Trying to bury a story? Ask the Sun

It was plainly obvious that Andy Coulson's resignation was the Tories trying the oldest of political tricks, trying to bury bad news. I also thought it would be obvious that this was never going to work, but as things stand The Guardian and Independent are the only papers leading with it and it isn't even in the top 10 most read news stories at the BBC website.

I of course expected it to be buried by the Murdoch empire, but since most of it is now behind a pay-wall, all I can really ascertain is how it's been covered by the Sun. I'm going to compare this to the main article on the matter in a paper that I don't have an awful amount of respect for: the Daily Mail.

First, the length of the stories, the Mail has a very creditable 2,202 word story including the full statement, boxes with the context of the story, an opinion piece, and for once I am very impressed, the story is well written and pretty fair to all parties concerned.

The only problem I really have with it is this paragraph which may well be a simple mistake:

"In fact, Mr Coulson is a much less abrasive and generally more straightforward character, and has shown little appetite for bullying journalists and threatening media organisations in the manner of the divisive Mr Campbell. Nevertheless, his appointment owed much to the New Labour spin doctor having gone before."


Little appetite for bullying journalists? Maybe not since he's been with the Tories, but as NOTW editor he was proved to have bullied sports journalist Matt Driscoll out of a job. This is however a minor quibble compared to the rest of the story, which is surprisingly top notch.

The Sun however predictably has tried to bury the story, realising that the paper would lose any credibility it ever had if it refused to cover the story at all. Its coverage however hasn't covered itself in any glory at all, a paltry 273 word whitewash.

There is not a single note of the fact that it seems highly likely Coulson knew about the hacking - indeed if he didn't he deserves to be remembered as perhaps the worst newspaper editor off all time, one who didn't even know what was happening in his own newsroom. The fact that in the second paragraph it is described as an 'eavesdropping scandal' seems to sum up the Sun's attempt to make it seem a minor story and simply the matter of a whispering campaign designed to oust someone who in Cameron's words "been punished twice for the same offence."

It's simply a complete lack of context, shown by the lack of length in the story, that is the problem. There is no mention of the fact that another reporter has since been implicated, the fact that many reporters have implicated Coulson himself and all the police are lacking are a silver bullet, one that they could probably find had they had looked a bit more thoroughly first time round, rather than trying to preserve their 'special relationship' with News International.

Sky News are almost as bad, the only news story on their first page about the scandal is one saying that other newspapers may be involved, a classic case of diverting attention, i.e 'We may have done it but everyone else has done it as well.'

Without giving any money to News International, it's impossible to show The Time's angle on the story but this  blog-post just shows that the same thing has happened at the more elite end of the News Corp news spectrum.