In some ways, this was the darkest day of Rupert Murdoch’s reign of terror:
On the Wednesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper with national distribution owned by Rupert Murdoch, used the front page headline “THE TRUTH”, with three sub-headlines: “Some fans picked pockets of victims”, “Some fans urinated on the brave cops” and “Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life”.
[….]As (then Sun Editor) MacKenzie’s layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office (but) MacKenzie’s dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. (Everyone in the office) seemed paralysed – “looking like rabbits in the headlights” – as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn’t a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it—they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a ‘classic smear’.
Disgusting.
Calouste
And from that day, Liverpool has boycotted the Sun. And now, 22 years on, that is still the case.
someguy
It’s all there really. Tory MPs, making cruel fun of soccer fans, disaster victims that can be used to bludgeon a rightist. Shit. If only Halliburton had something to do with the construction of the stadium, it would have been the perfect tragedy.
Just goes to show you, tragedies can happen to anybody, but it takes a real cruel, cynical fuckstick to take advantage of a tragedy for personal, business or political reasons.
EdTheRed
It was so disgusting that they still can’t give that POS rag away in Liverpool. People stopped buying it over 20 years ago, and never started again.
Fuck the fucking S*n.
BGinCHI
How could any God have the self-control not to smite these motherfuckers?
More smiting please or call all your evangelicals up to your heaven right now. They’re fucking this place up.
drkrick
Is PC British for EMT?
Violet
Private Eye has been reporting on the “Dirty Digger” (Murdoch) for decades now. It’s nice to see the rest of the media finally catch up. And it’s extremely satisfying to see him being abandoned by all the British politicians who used to do his bidding. I can only hope he is made to pay for what he’s done, even in some small way.
TheMightyTrowel
PC = police constable
BGinCHI
@drkrick, Police Constable. Cop.
Scott P.
Don’t know much about the Hillsborough incident, other than what I just read on Wikipedia. Two things stand out:
1) Liverpool Stadium has a Spion Kop End? Really?
2) I don’t understand how so many fans could get jammed into the small area. In American sporting events, you buy a ticket, you go to the stadium, find the entrance marked on the ticket, and get to your seat. You don’t get jams because the number of seats, and the number of tickets, is fixed. Did/does English soccer not work that way?
reflectionephemeral
Huh, that’s interesting, Murdoch’s New York Post did the exact same thing, albeit in a less grotesque manner, when it relied solely & exclusively on a Republican politician for the claim that unions were intentionally doing a bad job plowing NYC’s streets after their bad Xmastime storm last year.
It’s almost as if Murdoch is more a propaganda outlet for the right wing than he is a journalism magnate!
kindness
Murdoch is doing the same the same thing now but with The Wall Street Journal.
Why the rest of the MSM treats Fox News like they are an actual news outlet, I can’t figure though.
BGinCHI
Scott P. (and others), if you really want to know about this, read Bill Buford’s great book Among the Thugs.
And yes, Kop End is famous as hell.
Violet
Scott P.:
It was a standing room only area, where fans were just jammed into the area. Those fans did not have seats. That policy has now changed as a result of the disaster and most stadiums in the Premier League are “all-seaters.”
beltane
I am so very grateful that Murdoch is alive to witness his own downfall. The best I had hoped for was that his evil empire would only begin to decline after his death.
Maybe there’s hope for Cheney as well.
SBJules
I heard a musician from Liverpool sing the song he wrote after the disaster on the radio ; it’s called don’t buy the Sun. I wonder if he’ll update it to include the other Murdoch papers.
Calouste
@ Scott P. (9):
British and most continental football stadiums had standing only sections in those days, commonly referred to in Britain as “terraces”. The Hillsborough disaster happened at one of these terraces. They also had fences at the front to keep the fans off the pitch.
Following the Hillsborough disaster, all major stadiums were converted to all-seater and other safety improvements made.
demkat620
I am absolutely fascinated with this thing. I really don’t see how Murdoch survives in England.
Violet
Speaking of the Wall St. Journal:
I don’t really buy that. All the dirt on Murdoch was out there, but no one was really paying attention.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
There was also a certain “Gotcha!” headline from the early 80s that was a little cold-blooded, too, although I would imagine that UK football fans weren’t nearly so het up about it.
EdTheRed
@ScottP:
Very long story short – post-Hillsborough, English soccer no longer works that way (at least at the top level – different rules still apply in lower divisions). Back then, much of the “seating” in stadiums (usually if not always at what we’d call the end zones) was actually just terracing – concrete steps with no benches or seats. These areas were basically general admission. They also had fencing to separate sections of the terracing from each other, and (sometimes) fencing to keep fans off the pitch.
In a nutshell, Hillsborough happened when the people responsible for getting people into the stadium screwed up the process of funneling fans into sections of the terracing, and was compounded by a lack of comprehension on the part of security that when people were trying to climb out of the terrace, they were doing so because they were being crushed to death, not because they were trying to cause trouble.
Following Hillsborough, terracing was banned and a host of other crowd-control measures instituted (including a ban on just plain standing, which is often ignored).
It’s really quite a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the summary of the Cliff Notes of the Idiot’s version.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Interesting, as the handle displayed was not the one that was entered. FYWP jumped into the Wayback machine.
scav
and, to add to the supershadenserving, the hedgies are walking a little funny after the sky deal fell on their heads.
PurpleGirl
Violet — you are partially right. He would still have sold the trust’s shares because the family wanted to cash out their equity in the company. They made one huge profit instead of continuing to own the WSJ and making a little profit every year.
It’s the same idea behind the Rockefeller family selling some of their shares in real estate such as the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. They still own some measure of the management and the buildings, but not the whole shebang, as it were. They wanted to pull out profit in one large sum at once to distribute to the younger members of the family.
scav
Violet and PurpleGirl. Probably true as to past actions but I will admit to some mild pleasure that the brand is toxic enough that they feel like they should step away from it now and on this side of the Atlantic.
Amir_Khalid
I remember the Hillsborough disaster well. I saw the horror of it on live TV.
@Scott P.:
The standing-spectator areas, or “terraces” as they were called, had been a part of the English football fan experience since the clubs started playing the sport in stadiums built for the purpose. When the abolition of terraces was proposed after Hillsborough, in favor of all-seater stadiums, many fans decried the proposal; they argued that it would rob the games of atmosphere, because seated fans weren’t as passionate as standing fans (yes I know, that’s a strange argument).
The barriers that prevented spectators at Hillsborough from escaping the crush by going onto the pitch had been put up not that many years before. This was to solve a problem caused by fans invading the pitch, sometimes to brawl with the other side’s fans, after the match.
Dr. Loveless
And “thugs” in New Orleans during Katrina were shooting at rescue workers and gang-raping women in the Superdome … Didn’t Fox and the rest of the Murdoch empire push that one, too?
Jim C.
I only wish this story had broke at a different time when the debt ceiling issue wasn’t sucking up all the oxygen in the room. Just MAYBE we’d see a bit more coverage on it here in the states.
David B.
By the very nature of the Hillsborough tragedy there’s no way these stories could possibly be true. The Liverpool fans didn’t have enough fucking room to pick anyone’s pocket or throw a punch, although given the fact that the police forceably kept fans in the pens and certain death, they’d have deserved it.
PeakVT
I’ve put together a cheatsheet on the UK national papers for those (like me) who are having trouble keeping them straight.
Martin
You have to realize that the Brits are not as civil and orderly as Americans. They don’t automatically line up and politely take their turn as Americans do. They’re loud and boorish, cut in front of others, push people out of the way, and basically only look after their own interests. It’s really quite unpleasant.
toschek
There’s a really good tv movie about this event called “Hillsborough” obviously.
It was written/made as an apology to the families of the injured and dead when the author, Jimmy McGovern offended several people when he used the Hillsborough event as a motivation for a serial killer on the TV Series “Cracker” the year before.
It’s really worth seeing, Christopher Eccleston is amazing as usual in it.
Oh yeah, Rupert Murdoch is a C-NT.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Martin: Yeah, because crushes never happen in the states.
Try systemic factors like poor police control and a lousy groundplan inside the stadium.
Calouste
@PeakVT (29):
You need a 4th category. The Daily Star and the People are distinct from tabloids like the Sun and the Mirror in that they hardly ever feature politics at all. Or factual news for that matter.
And the NotW was basically the sunday version of the Sun.
Dee Loralei
@SBJules: Billy Bragg, The Guardian has it available on their web site today. Look under Opinions.
different church-lady
Google “festival seating Cincinnati”, get back to us.
Jay C
Violet @ #18:
God, one can almost hear the haughty sniffing from the Bancroft family: in that old-timey Connecticut uppercrust drawl, no doubt:
Where’s that tiny violin….?
beltane
@PeakVT
I see that their so-called liberal media is just as skewed right as ours.
Amir_Khalid
@Martin:
Snark, right?
Martin
Nobody gets me.
spartacus
Here’s a link for the Billy Bragg song:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2011/jul/13/billy-bragg-never-buy-the-sun-audio
And his article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/13/billy-bragg-never-buy-the-sun?INTCMP=SRCH
JGabriel
@kindness:
Because many of so-called liberal media hope to work for Murdoch some day.
.
different church-lady
@ Martin (39): Okay, I withdraw my parry.
I mean, I should have known. Queuing is practically the British national pastime.
Dee Loralei
@JGabriel: Ya know after learning about all the police blackmailing and phone tapping of everybody, I’m not sure your statement is as operative today as it was last week. They may call Fox their “sister organization” and let them get away with their lies and their “fair and balanced” routine for more mundane reasons, no?
Martin
I thought the ‘boorish’ would give it away. Maybe too clever by half, there.
Calouste
Also because there a certain feeling among journalists that they are somehow special. A certain mythos of free speech, standing up to power, reporting the truth etc, even though it is often far removed from reality.
In short, they think they are better than the rubes, and any respect the rest of the MSM gives to places like Fox News is because they are in the tribe. Of course in the UK most of the media in now pissing on News International because they did damage to the tribe. And even then there were some NotW eulogies.
Karen
I read something about a NYC cop paid to get info about 9/11 victims. If 9/11 is the sacred cow (and this year is the 10th anniversary) then wouldn’t that outrage the public? And wouldn’t the cop be suspended at least?
PeakVT
@Calouste – Using three different groups seems to be the standard way of describing newspapers in the UK, so I just copied the existing classifications. I kept the Sun and the NotW separate because Brooks and Murdoch seem intent on winding it down completely. Most of the staff is being let go instead of being moved to the Sun.
Martin
What I read (which sounded thin) was it was a former cop turned private investigator, and that he declined to do the deed.
A thread worth tugging at perhaps, but doesn’t sound like anything substantial enough to get the public’s outrage over, given how easily it can be denied.
birthmarker
SBJules-
God, I love people from Liverpool.
Villago Delenda Est
Interestingly, I sat next to a British couple at a Bluejays game in Toronto. They were visiting relatives in Canada, and they were pleasantly surprised by the venue…it was so clean and orderly compared to a football stadium in Britain. This was in 1990, mind you. I’m sure things have changed a great deal over the past 20 years, particularly in the aftermath of Hillsborough.
Helped them understand the game. They’d seen cricket, of course, but baseball and cricket have only superficial similarities. It was a pleasant few hours.
Comrade Kevin
@BGinCHI:
Yes, I also definitely want to recommend this book, it really is fantastic.
Also, here’s another in a long series of infamous Sun headlines.
Violet
OT — ‘Pastafarian’ wins religious freedom right to wear pasta strainer for driving licence:
The picture is with the article. He really is wearing a colander on his head. All hail the FSM!
J. Michael Neal
different church-lady: The better response would have been to point out that you can’t judge all of the English by the behavior of the the ones you meet in a Prague beer garden.
Just most of them.
/scotsman
different church-lady
@ J. Michael Neal: no true Scotsman would say such a thing.
Yurpean
Martin, I must admit I was about to launch into a rant beginning ‘fuck you’ until I saw Amir_Khalid’s comment. My sarcasm meter must be on the blink.
Davis X. Machina
@Scott P.:
The one in Liverpool is just one of many, but the most famous one — The Kop, unqualified, refers to it — is the one at Anfield. Hillsborough also has a Kop
All FL (League One, League Two, Championship) and EPL stadia are either all-seater, or are headed there. Some of the smaller, older, and poorer, clubs and venues have terraces still, but not the 15,000 and 20,000 terraces of old.
Davis X. Machina
@Violet: Hmph. It’s the Telegraph. As far as I’m concerned there are just too many holes in that story.
JGabriel
@Davis X. Machina:
It strains belief?
.
Dream On
Fantastic link for how Murdoch rolls.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/01/rupert_murdoch_-_a_portrait_of.html
Scott P.
Very strange. Spion Kop was a British defeat in a very nasty colonial war that was eventually won through mass use of concentration camps, and which cemented apartheid in South Africa.
I’m trying to think what the American equivalent would be. Fallujah Field? My Lai Mezzanine?
Barney
With stunning bad timing, Kelvin Mackenzie wrote this brown-nosing article just 2 weeks ago:
“Thank God for Rupert Murdoch
Twenty years after flirting with disaster, the News Corp chief is on the verge of his biggest deal. We need more like him
…
Sky is not Fox News and I have my doubts that in leftwing, socialist, clapped-out Britain, the latter would work commercially or audiencewise.
Thank God for the Rupert Murdochs of this world. I wish there were hundreds more in our country. Unemployment would be wiped out at a stroke. At a conference in London recently he used a quote I really love about the lack of business adventure in Britain. He said: “We’ve got to get rid of the fear of failure in this country. In America, people start things, fail and shake themselves down and start things again. The animal spirit of capitalism is stronger there.”
…
Why has Rupert a monopoly? Simple: nobody else had the guts, the nerve or the stunning management skill to take on the establishment. When he was losing literally hundreds of millions on Sky, his competitors were delighted. Now he has made the greatest television success in all our lifetimes, they scream foul.
My late father-in-law had an expression that I think appropriate. The winners can smile and losers can please themselves. Rupert must be smiling very broadly today.”
Murdoch’s methods of “taking on the establishment” are only too well known now.
stickler
ScottP:
Might I suggest the nearly contemporaneous Samar Campaign Field? “Howling Wilderness Smith” (US Army) got his nickname from that one.
stickler
And Martin’s droll sarcasm about the British “boorishness” is too droll by a mile. Yes, British tourists are awful when abroad, but so is everybody else. The Europeans with a surprising inability to stand in lines are the Germans and Austrians, strangely enough. Go to a grocery store in Germany and you’ll get an old Oma’s elbow to the ribs within five feet of the register, guaranteed. The banks have helpful red lines indicating where you should stand so you’re not up in the business of the guy in front of you; nobody pays any attention to them. Teutons have a reputation for order and all, but they have a surprisingly complicated relationship with line-standing.
Snowwy
Scott
Andersonville Annex
Ian Preston
Billy Bragg is not from Liverpool. He’s from Essex and he lives in Dorset. The Liverpool connection is solely one of solidarity.
Tuttle
I’m trying to think what the American equivalent would be. Fallujah Field? My Lai Mezzanine?
The terraces aren’t so much named for the battle as they are for the sight of the battle, a steep hill. So we need a battle that involves a hill, defeat and misguided military adventurism… we should call them “dongs”! After the Vietnamese word for ‘mountain’ and the sight of a particularly stupid battle; Dong Ap Bia.