The Sun
The Sun, Britain's biggest newsbrand reaching 31.1 million people a month, consistently holds power to account, champions the freedoms and rights of our readers as well as those in need, and is committed to promoting media freedom. We stepped up the campaigning for our 10 year campaign to keep the price of fuel duty down - ‘Keep it Down’ - and were name checked by the chancellor when he confirmed in this year’s budget we had once again won a real tangible saving on our readers behalf. We won back £76,000 for our readers through the Squeeze Team campaign.
Through our Earthquake Fund we lobbied big businesses including Tesco and M&S to raise vital funds (1.5million) with the British Red Cross for those affected by the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. We continued to celebrate and honour our NHS heroes through our Who Cares Wins awards with the UK’s top celebrities attending to say thank you to the healthcares heroes. The campaign runs for months in the run up to the awards with each shortlisted category getting their own story told, as well as full event coverage in the week after the awards. The Sun’s latest campaign backed by the Princess of Wales seeks to help struggling baby banks through the cost of living crisis with Save The Children and Little Village. We also hold to account the most powerful people in the country, from revealing illegal or hypocritical behaviour in high office, or exposing sexual abuse and financial rule-breaking.
Our work on domestic abuse continued on our campaign Justice for Joanna, leading to Deputy PM Dominic Raab (at the time) vowing to meet Joanna Simpson's family to discuss the case. Since then it has been confirmed her killer will remain in prison. Political Editor Harry Cole and his team kept the heat on the government. The Sun was the first to report the unlikelihood of HS2 to complete back in January. The Sun has been vociferous in standing up for the Press as a cornerstone of democracy and free speech. The Sun helped to secure important concessions to the draconian National Security Bill, which could have led to journalists being treated like spies, and imprisoned for revealing secrets which were embarrassing to the Government. The Sun followed up the news - that a review would see journalists jailed for up to 14 years if they handle or publish secret government documents and risks criminalising journalists for legitimate reporting - with updates, op-eds and leaders. Over the past 12 months, war reporting has become increasingly important in a world of misinformation and propaganda and verification and trusted reporting has never been more important. Covering war means our reporters taking risks so that they can bear witness and verify what is happening on the ground.The Sun’s defence editor Jerome Starkey continued to report from Ukraine getting to the heart of the conflict.
His films helped to make The Sun’s YouTube channel one of the biggest news publishers on Youtube. Since the Israel - Gaza conflict we have had multiple reporters on the ground showing the horrors of that conflict to our readers.
The Sun broke the biggest Royal news including world exclusive Harry and Meghan evicted from Frogmore, their UK home - confirmed by the couple and picked up globally. Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson also secured a copy of Harry’s memoir Spare five days early, after it was found on sale in Spain. Matt and the team drip-fed some of the biggest stories from the book throughout the day on The Sun website while every other publication tried to catch up.
The Sun also lit the touchpaper on one of the biggest stories of the year breaking the news of Holly and Phil not speaking, followed by the first exclusive interview with Phillip Schofield where he discussed the affair and claims of grooming. Our stories led to ITV bosses being hauled in front of MPs to answer questions about staff safeguarding with promises for greater future protection.
More recently, following a Sun investigation, BBC DG Tim Davie launched an inquiry into how it failed to properly investigate a complaint made about Huw Edwards. That inquiry is ongoing.