On a day when there were two civil wars being fought, one of which Britain is directly involved with, still the possibility of a nuclear meltdown following a tsunami in Japan, debates about the controversial NHS reforms, further cuts to the MoD being announced and an ongoing murder investigation going on in Wiltshire, The Sun on Monday opted to go for the front page headline “I’m three times the size of my twin.” That’s right. The front page of the newspaper with the highest circulation in the UK went with a hard hitting real life story about a twin who has a condition which makes her fat on a day when all those other things were happening.
I think it might have been the twin thing which swung the decision. I mean no one wants to see an individual person with a glandular condition on the front page of their paper. It’s all about the juxtaposition you see. One twin is fat despite eating healthily, and one twin is thin despite apparently gorging on cakes and chips all day.
I think it might just be me, but this isn’t really news, is it? This is the kind of thing you’d find in the true-life story section of Take a Break magazine, right? As touching as the story is, how on earth is it headline worthy? Even the whole pointless furor about Wayne Rooney swearing at a camera would be better.
I hate the way The Sun takes itself so seriously. If you’re going to fill you pages with lies, tits and casual racism at least have the decency to admit to it. Don’t pretend you’re a real newspaper. It’s like the Radio Times suddenly proclaiming the magazine to be the home of investigative journalism just because Brian Tru-May said stupid, newsworthy things in an interview with them.
This is the publication that proudly proclaims to have won elections for David Cameron and Tony Blair by backing them. How arrogant and self-important do you have to be to make these claims?
The worst thing about The Sun, and there are many more bad things I haven’t mentioned, is how it treats it’s readers like idiots. They carefully explain each story in the way a parent explains to a toddler how a toilet works. It’s patronizing beyond belief.
This underestimation of the audience is why The Sun got stick for their story about Gordon Brown misspelling a dead soldiers name in a letter of condolence to the parents. The Sun thought the readers would lap up anything anti-Brown like thirsty dogs. The readers, however, thought ‘well that was an incredibly nice of him to take time out from running the country to write a personal letter. Plus, he only has around 30% visibility so misreading things must be commonplace for him. I’m not buying this.’
What I do like about The Sun, however, is the little text box at the top of page 3, which usually says something like “Becky, 19, agrees that the no-fly zone is a good idea. “On the whole, if it has the back of both The Arab League as well as The UN then it is only right that it is imposed. Gaddafi should not be allowed to slaughter and maim his own people any longer.”” Becky said that! The one with her breasts out!
But everything else I truly despise.
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