editor Larry Lamb made the big gamble on 17 November 1970, by turning page 3 nude. Stephanie Rahn, a 20-year-old German, became the first of its models. Lamb had no idea how women readers or the newspaper's distributors would react. Legend says Murdoch was incandescent (like a red top) with rage When he saw the first bare breasts to grace his title (Many say he shook his fist at the paper). But the massive rise in sales 1.5 million to 2.1 million in a year satisfied the paper.

A senior executive tried to make a Sun version of equality by introducing the Page Seven fella, but this did not take off.

Often the rumour has been put about of the paper dropping page 3, but this does not seem likely to happen. Famous MPs, have tried to have page 3 banned. While in a 1994 interview with India Today magazine, Murdoch suggested Page Three's days were numbered but he was probably playing to a conservative audience. In 99, he told News Corp shareholders in Adelaide a Page Three flirtation with bikinis would cease immediately if circu;ation was low. The star is rival paper to the sun that tries to copy the page format.

Page Three girls make between £30,000 and £40,000 a year.

Some feminists say page 3 is exploitative of women.

Page 3 women include
Debee Ashby, Marina Baker, Nina Carter, Leilani Dowding, Katie Downes, Danni Duke, Donna Ewin, Samantha Fox, Gail McKenna, Krystle Gohel, Joanne Guest, Keeley Hazell, Sophie Howard, Kirsten Imrie, Jilly Johnson, Jordan (Katie Price), Jerri Bryne, Tracy Pamela Jordan, Karen Kelly, Lisa Phillips, Lusardi, Zoe McConnell, Dawn McKenzie, Michelle Marsh, Melanie Jane Boorman, Melinda Messenger, Tracy Neve, Stacey Owen, Lucy Pinder, Nikkala Stott, Rebekha Teasdale,
Nicola Tappenden
Anna Taverner, Tula, Maria Whittaker, Vida Garman and Tara O'Connel.

Page 3 has had a varied diverse affect on the women who take up the job. Some have managed to go onto have what wopuld be regarded as more wholesome carears, working on CITV like Gail McKenna, or Messenger to become a occasionnal reality show contestant. Some have gone further along the line of pornography appearing in playboy, or into the hard core pornography industry.

Links

Links to other sites

The host of this page is Lonympics so here are some links to Lonympics

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weather A website looking at climate and NWP prediction computer models.

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River A web page looking at the main rivers of the planet.

Bank history History of banks

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