 The Sun's most famous headline The Sun, a daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom, has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at around 3,200,000 copies daily in late-2004. It is published by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. The Sun was launched in 1964 as a tabloid replacement for the Daily Herald, an ailing left-wing newspaper which Mirror Group Newspapers had bought from Odhams Press and the TUC. The changes did not help circulation and in 1969 the paper was sold to Murdoch. Murdoch changed the editorial stance and content of the paper and oversaw the a rise in circulation, particularly when the Page Three Girl feature changed, on its first anniversary in 1970, from being a glamour pinup to a topless photograph. By 1978 The Sun had taken over its erstwhile stablemate The Mirror on circulation terms.
Editorially, the paper takes a right-wing view, staunchly anti-European and conservative. .
Critics of the paper accuse it of being jingoistic, sensationalistic and subservient to Murdoch's point of view. It famously printed the headline "Gotcha" when, during the Falklands War, Argentinian ship the General Belgrano was sunk, and often refers to foreign leaders in unflatterings terms - such as dubbing president Jacques Chirac of France "le Worm". Support of British troops - referred to as "Our Boys" - in action is invariable unequivocable and the paper has fully supported the ongoing war in Iraq.
In the main, the paper relies on the entertainment industry for its content. In addition to writers covering celebrities-about-town and the latest soap storylines, the paper is always on the lookout for celebrities in trouble or dishabille. Pictures are preferred and The Sun supplies much of the paparazzi with its raison d'etre. Outside this arena, common story themes include immigration, the destruction of the British way of life by Europe, domestic abuse and paedophiles - though the latter was once undermined by a beautiful baby competition run at the same time.
The Sun is notorious for its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster in Liverpool, where it printed allegations against Liverpool football fans that were later found to be untrue. This caused a boycott of the Sun in Liverpool. It made a full page 'apology' on July 7, 2004, 15 years after the disaster, which has been criticised by some as self-serving [1] (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1255987,00.html). For more on this controversy, see 'The Sun newspaper' section in 'Hillsborough disaster'.
The current editor is Rebekah Wade, the first female editor in the paper's history.
Note: the Sunday equivalent of The Sun in the UK is the News of the World – the Sunday Sun is an unrelated tabloid newspaper, published in Newcastle upon Tyne.
See List of newspapers in the United Kingdom for a comparison of The Sun to other newspapers.
Editors
Related newspapers
Content and editorially similar newspapers published within the UK are the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Star, and the Daily Sport.
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