Liverpool and the Murdoch empire

[hibbytam]

Not Colin, before anyone says.


But posting in the other thread there, made me think. Liverpool has a whole thing about not buying the Sun 'newspaper'. Which I think is a good thing, just because it's a sensationalised pile of dog turd, and their reasons to are very much justified.

However, what i'm less aware of is their general attitude to the Suns owners, and connected bodies, basically the Rupert Murdoch news empire. Is there no such thing as sky in Liverpool? I'm thinking not, but if there is, doesn't that render the entire boycott useless, because the same people are making money, just in a different way?

Or am I talking rubbish?

[Hibee-Bongo]

Isn't it just because the Sun had a front page story about how Hillsborough was the fault of Liverpool fans and that they robbed victims?

[thekaratekid]

They watch Sky TV in Liverpool.

The beef is mainly with Kelvin MacKenzie who was editor at the time the allegations were printed.

[Sir David Gray]

It's not really anything against Rupert Murdoch, it's purely against The Sun and its editor at the time of the Hillsborough Disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie.

There was a story in The Sun, immediately after the disaster, which made several allegations against the Liverpool supporters who were there that day, saying that some of them robbed the dying fans and urinated on paramedics who were trying to help. Kelvin MacKenzie wrote the article and although he admitted afterwards that he had made a mistake in publishing it, he retracted that a few years later by saying "I was not sorry then and I am not sorry now".

[hibsdaft]

the boycott occurred fairly spontaneously at first and has just stuck so its not a surprise that there are loopholes in it. many more diligent Scousers will probably boycott all Murdoch stuff (especially NOTW) but for most its just the Sun.

a Liverpool Echo hack joined the NOTW last year despite always supporting the boycott personally and in print - he argued that this wasn't hypocritical because it was a Sun boycott only. i'm not really convinced by that argument and he certainly got a fair bit of stick for his move at the time but iirc he then outed the many lies of the two Yank LFC owners (Hicks and Gillette) in his new paper and won some respect back for that.

Liverpool women burn copies of the Sun:

http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/history/images/sunburning.jpg