DBWI: No "You Scum" headline after Hillsborough

A truly hideous tragedy to blight football and Britain in general, the Hillsborough disaster was much-publicised and debated at the time, but justice has only just started to be given out to officials who were responsible for the conditions that left 96 dead. One of the clear culprits was the reporting of the Sun newspaper, whose downfall came after they published one of the most odious front pages in journalistic history.

Reading "YOU SCUM" in huge letters, it was subheaded by false allegations that fans attacked lifesavers, robbed the corpses of victims and urinated on police. Editor at the time, Kelvin MacKenzie, still maintains that he was not responsible for the false information, and that he was only acting on the words of corrupt police chiefs (which, admittedly, he very much was). Even still, it's impossible to hide from the fact that every letter of the Sun's Hillsborough coverage dripped with the implication that every one of the dead deserved it.

Boycotts began near-immediately in Liverpool and the surrounding area, with entire stocks of the Sun being burned and newsagents refusing to carry it for the rest of the paper's lifetime. These boycotts rose to the national level as it emerged that some individual policemen, emboldened by these reports, thought it within their rights to attack football fans at subsequent matches given only the slightest provocation.

Eventually the Sun collapsed, the number of newsagents carrying it having dropped below 100. MacKenzie is a pariah even in the gutter press today, and having been associated with the paper is poison to any journalist looking for a job. The disaster and its reporting led the Tory government into a somewhat out of character (but ultimately vote-winning) move, spearheading a greater regulation of the press, so no medium of such great influence could ever publish such false and inflammatory reports ever again. (Ironically, the loss of influence of the red-top rags, which usually leaned Tory, led to a decline in Conservative party support which is still seen today.)

So, what happens if that "You Scum" headline never sees print? This can be anything from a complete refusal to print the horrifying lies to a situation where even while keeping those, they adopted a less accusatory editorial tone. What would have changed without what is acknowledged as the nadir of British journalism?

(OOC: in OTL, "You Scum" was MacKenzie's first instinct for the headline before it was decided on "The Truth".)
 
May be we'd still have actual freedom of speech in this country. That headline opened the door to the constant censorship of the media and so criticising the powers that be is chancy.
 
Oh god they're hammering at the door.
It's breaking.
If you don't hear from me again remember m...…………………………..
 
How quint, that something that mild was seen as shock back then, especially compared to modern internet clickbait news headlines...
 
I think it would affect the 1992 election in interesting ways. With misinformation less censored, and the pro-tory Sun spewing it out, I could see Kinnock winning less seats. That means no snap election 1993, and that means no PM Kinnock. Massive butterflies imo.
 
May be we'd still have actual freedom of speech in this country. That headline opened the door to the constant censorship of the media and so criticising the powers that be is chancy.
True. Perhaps it's be China instead of the UK creating both the ideas of national firewalls and social credit scores.
 
True. Perhaps it's be China instead of the UK creating both the ideas of national firewalls and social credit scores.

According to a friend of mine, that’s only niche ideas being discussed. It’s surprising how scare-mongering still is effective in Britain despite the newspaper incident.

Mind you, it was a pretty big wake up call to hold newsreporting more liable. Fox News ultimately got canned from the USA and then later liquidated since when they tried claiming they weren’t news, they ended up violating a prior statement made and it just got them screwed. Fox News’ end was the end of the media empire of James Bond supervillain wannabe Rupert Murdoch.

I think CNN is considered the de-facto conservative-leaning News channel, though that’s more a statement on how left the US has moved than on CNN itself (being fairly moderate politically).
 
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