April 15th 1989, Liverpool faced Nottingham Forest away in the semi-final of the FA cup, as kick-off approached a large crowd built up outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles. A request was made to relieve some of the pressure, and match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield gave the order to open an exit gate. Two thousand traveling Liverpool away fans entered an already packed terrace via a tunnel. Due to this, a severe crush developed in the pens causing ninety-seven deaths the youngest being just ten years old. Along with a nightmare 32-year-old ordeal through the British legal system ending with an outcome feeling like a final insult. The disaster remains the UK’s worst sporting disaster, but how did the media portray the disaster? The media played a massive part in who people believed was to blame, for example newspapers took up the story and pointed fingers to the “drunk and ticketless” supporters.
The first media construction I will be talking about is the Sun’s coverage of the disaster. Four days after the incident the Sun released their paper titled “The Truth”. The paper paints blame on the Liverpool fans by spreading false accusations about the fans who attended the game, they did this through the use of the bullet-pointed list and the copy “some fans picked pockets of victims” and “Some fans urinated on the brave cops”. The paper put the blame for the ninety-seven deaths by stereotyping the fans putting it down to an act of hooliganism and violence from the fans, portraying them as stereotypical ‘violent’ football fans. And due to this scousers are often stereotyped in this harsh way. The tabloid did this to conform with the ideologies of the ideologies with Prime minister at the time Margret Thatcher who was already a hated figure in Liverpool due to her urging Liverpool in decline by shutting the docks. Also, in this paper they show the police as the heroes of the situation, we can see this through the use of the code “brave cops” signifying that the police were heroic, although an official inquiry into the disaster found that the “failure of police control” was the contributing factor of the deaths. With the amount of evidence released since the disaster, it has been proven that the tabloid was far from “The Truth”. The Sun’s coverage of the disaster led a large majority of the city to boycott the paper, with sales of the paper dipping after 1989 and have not recovered since. Also, this led to Liverpool FC banning journalists from the Sun to enter and stopping press coverage, with Everton following a few months later in Goodison Park.
The second media construction will be another newspaper by the Sun however, it was published twenty-three years after the Hillsborough disaster. The newer paper acknowledges the mistakes made by The Sun; this is shown through the copy “We are profoundly sorry for false reports”. However, this was not the only time that the Sun had apologized for their coverage of the disaster as editor of the sun during the Hillsborough disaster Kelvin Mackenzie apologized for his actions in 1993, but he ultimately put the blame on the misleading information he received from the Tory MP as he stated: “I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was that I believed what an MP said”. The paper now titled “The Real Truth” rather than spreading false information, instead uses facts and provided evidence to be more informative. This is shown in the copy “41 lives could have been saved, says new probe”.
The final media construction I will be talking about is in the four-part drama, Anne. The show follows the story of Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams’ battle for justice, after losing her son Kevin Williams in the tragedy. Anne was one of many who fought hard for a new inquiry to the disaster, she also formed a pressure group called “Hope for Hillsborough” eventually merging into the “Hillsborough Justice Campaign” and becoming chair of the latter. The show was well received by the public as it was credited for its accuracy and the story of Anne Williams. Writing in the guardian, Jack Seale described the performance as "Almost unwatchably intense" In comparison to the first construction of the Hillsborough tragedy, this one is much more positive of the families and people who attended the game who are seeking justice, it is also a lot more accurate in comparison. The lives of the victims will never be forgotten and people will never forgive the actions of The Sun newspaper.
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