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How The Sun won the Falklands War The paper is no longer the voice of the working class

Up yours.


April 1, 2022   5 mins

Pride of place in my breakfast room in my home is a large sculpture that I commissioned to celebrate The Sun’s controversial Gotcha headline which followed the news that we had sunk the Argentine navy’s cruiser the General Belgrano.

I have never understood what the issue was with the headline. But then again, I don’t spend my time with Guardian readers or BBC news producers. Frankly, I didn’t care if the Belgrano had nosed into the exclusion zone or not. We needed to kill them before they killed us.

Simplistic, but I imagine the Ukrainians feel pretty much the same today.

To understand where that headline came from, you would have to be sitting in The Sun’s newsroom, back in the spring of 1982. Compared with today it was not just a different world but a different universe.

The fog of cigarette smoke had impregnated the walls, turning them a ghastly yellow. There was the reassuring clatter of typewriters proving the reporters were working. Phones were ringing. (What’s a phone, grandad?) Every time a phone rang there was a chance a reader had stumbled on a story that would bring down a politician or prove Jimmy Savile was a paedo. Those calls were gold-dust. There were plenty of them.

There was alcohol. The reporters would go out for a drink  but for the executives there was plenty of the stuff hidden away from Rupert Murdoch’s prying eyes. Although on one occasion, Murdoch dropped in unexpectedly on editor Sir Larry Lamb (my predecessor) and was “shocked” to see the amount of alcohol being consumed. “They’re drinking out of plant pots up there,” he said.

I remember going to one of Sir Larry’s afternoon conferences where it was clear he had been over-refreshing himself at lunchtime with a bottle or two of his favourite red. Surrounded by his acolytes at his desk (including me) he would, under normal circumstances, pick the story of the day and then hand draw Page One, complete with headline, on a blank piece of paper. Having created his masterpiece, Sir Larry would then pass the paper to the Night Editor who would take it back to the art desk to make it look good.

Because he was pissed, Sir Larry didn’t draw on the blank page but on his blotting paper. There was silence as we watched this bizarre turn of events. Not realising he had missed the page entirely, Sir Larry then handed the blank page to the Night Editor who, being a brown-noser like me, said “Thank you Larry.”

Today’s HR wallahs (there are more of them than subs these days) would be flat-out with the goings on. There was the time one of the sports journalists returned to the office quite drunk around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, approached a female colleague and asked if it was true her husband was a doctor. When she said yes, he promptly unzipped himself and asked if he might be able to do something about this spot on his penis. Hard to believe, but when the management fired him, the journalists went on strike and eventually the chap was given his job back.

So that was The Sun, then.

It was also hugely successful. The paper was selling well over four million copies a day. Every day. The paper mattered. It had caught the riptide of the Thatcher revolution. Hostile to big state. Hostile to big unions. Pro flogging council houses. Pro big spending on the military.

Along came the Falklands War. There were two routes you could take. There was the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror position. Where is the Falklands? Is there a deal to be done? Can we fight the war without killing anybody?

Then there was The Sun‘s position. They started it, we shall finish it. Do it to them before they do it to us. The only good Argie was a dead Argie. I inherited that kind of view from my father who had spent five years in a Japanese PoW camp. I hesitate to think what he would make of me owning a Lexus.

At one stage, the Argentine military regime was offering what looked like faux peace talks. The Sun’s response came via the headline: STICK IT UP YOUR JUNTA. A classic, it became our catchphrase for the war. 

We decided to put the whole paper on a war footing. News editor Tom Petrie became Commander Petrie for the duration. Reporters were given ranks from private to colonel. I stomped around the newsroom in sergeant major parody referring to colleagues as “horrible little people”.

We invited readers to sponsor Sidewinder missiles. Joyfully it was reported that a missile fired from HMS Invincible with the words “Up Yours Galtieri” (the name of the Junta leader) had brought down an Argentinian plane.

We invented “Sink the Argies” computer games and Page Three girls were given military themes; “All Shipshape and Bristols Fashion.” Upscale stuff. Private Eye produced a mock The Sun with the headline: Kill an Argie, win a Metro. Not a bad idea. At morning conference, we contemplated doing such a competition. Strangely wiser counsel prevailed. That wasn’t always the case.

The Sun journalists were a militant lot, and the day the Belgrano was sunk inevitably they were on strike. But the printers, a bolshie collection of overpaid and underworked half-wits, would allow me to produce the paper and turned a blind eye to a couple of execs giving assistance.

It must have been around 10 o’clock on that May evening, while sitting on the news desk with assistant editor Wendy Henry, when it was reported that the Belgrano had been sunk. Hit with two torpedoes fired by our submarine, the Conqueror.  

On hearing the news Wendy, an excitable talent, shouted: Gotcha! With headlines I have always found that instinct trumps intelligence. So GOTCHA it was. But as the evening wore on there was a suggestion that all 1,095 Belgrano crew had died in the attack.

Even for a hard-bitten soul like me, that seemed an enormous number, and I changed the headline in later editions to: Did 1,095 Argies die? Murdoch didn’t agree with the change saying he thought it a good headline. In the event 368 died.

Six weeks later, the war had ended. As with Thatcher, the Falklands had been a great success for The Sun. The paper-buying public liked our coverage and rejected the Daily Mirror’s timorous approach. The circulation gap between us grew swiftly to over a million copies a day. The cash, in both sales and advertising, for Murdoch simply crashed through the front door.

So where is The Sun four decades later? The alcohol has gone. The typewriters have gone. The smoke has gone. And most important of all, the circulation has gone. The crying shame is that the collective power and voice of ambitious working-class readers has been lost.

True, The Sun‘s readers have social media, which to my mind is a joy. But the authority of a newspaper which could reach 12 million readers every day (that’s 12 million “likes”) has been lost for ever.

Supposing such a war happened now, what would the paper’s reaction be? Frankly there is an uncertain note on the trumpet. Even if the North Koreans took the Isle of Wight, I have my doubts they would get angry.

And does it matter what The Sun says in any event?

The paper sells around 500,000-600,000 a day. That’s a guess as Murdoch’s management at News UK refuses to disclose the numbers except to media buyers who in turn have to sign an NDA. It’s true they have a news website, but they try very hard not to cover stories which polarise opinions. They don’t want to upset anybody, which means they don’t please anybody either.

With the death of the print version of The Sun, goes the role of the editor. Clever, laugh-producing or ballsy Page One headlines don’t matter a fig in the online world. Nor does something called a news sense. There is now software which can change the running order of the site depending on the stories the reader is clicking on. 

That all makes complete journalistic (and commercial) sense but sadly, from my perspective, it does mean goodbye to Gotcha and all that. Mind you, the Argies will be delighted.


Kelvin MacKenzie is a media executive. He edited The Sun newspaper between 1981 and 1994.

kelvmackenzie

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ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago

Splendid stuff! Had The Sun still had teeth no doubt the Great British Public would not have rolled over in the most supine way it did, in the face of this arrant Covid nonsense, which has virtually wrecked the country.
Nor would British Army Northern Ireland veterans still be facing vexatious prosecutions for events that took place fifty years ago. One might almost say ‘Sic Gloria Transit Mundi’ for The Sun.

Last edited 2 years ago by ARNAUD ALMARIC
Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago

What a refreshing reminder of how things have changed. How did we go from the ballsy days of the 80s to these woke days of fake compassion? I worked in the Fleet Street area and St Paul’s (EC1 and EC4) in the early 80s and remember an energy that has now completely gone. Yes, it is undeniably much cleaner now and the buildings are often amazing, and there are parts of EC1 that have been transformed from dumps into restaurant-lined pleasure palaces, but it all seems so fake compared to the heady 80s. And then there was the music. Great times.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

Even the former centre of the known world, El Vino’s, is eerily silent today.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

“How did we go from the ballsy days of the 80s to these woke days of fake compassion?”
Imperceptibly, a tiny bit at a time, but always in one direction; domination by a narrow and consistent view of the world. As George Orwell said“In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.” 
And they have spread not only through most of the media and all of the BBC, but through universities, and the countless numbers of NGOs, quangos and ‘human resource’ departments so that they reinforce each other, acting as if the true conscience of the nation, and persuading politicians that they represent public opinion, which they can indeed influence.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago

Fair comment but adolescents are necessary in puncturing the egos and pomposity of the self-righteous.

The self-righteous have more potential for damaging us

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
2 years ago

The metropolitan left has always sneered at media whose readership and viewers they deemed working class. I think much of that contempt is born of fear.
I spent 10 very happy years working in one of Murdoch’s companies – SkyTV. At the time we were looked down on as “kids playing at telly” by our counterparts at the BBC and elsewhere, but there’s no doubt that Broadcast TV was never the same again. The scorn aimed at all of Murdoch’s companies continues to this day.
Over the years the idea that Murdoch’s media empire somehow acts as his personal propaganda unit has been repeated so often on the pages of the Guardian and around bien pensant dinner tables that it has almost become an accepted fact.
I’m no apologist for the man, believe me, after 10 years of working at Sky I feel no need to defend him, but a quick look at Murdoch’s range of UK media and a look at the range of opinion across them on the single biggest issue of the last 20 years – Brexit – might be illustrative.
The Sun: Heavily pro-Leave, regularly denigrating EU and Remainers
The Times: Relatively neutral, but opted for pro-Remain
Sky News: Staunchly pro-Remain, constantly belittling Leavers.
If Murdoch was really influencing the editorial lines across his media outlets then he would appear to have been oddly schizophrenic in his opinions.
I have asked the question of those who are convinced of his limitless reach many times – “Do you really think his various media outlets ‘brainwash’ readers or is it more likely that they just reflect the opinions of readers?” and the follow up, “If you think the former then ask yourself, do you believe what you believe simply because the Guardian told you so, or do you read the Guardian because it reflects your worldview?”

Last edited 2 years ago by Paddy Taylor
peter lucey
peter lucey
2 years ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

And Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal was the paper that broke the 1MDB and Theranos frauds.

Philip Tisdall
Philip Tisdall
2 years ago
Reply to  peter lucey

Yes, and it is dying as a news source. I’m here on a Brit site looking for better info than I now get from the WSJ. So far, the articles are better, and the Comments are far better.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  Philip Tisdall

Sadly, two years ago the comments were outstanding, but now the dead, clammy hand of the Censor is ever present. “Nothing lasts forever “.

Kevin
Kevin
2 years ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

At the time of the Iraq War, Murdoch owned somewhere upwards of 150 newspapers and media outlets around the work. Every one supported the Iraq War. Are you suggesting that was just a coincidence?
I’m sure you have heard the Murdoch quote where the interviewer asks, about the Iraq War, “Have you shaped that agenda at all?” and Murdoch replies “We tried. […] We supported the Bush policy. […] but our support hasn’t meant very much because clearly public opinion now has grown very very tired of the whole enterprise.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PphNEfglzzc
That sounds to me like an example of Murdoch attempting to shape public opinion. I don’t think it’s a concept invented by The Guardian.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin

At the time of the Iraq War, Murdoch owned somewhere upwards of 150 newspapers and media outlets around the work. Every one supported the Iraq War. Are you suggesting that was just a coincidence?
At the time, most of the British press strongly supported the government’s action. The Telegraph, The Daily Mail,The Evening Standard and most especially the BBC. not to mention left-leaning journals like the Economist. Even the Guardian & Observer ran multiple pieces parroting the Govt line on Iraq’s nuclear program and WMD arsenal.
Is that “just a coincidence” too? How does that sit with your Murdoch conspiracy?
On issues where there was widespread division – none more so than the Brexit debate, as I highlighted – Murdoch’s media outlets spanned the spectrum of opinion.
I’m struggling to see how that squares with his malign influence shaping how we, as poor cud-chewing herd-followers, think and vote?

Last edited 2 years ago by Paddy Taylor
Arnold Grutt
Arnold Grutt
2 years ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

“I have asked the question of those who are convinced of his limitless reach many times – “Do you really think his various media outlets ‘brainwash’ readers or is it more likely that they just reflect the opinions of readers?” and the follow up, “If you think the former then ask yourself, do you believe what you believe simply because the Guardian told you so, or do you read the Guardian because it reflects your worldview?””


The left firmly believe that propaganda can sway people (through some mysterious power) to believe this or that. In fact all propaganda is really aimed at the propagandist’s own side. Its purpose is to try and retain waverers and to stop them defecting. If propaganda were really effective in changing minds Boris Johnson would only ever make speeches to young socialists in Liverpool and Corbyn or Starmer to elderly church-going spinsters in rural Oxfordshire.
Where minds change it’s usually a wholly personal process, which bears no relation to what people are told about things, but results from a reinterpreting of their experiences, sometimes over an extended period.

Last edited 2 years ago by Arnold Grutt
Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
2 years ago
Reply to  Arnold Grutt

Just so.

Michael Hollick
Michael Hollick
2 years ago

Difficult one this. As a poof of 80s vintage, I well remember the misery that Mr MacKenzie’s Organ meted out to me and my fellow inverts. But then again, I’ve worked my whole life in the media – starting out in a booze and nicotine-stained local newspaper, and including working for a few years very happily at Sky TV.
Personally, I’d take the “robust” working environment vividly described over the silent, anodyne, and frankly, pretty miserable, workplaces of today. Give me an environment where the invective would strip the nicotine-stained paint from the walls, working with men and women who wouldn’t last a minute in today’s right-on workplace.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago

Admirable of you to be so fair-minded. And yes, I too would take that ‘robust’ working environment any day. It made going into the office a lot more interesting than these days.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago

Judging by your cartouche you are not an old fart, but an old hypocrite.

Dermot O'Sullivan
Dermot O'Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  ARNAUD ALMARIC

Is that the best you can come up with?

I’m not sure which definition if cartouche you are using but I will grant that it has the onomatapaic sound of a travelling fart.

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

Sadly, Kelvin omits one of the best Sun stories of the Falklands. The Sun still had a correspondent in Buenos Aires and the luckless man had Kelvin on the phone in full war propaganda mode. One day the correspondent saw some uniformed guys approaching him and imagined a one way trip to prison, if not worse. But the Argentinian guy was a perfect gentleman and smiled at him, commenting that his reports to London were probably not the same as what was published. So the Argentinians had probably been bugging his phone, which may have saved his skin.

Howard Gleave
Howard Gleave
2 years ago

“They don’t want to upset anybody, which means they don’t please anybody either.”

There are two sides to most things. Sometimes, one can compromise. On other occasions, you can’t. Nor should. It follows that if occasionally you’re not putting someone’s nose out of joint, you’re failing to make a decision.

David Kingsworthy
David Kingsworthy
2 years ago

So is there still any anger in England against Mr. MacKenzie relative to the Scum days after Hillsborough? Or was that only ever Liverpool fans?

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago

The latter.

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

There’s still plenty of us who recall the day he put the victim of the Ealing vicarage rape on the front page. And the string of libels against Elton John. And the accusations of paying bent coppers for inside information.

Dustshoe Richinrut
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago

“Be the first to comment!” is followed by an exclamation mark.

Why was the Gotcha headline unsubtly without an exclamation mark? Perhaps the exclamation mark had been removed in the “later editions”. So perhaps moments of guilt and meekness, puncturing all the bravado, had pervaded the offices of The Sun. Or perhaps the exclamation mark was even subtly later added to Gotcha as news came through that a good deal of the crew of the Belgrano had survived. Or perhaps the exclamation mark as befits its placement after the letter a in such an interjection as Gotcha is missing because of the infectious glee with which the Sun was leading the nation and to hell with good punctuation now and then. It’s probably just that last one.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

A headline that big didn’t need space-wasting punctuation.

Dustshoe Richinrut
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago

Well, if the Wendy in the article had been in charge and in excitable mode, the exclamation would have gone in.

The pop duo of WHAM! needed its exclamation mark. Even capital letters were not enough.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

Fabulous… !!!

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

I note that Kevin’s talent for creative fiction is undiminished. Either that or his mental arithmetic is not all that could be desired. Seeing that the British involvement in the war against Japan spanned the period 8 Dec 1941 to 2 Sep 1945, how come his dad spent five years in a POW camp?

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  William Murphy

Kelvin’s arithmetic maybe a trifle faulty but so is your spelling!
Or is calling him Kevin some form of obscure Irish joke?

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago
Reply to  ARNAUD ALMARIC

Probably inspired by Private Eye christening him Kevin McFilth.

Dermot O'Sullivan
Dermot O'Sullivan
2 years ago

Brilliant. I rate my posts on the number of red minus clicks. Dead fish and all that. I also think it would make a very good (old) Sun headline.

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago

How trolls get paid surely?

Bernie Wilcox
Bernie Wilcox
2 years ago

Ah yes, the delightful Wendy Henry, ex International Socialist who ratted on her former comrades (and sister) by writing an expose for the News of the World.