Maurice Glasman, the Labour peer and one time strategic advisor to Ed Miliband has pulled out of plans to write a weekly political column for the Sun on Sunday after words with the Labour leader.
That will be the same Mr Miliband who Glasman laid into in an article for New Statesman in January where he wrote that the Labour appeared to have “no strategy, no narrative and little energy”. Clearly the Sun was hoping for more of the same. Read more »
A Twitter account belonging to someone who purporting to be an ex-News of the World journalist claims there is little enthusiasm for The Sun on Sunday internally and that dummies of the paper have not been well received.
The account also claims the paper is struggling to find advertisers for the launch issue other than sister company Sky and that Tesco has pulled out of advertising in the first issue.
Last week Rupert Murdoch told us that the Sun on Sunday will launch very soon.
He wasn’t kidding. Last night the news broke that The Sun on Sunday will launch this coming Sunday, February 26. The announcement comes seven months after News Corporation shut down the troubled News of the World.
The launch of the paper is announced boldly on the front page of the Sun this morning.
“Next weekend will see the birth of the first ever Sunday edition of your favourite paper. Rupert Murdoch announced last week that The Sun on Sunday would be coming “very soon”. Now that momentous new dawn is here.” Read more »
Rupert Murdoch is understood to have told staff in an email, circulated before he addressed them (see below), that News Corporation is planning to launch the Sun on Sunday very soon.
He told staff: “We will build on The Sun’s proud heritage by launching The Sun on Sunday very soon”.
That puts paid to any talk fo Murdoch selling the Sun and it confirms what Murdoch said recently when he denied the Sun on Sunday launch is on hold. Read more »
Yesterday it was being reported that the launch of the Sun on Sunday, slated for April, was on hold following the arrest of four Sun journalists at the weekend.
That was the claim made by a report in the FT, which I wrote about. Rupert Murdoch, however, has taken to Twitter and said the report is 100% wrong. What are we to take from this? Read more »
Plans for the launch of the Sun on Sunday, which had been planned for April, have been put on hold following the arrests at the weekend of four current and former senior Sun journalist in connection with phone hacking, according to insiders quoted by the FT.
The plans to put the paper on hold come as News Corporation last night announced the loss of its second senior public relations executive in as many days as news broke that chief spokeswoman Teri Everett is leaving. She had most recently worked on shepherding the company’s PR efforts through a phone hacking scandal in London Read more »
I wrote a few things last year about News International possibly launching The Sun on Sunday, in the wake of the demise of the News of the World, and how it could be a success.
It all went quiet on The Sun on Sunday front after that as the hacking saga rumbled on. We’ve heard nothing since October, but apparently a launch could again be back on the agenda with the new paper on our newsstands as early as the Spring. Read more »
I wrote back in the Summer at the height of the hacking frenzy that the Sun on Sunday if launched would be a success. Over the summer News International has kept its head down as it continues to deal with the fallout from the hacking scandal, but now reports suggest it could be moving steadily ahead with its plans to launch a new sunday tabloid under the Sun banner.
The Indepdendent reports that News International has created a series of new senior jobs on The Sun giving more credence to the idea that that it will launch a Sunday edition early next year. Read more »
22:00 – Murdoch denies any talk of selling UK newspapers, says damage to company is nothing that will not be recovered
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch has rubbished reports earlier this week that claimed the idea of selling News International, which includes The Sun and The Times, had been discussed by News Corp.
“People close to the company have said the company has considered a separation or sale of its newspaper assets. Mr. Murdoch, who is famously devoted to the newspaper business, called such reports ‘pure rubbish. Pure and total rubbish….give it the strongest possible denial you can give’,” the WSJ reports.
In the interview with the WSJ Murdoch also said that News Corp had handled the crisis “extremely well”; had made only “minor mistakes”; and that the damage to the company was “nothing that will not be recovered”. Read more »
20:30 – 9/11 families call for US probe of Murdoch
US website Politico is reporting that angry family members of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, as well as some US lawmakers, are calling for a US investigation into allegations that journalists at the News of the World tabloid attempted to hack the phones of their lost love ones.
© Haymarket Media Group Ltd.
