News Corp heavyweights The Sun & The Times relegate Hillsborough verdict to inside pages
Rupert Murdoch owned newspapers The Sun & The Times have come under fire after both titles opted to relegate findings from the official Hillsborough inquiry to their inside pages – despite the formers close association with the tragedy born out of its infamous 1989 front page attributing blame to the fans.
Instead of splashing the story on its front page The Sun didn’t get round to mentioning the historic verdict until page 8 with a similar absence noted at its sister title The Times – although later editions did feature a photograph of victims’ families on the cover.
The Sun did dedicate its editorial to the findings however, apportioning blame for the incident on the police. It read: “The horror that befell Liverpool fans was, as the inquest has now found, the fault of catastrophic police blunders – specifically by former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield – which were shamefully then covered up …
“The supporters were not to blame. But the police smeared them with a pack of lies which in 1989 The Sun and others in the media swallowed whole.
“We apologised prominently 12 years ago, again four years ago on the front page, and do so unreservedly again now.”
To this day the Sun newspaper is boycotted by many in Merseyside over a story published four days after the 1989 disaster, in which 96 fans were killed, headlined ‘The Truth’ which blamed fans for going on a rampage – later shown to be untrue.
UPDATE
The Times has U-turned on its decision to not include the coverage on its front page.
We've been criticised today for not having Hillsborough on our first edition front page. This is our response: pic.twitter.com/GNhBN6g3S1
— The Times of London (@thetimes) April 27, 2016