Britain’s trashy tabloids – Part 2
The Sun switches to Labour
Between 1991 and 1996, News International recorded profits of more than a billion pounds on which little tax was paid. Murdoch was able to take advantage of assorted tax havens to minimise the tax bill.
The Sun claimed the credit for the Tory victory in the 1992 elections. John Major became premier. The front page of the 9 April 92 issue had the head of the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock inside an electric bulb and carried the pungent caption: If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?
The next general election was due in 1997. The new Labour leader, Tony Blair, knew he had to woo Rupert Murdoch to win. He travelled all the way to Australia to address the media executives as Murdoch’s guest and assured them he would bow to their economic ideology (neo-liberalism) which favours more wealth for the few at the expense of the many. Having secured his own terms, Murdoch promised Blair of his support. The Sun ran a frontpage headline in 2-inch letters: THE SUN BACKS BLAIR. On 27 April, just 4 days before the election, the News of the World, the sister sex-and-scandal weekly followed with the headline: WE BACK BLAIR – Man for the New Millennium. After Labour’s landslide victory, the Sun boasted in another headline: IT’S THE SUN WOT SWUNG IT. (It had said the same after the Tory victory in 1992.)
Other papers pour scorn
The Daily Mirror had described the Sun as the ‘Harlot of Fleet Street’ and in May 1990, an editorial added:
“It had fallen from the gutter into the sewer. Were we to repeat that daily, harlots and sewer rats would rightly take offence. The Sun has never sunk lower than in the last few days… It has become to decent journalism what kerb-crawling is to loving relationships. The Sun has embarked on a policy which, if pursued in business life, would put its owner, editor and executives in jail. It is a lying, thieving, rascally, cheating, crooked newspaper with countless convictions and no principles.” Phew !
In November 1990, the weekly Tribune wrote:
“The Sun is the epitome of everything the Left despises. It is xenophobic, racist, sexist, philistine and mendacious. It trivialises the news, badgers the innocent. But it is also embarrassingly popular especially among workers. The Sun formula – hetero sex, TV, get-rich-quick escapism, hatred for symbols of authority, invasions of privacy – remains potent and popular.”
John Pilger wrote in the New Statesman & Society in December 1991:
“Popular journalism has been re-defined by the Sun. Journalists have to pursue a debased version of their
craft. Murdochism is an immutable tradition: sex, race, voyeurism, fabrications of what the British public wants…”
The Sun was unfazed. In April 1997, it boasted: “There’s nothing wrong with giving people what they want. Just look at the Sun… we do it every day.”
Page 3 – a British institution
As stated in Part 1, the trademark of the Sun is a large colour photo of a topless or nude female. It has been in place for over 30 years and efforts to ban it have failed. Some years ago, Clare Short, Labour MP and a Roman Catholic, tried with support from some 10,000 women. The move failed.
Jessica Davies of the rightwing Sunday Mail complained: “We still have to go about our daily business constantly assaulted by images of naked female flesh. I wish men would understand how horrible that feels.”
Page 3 is now an unstoppable British institution, helping to generate sales of some 3.5 million copies daily.
Tony Blair & the Sun’s nude women
Soon after the Sun declared its support for New Labour, Blair was interviewed on BBC TV.
“You expounded your views on Europe in the Sun this morning. Would you rather wish the views had not appeared opposite a bare breasted woman?” Blair paled, laughed nervously and stuttered back: “I think what is important is that they appear and the people understand what our position on Europe is.”
But the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, persisted: “Do you not find pictures of naked women on these pages offensive?” Here was a straight question but did he give a straight answer? Said Blair: “I really think there are more important things to concern ourselves with… so don’t mind if I leave the issue of topless women for a moment.”
But Paxman pressed on: “No views at all on naked women in newspapers?” Blair could only mumble: “I don’t really have any, it is not the most central point of our campaign.”
The sad truth is that Blair was a prisoner of a Murdoch product No matter how abhorrent the product, principles have to be sacrificed in the pursuit of power.
What about Blair’s wife, Cherie? Asked in December 1995 whether she read the Sun, she sneered: “Certainly not. I wouldn’t have it in the house.” So where does that leave Blair?
Church leaders & the Sun
And where does Britain’s Christian church stand on the issue of nudes in papers like the Sun, Daily Star or News of the World? The church is largely a part of the establishment. It is comfortable with the elites and aligned with the centres of power. It will therefore never publicly denounce capitalist excesses, the obscene profits made by big business, the state criminal justice system that works against the weak and vulnerable. Its response to the immoral and materialistic climate is in feeble platitudes. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, told the Radio Times in March 1997 that the topless models in the papers ‘undercut’ his moral crusade and added lamely: “I deplore that and become depressed.” That’s all he could say.
As for the Catholic Church leader, Cardinal Basil Hume said in April 1990: “Society seems to have abandoned fundamental aspects of Christian morality… We can not longer claim to be a truly Christian society.” One would have thought that he would accept responsibility for the failure of Christianity under his leadership and resign. He stayed in office.
The editor of the Goan Overseas Digest (London) wrote to the Cardinal in 1997 and asked: “The media largely serves the interests of the capitalist classes and state elites and distract the masses with generous helpings of sex imagery and scandal. Would it be right for children under 16 to buy papers like the Sun when they can’t buy cigarettes or alcohol?”
There was no straight answer. As with Tony Blair, church leaders will not directly condemn those with power. The Cardinal would only make general observations: “As you say, there are strong elements that pander to unhealthy prejudice, greed and lust… I agree with you that all is not well with the media and the church is seeking ways to improve the low standards too often seen in the press.”
The sad state of the media today
Said an earlier Mirror executive, Hugh Cudlipp:
“Investigative journalism in the public interest has shed its integrity and become intrusive journalism for the prurient… Nothing is any more secret or sacred and the right to privacy has been banished for profit. The daily nipple count and stories about bonking bimbos are a dominant influence in circulation, nudging aside more important events.”
Added John Pilger in Sept 1996 (Socialist Review):
“We may be saturated with information but it is information that is controlled. Consider all the news that you don’t read or see – this is news which is considered threatening and therefore excluded. Today, the most powerful form of censorship is by omission…”
Circulation figures
Readers may be interested to know the daily circulation of the tabloids. The figures (rounded) for December 2002 for the 5 English tabloids were as follows [source: http://media.guardian.co.uk]
Sun 3.4 million Daily Mail 2.3 million Daily Mirror 2 million
Daily Express 916,000 Daily Star 819,000
(END)