Coverage of the Hillsborough disaster by The Sun

Journalist and academic Chris Horrie argued that The Sun gave less attention to the Merseyside teams Everton and Liverpool than other football teams, giving as an example its coverage of the 1986 FA Cup Final between the pair, which it nicknamed "The Giro Cup" (in reference to a slang term for welfare), and its relatively scanty mention of a 9–0 win by Liverpool against Crystal Palace. He said that The Sun treated Liverpool as "effectively a foreign country" from the mid-1980s onwards, for the city's multiracial culture, left-wing politics and high rate of unemployment.[1]

A banner commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and the 96 people at the time who had died from injuries sustained

On 15 April 1989, negligence by the South Yorkshire Police at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest led to overcrowding in two central pens. In the crush, several hundred Liverpool fans were injured and 94 died on the day, with three more people subsequently dying from their injuries.[2][3][4]

Three days later, under the editorship of Kelvin MacKenzie and with circulation figures of four million per day, The Sun published an editorial which accused people of "scapegoating" the police, saying that the disaster occurred "because thousands of fans, many without tickets, tried to get into the ground just before kick-off – either by forcing their way in or by blackmailing the police into opening the gates".[1][5] Around 20 of the tabloid's journalists were sent to Liverpool or Sheffield to find negative information about Liverpool fans and victims of the crush.[1]

The next day, its reporter Harry Arnold arranged a front-page story about fan behaviour during the crush. He claimed that MacKenzie said he would "make it clear that this is what some people are saying", but MacKenzie chose the headline "The Truth" after staff members convinced him not to use "You Scum".[6] The story accused Liverpool fans of theft and of urinating on and attacking police officers and emergency services. The phrasing "some fans" was chosen, according to Harry Arnold, for legal reasons, as it could refer to as few as two individuals. The article quoted Conservative Member of Parliament Irvine Patnick in its claim that a group of Liverpool supporters told a police officer that they would have sex with a dead female victim.[1] Its other source was a Sheffield news agency, Whites, which later said that four South Yorkshire Police officers originated the claims.[7][2] Police officer Gordon Sykes would later say at an inquest that he spread false allegations to Patnick and other police.[2][8]

Other newspapers printed similar articles to The Sun. Documentarian Daniel Gordon said in 2016 that the headline "The Truth" was notorious, but "nearly every paper ran similar stories".[9] However, other papers' stories were presented less prominently.[2] Alex Hern of the New Statesman noted that the Daily Express's headline on the day of "The Truth" reported claims about fans as accusations by the police, rather than fact.[10] The Daily Mirror, according to a later account by one of its reporters, received the same Whites news agency filing that The Sun used, but dismissed it as untrue and instead ran with the more critical headline "Fury as police claim victims were robbed".[7] The Liverpool Echo soon replied to The Sun, asking "the London papers and the Sheffield police" to give their evidence for claims of fan violence.[1]

The Anfield Wrap's Gareth Roberts said that what singled The Sun out was its "very resolute" response "in defending what it said".[11] Managing editor William Newman told families of the victims who complained to him, "If the price of a free press is a boycott of our newspaper, then it is a price we will have to pay".[11] Kenny Dalglish said in his autobiography that MacKenzie contacted him shortly after the tragedy, asking how to fix the situation. MacKenzie refused Dalglish's suggestion of printing "We Lied" in a headline the same size as they had used for "The Truth".[11]

MacKenzie maintained for years that his "only mistake was to believe a Tory MP".[1] In 1993, he told a House of Commons committee, "I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was I believed what an MP said", but privately said at a 2006 dinner that he had only apologised under the instruction of Rupert Murdoch, believing: "all I did wrong was tell the truth ... I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now". On Question Time the next year, MacKenzie publicly repeated the claims he said at the dinner; he said that he believed some of the material published in The Sun but was not sure about all of it.[12][13] He said in 2012, "Twenty-three years ago I was handed a piece of copy from a reputable news agency in Sheffield in which a senior police officer and a senior local MP were making serious allegations against fans in the stadium ... these allegations were wholly untrue and were part of a concerted plot by police officers to discredit the supporters ... I published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong". A member of the Hillsborough Families Support Group responded "too little, too late".[14]

In 2004, Wayne Rooney gave exclusive interviews to The Sun after UEFA Euro 2004, receiving a six-figure paycheck. After widespread backlash throughout Liverpool, The Sun ran a front-page story apologising for "the most terrible mistake in its history", saying "We long ago apologised publicly ... We gladly say sorry again today: fully, openly, honestly and without reservation". It said criticism of Rooney was wrong and co-ordinated by the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Post. The Liverpool Echo condemned the apology as "cynical and shameless".[12][15]

In 2012, under the headline "The Real Truth", The Sun made a front-page apology, saying "we are profoundly sorry for false reports". The editor at the time, Dominic Mohan, wrote: "We published an inaccurate and offensive story about the events at Hillsborough. We said it was the truth - it wasn't ... for that we're deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry".[6]

Following an April 2016 inquest, which found the 96 people to date who died in the disaster were unlawfully killed, The Sun was in a minority of newspapers not carrying the news on the front page. In a report on the eighth and ninth pages, it displayed images of the 96 victims and ran an editorial which apologised "unreservedly", saying "the police smeared [supporters] with a pack of lies which in 1989 The Sun and other media swallowed whole". A lengthier apology was published online.[16]

A boycott of The Sun began the day after its headline of "The Truth", with sales figures in Merseyside decreasing 40% overnight, according to Horrie.[1] He estimated in 2014 that Liverpool's boycott of The Sun had cost its owners £15 million per month since the disaster, in 1989 prices. This is due to a combination of sales and advertisement revenue decreasing.[11] The Financial Times reported in 2019 that Merseyside sales were estimated to have dropped from 55,000 per day to 12,000 per day, an 80% decrease.[29]

A 2021 study in the American Political Science Review found that the Merseyside boycott of The Sun had led to reduced Euroscepticism than in comparable areas which were not boycotting The Sun. In the aftermath of the disaster, many people switched from The Sun to the pro-European Union Daily Mirror.[30][29]

• Chippindale, Peter; Horrie, Chris. Stick It Up Your Punter: The Rise and Fall of The Sun. Faber & Faber.
• Scraton, Phil (16 June 2016). Hillsborough – The Truth. Penguin Random House.