Post by Redz on Jul 12, 2004 23:18:45 GMT
Open Letter to The Sun
By Milo Date: 12/7/2004
It took a lot of skill to paint yourselves, the people of Liverpool and Wayne Rooney and entourage in such a bad light, but you managed to do just that with your apology in your issue June 7th 2004.
There was so much wrong with your apology that you have somehow managed to alienate yourselves further from the people at whom the apology was targeted. Given that your stock in Liverpool was already rock bottom, that is quite an achievement.
What started out as a seemingly sincere and genuine apology ended up as a pathetic, excuse laden, snivelling piece of editorial that used a young boy as a shield and cited an uninvolved party as chief instigator in what you obviously feel is an unwarranted boycott of your paper.
"We cannot believe these protests properly represent the opinions of the majority of men and women in Liverpool", you state. I hate to disappoint you.
"Sadly for some people in the city of Liverpool, forgetting - never mind forgiving - is impossible", you exhorted. Correct on all counts. For if we forget our - sorry, your - mistakes, then what is to stop them being made again?
"We can understand the grief of those who lost loved ones at Hillsborough", you magnanimously concede, adding "but the words of other fans leave us in despair". You have no right to despair. The implication would seem to be that only those people who lost family or friends have any right to feel disgusted. That is simply untrue.
Your words at the time tarnished the memories of the dead. They tarnished the reputations of the survivors. And they tarnished the people of city. Many thousands went to Hillsborough from Liverpool. Many more thousands didn't. And yet their name, as much as anyone else's, were equally sullied by your incorrect report of "The Truth" in 1989. I am one of those people, and you will not stop me voicing my utter contempt for the way you portrayed my city and, by default, myself through lazy journalism.
Not content with refusing me my opinion, you then turn the apology into a sales pitch by informing us that "nearly all Liverpool born celebrities regularly talk to Britain's favourite daily newspaper". Just how crass and insensitive can you be? The people you are addressing are not interested in your celebrity scoops and your sales figures, they are interested in an apology. One which is rapidly becoming another kick in the teeth.
Don't let that stop you, though. By all means, put it down to a vendetta in the local media. Because let's face it, the people of Liverpool are stupid enough to forget the way your paper callously went to print with a factually incorrect story that made us out to be gravediggers.
The Daily Mirror does not need to remind us of the story. We already know. And The Mirror's "crude effort …to make commercial gain" would be no more crude than your increasingly horrible attempt at apologising. If indeed The Mirror was stirring the issue for this purpose. Which it wasn't.
I can understand you hoping "that the people of modern Liverpool, a city of spirit and sophistication, are not taken in". That might have another effect on your already pitiful sales figures in the city. Unfortunately for you, the people of Liverpool are not taken in by anybody about Hillsborough. We know what happened, and we know who said what.
And it will take more than signing Wayne Rooney up to sell his story to change our opinions. Do you think we are stupid? Obviously. Paul Stretford isn't though, is he? Wayne Rooney's agent moved swiftly to distance himself and his client from your apology and issued a statement claiming that it was made without his knowledge or approval.
To the cynical eye, it might appear that you've used Wayne Rooney to make commercial gain in a city that in lost circulation alone has cost you £55m. But of course, crude efforts to make commercial gain is the arena in which Trinity Mirror operates, isn't it? Or so you would have us believe. As I said, we are not stupid.
"The Sun of 2004 no more deserves to be hated in Merseyside than Wayne Rooney does". I can forgive Rooney, although he has been naïve in the extreme and his actions do him no favours. The Sun, however has had plenty of opportunity to redress the balance and has simply not done so.
I don't care how many of your staff were around in 1989. The public don't buy your staff, they buy The Sun. If I were to make a mistake in my work, I would be severely reprimanded if I answered a complaint with "well it's not my fault, it's a different department". If you work for The Sun, or indeed any company, then you carry its baggage.
And now that you know the severity of feeling and deep seated resentment that the people of Liverpool feel towards your paper, you simply cannot hold your hands up and say "it was the other guy's fault" and be absolved of blame. The Sun made the mistake. The Sun should apologise. And when I say "apologise" I mean "say sorry", on the front page, in letters as big as those that hollered the lies of "The Truth" to all and sundry in April 1989.
Burying it on page 8 and running a front page headline purporting to hate mobs hounding Wayne Rooney curries sympathy from those less informed, however. What a horrid bunch we scousers must be.
And then, just as it seems you can go no lower, you deliver the lowest of blows. "It is time to move on", you claim.
How dare you?
The people of Liverpool will decide when it is time to move on. No-one will tell them when it is time to move on. Do not presume to tell people when to stop feeling angry and above all, do not tell them when they should stop grieving. You are the last people to be afforded that right.
And so, I throw you a challenge. Print this letter, unedited and in its entirety, and answer my points as I have yours. Apologise unreservedly to the people of Liverpool - some of whom will be reading this on one of the many websites you could have lifted your quotes from when citing the "Hate Mob" that are purportedly haranguing Wayne Rooney - on the front page of your paper. Do not use it as a sales exercise. Do not use it as opportunity to lay blame. Simply apologise, cut your losses and walk away, and then we can all "move on", as you so tritely put it.
"Fifteen years is a long time", you rightly point out. I know. It didn't have to be that long, though. That was down to you. And we're still waiting.
By Milo Date: 12/7/2004
It took a lot of skill to paint yourselves, the people of Liverpool and Wayne Rooney and entourage in such a bad light, but you managed to do just that with your apology in your issue June 7th 2004.
There was so much wrong with your apology that you have somehow managed to alienate yourselves further from the people at whom the apology was targeted. Given that your stock in Liverpool was already rock bottom, that is quite an achievement.
What started out as a seemingly sincere and genuine apology ended up as a pathetic, excuse laden, snivelling piece of editorial that used a young boy as a shield and cited an uninvolved party as chief instigator in what you obviously feel is an unwarranted boycott of your paper.
"We cannot believe these protests properly represent the opinions of the majority of men and women in Liverpool", you state. I hate to disappoint you.
"Sadly for some people in the city of Liverpool, forgetting - never mind forgiving - is impossible", you exhorted. Correct on all counts. For if we forget our - sorry, your - mistakes, then what is to stop them being made again?
"We can understand the grief of those who lost loved ones at Hillsborough", you magnanimously concede, adding "but the words of other fans leave us in despair". You have no right to despair. The implication would seem to be that only those people who lost family or friends have any right to feel disgusted. That is simply untrue.
Your words at the time tarnished the memories of the dead. They tarnished the reputations of the survivors. And they tarnished the people of city. Many thousands went to Hillsborough from Liverpool. Many more thousands didn't. And yet their name, as much as anyone else's, were equally sullied by your incorrect report of "The Truth" in 1989. I am one of those people, and you will not stop me voicing my utter contempt for the way you portrayed my city and, by default, myself through lazy journalism.
Not content with refusing me my opinion, you then turn the apology into a sales pitch by informing us that "nearly all Liverpool born celebrities regularly talk to Britain's favourite daily newspaper". Just how crass and insensitive can you be? The people you are addressing are not interested in your celebrity scoops and your sales figures, they are interested in an apology. One which is rapidly becoming another kick in the teeth.
Don't let that stop you, though. By all means, put it down to a vendetta in the local media. Because let's face it, the people of Liverpool are stupid enough to forget the way your paper callously went to print with a factually incorrect story that made us out to be gravediggers.
The Daily Mirror does not need to remind us of the story. We already know. And The Mirror's "crude effort …to make commercial gain" would be no more crude than your increasingly horrible attempt at apologising. If indeed The Mirror was stirring the issue for this purpose. Which it wasn't.
I can understand you hoping "that the people of modern Liverpool, a city of spirit and sophistication, are not taken in". That might have another effect on your already pitiful sales figures in the city. Unfortunately for you, the people of Liverpool are not taken in by anybody about Hillsborough. We know what happened, and we know who said what.
And it will take more than signing Wayne Rooney up to sell his story to change our opinions. Do you think we are stupid? Obviously. Paul Stretford isn't though, is he? Wayne Rooney's agent moved swiftly to distance himself and his client from your apology and issued a statement claiming that it was made without his knowledge or approval.
To the cynical eye, it might appear that you've used Wayne Rooney to make commercial gain in a city that in lost circulation alone has cost you £55m. But of course, crude efforts to make commercial gain is the arena in which Trinity Mirror operates, isn't it? Or so you would have us believe. As I said, we are not stupid.
"The Sun of 2004 no more deserves to be hated in Merseyside than Wayne Rooney does". I can forgive Rooney, although he has been naïve in the extreme and his actions do him no favours. The Sun, however has had plenty of opportunity to redress the balance and has simply not done so.
I don't care how many of your staff were around in 1989. The public don't buy your staff, they buy The Sun. If I were to make a mistake in my work, I would be severely reprimanded if I answered a complaint with "well it's not my fault, it's a different department". If you work for The Sun, or indeed any company, then you carry its baggage.
And now that you know the severity of feeling and deep seated resentment that the people of Liverpool feel towards your paper, you simply cannot hold your hands up and say "it was the other guy's fault" and be absolved of blame. The Sun made the mistake. The Sun should apologise. And when I say "apologise" I mean "say sorry", on the front page, in letters as big as those that hollered the lies of "The Truth" to all and sundry in April 1989.
Burying it on page 8 and running a front page headline purporting to hate mobs hounding Wayne Rooney curries sympathy from those less informed, however. What a horrid bunch we scousers must be.
And then, just as it seems you can go no lower, you deliver the lowest of blows. "It is time to move on", you claim.
How dare you?
The people of Liverpool will decide when it is time to move on. No-one will tell them when it is time to move on. Do not presume to tell people when to stop feeling angry and above all, do not tell them when they should stop grieving. You are the last people to be afforded that right.
And so, I throw you a challenge. Print this letter, unedited and in its entirety, and answer my points as I have yours. Apologise unreservedly to the people of Liverpool - some of whom will be reading this on one of the many websites you could have lifted your quotes from when citing the "Hate Mob" that are purportedly haranguing Wayne Rooney - on the front page of your paper. Do not use it as a sales exercise. Do not use it as opportunity to lay blame. Simply apologise, cut your losses and walk away, and then we can all "move on", as you so tritely put it.
"Fifteen years is a long time", you rightly point out. I know. It didn't have to be that long, though. That was down to you. And we're still waiting.