The Sun and Hillsborough
Four days after the Hillsborough disaster as Liverpool continued to mourn the victims The Sun published what it claimed was "The Truth".
The newspaper accused Liverpool fans of robbing dead supporters, urinating on the "brave cops" and beating up a police officer who was giving the kiss of life.
While other newspapers carried similar allegations, anyone reading The Sun would have been left in no doubt that they were stating the facts.
Survivor Gary Burns, aged 17 at the time of Hillsborough, was living in Northampton: " Living down south people would not expect you to have actually been there, so people would talk about the event and I would have to stop them and say I was there on Saturday. Then they would actually mention The Sun and I would have to defend myself against the lies that had been printed."
The official Government inquiry into Hillsborough dismissed The Sun's allegations that drunken, ticketless fans had caused the tragedy, but Gary said the damage had already been done. He asked his boss for time off work to attend the first memorial service: "He couldn't understand why I wanted to attend the service. He said "you killed your own" and then backed it up with what he'd read in The Sun."
It took The Sun 15 years to apologise for its Hillsborough coverage, but only after Wayne Rooney, then an Everton player had been criticised for signing an exclusive deal with the newspaper. Meanwhile, former editor Kelvin Mackenzie who wrote "The Truth" front page continued to stick to his guns in private and public.
At the time of Hillsborough the tabloid newspapers were involved in a vicious circulation war and even victims and survivors of Britain's worst sporting tragedy appeared to be fair game. Many media watchers believe Hillsborough was a watershed and one of the reasons why the tabloids have lost millions of readers.
Before Hillsborough The Sun sold an estimated 55,000 copies a day in Liverpool. Because of the continuing boycott it now sells in the region of 12,000.
A Liverpool supporter writing on a fan's website described "The Truth" front page as "the most garish suicide note in history"
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