Sunday World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the 19th century Irish newspaper with the same name, see old Sunday World
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| Type | Sunday newspaper |
| Format | tabloid |
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| Owner(s) | Independent News and Media |
| Founded | 1970s. |
| Political position | populist revisionist |
| Headquarters | Talbot Street, Dublin |
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| Website | www.sundayworld.com |
The Sunday World is an Irish newspaper published by Sunday Newspapers Limited, a division of Independent News and Media. It is the largest selling "popular" newspaper in Ireland and is also sold in Northern Ireland (where a modified edition is produced, with more stories relevant to the region).
[edit] Origins
The Sunday World was Ireland's first tabloid newspaper. It was launched in 1973 by Hugh McLaughlin and Gerry McGuinness. It broke new ground in terms of layout, content, agenda, use of sexual imagery, and use of columnists.
[edit] Investigative journalism
As well as titillation, the paper is known for its investigative journalism and the controversies the investigations produces. The Sunday World was the first newspaper to name Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness as members of the Army Council of the Provisional Irish Republican Army for which legal action was never pursued. It named individuals which assisted in laundering £22m from the Northern Bank robbery and those it believed killed Robert McCartney. [1]
Following an August 2005 Sunday World article that poked fun at the gambling losses of one of its leaders, the Ulster Defence Association "banned" the sale of the Sunday World newspaper from shops in areas it controls. Shops that defy the ban have suffered arson attacks, and at least one newsagent was threatened with death. The Police Service of Northern Ireland have recently begun accompanying the paper's delivery vans.[2] [3]
| Circulation & Readership of | |
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| Circulation | 273,667 |
| Readership | 810,000 (24.8% of market) |
| Dates | 2004/2005 |
| Source | National Newspapers of Ireland/JNRS |
In 2001, a journalist working for the paper in Northern Ireland, Martin O'Hagan, was brutally murdered by Loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh. O'Hagan was the first journalist to draw attention to the activities of a man called Billy Wright, one of the worst loyalist sectarian assassins to emerge in the troubles. Wright lived only a few miles from O'Hagan in north Armagh, and had attempted to have the journalist murdered in 1992. The threat was sufficient to cause O'Hagan to temporarily move to the Sunday World office in Dublin, and then to Cork. He continued working for the newspaper, returning to his family in Lurgan in the late 1990s. When killed, O'Hagan became the first reporter covering the Northern Ireland conflict to be killed by paramilitaries. [4] [5]
On May 1, 2005 it alleged double standards by a prominent member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). It claimed that the unionist politician, Paul Berry had been caught in a sting operation by the newspaper when he met a male masseur in a room booked under a false name in a Belfast hotel. According to the paper, Berry asked the man upon meeting him: "I hope you're a Prod?" Berry denied the allegations, claiming that he was seeking treatment for a sports injury, and is considering legal action. In the 2005 general election five days later Berry was the DUP candidate for Newry and Armagh but was one of the few DUP candidates to experience a fall in their share of the vote in favour of the Ulster Unionist Party while everywhere else in the province the DUP gained at the expense of its main rival. The DUP were to the forefront in the campaign of the 1970s and 1980s to stop the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. On July 4, 2005 it was announced that Berry had been suspended from the DUP following an internal disciplinary panel meeting.
The paper has also been prominent in its exposure of criminals in the Republic. As a result of his controversial exposés, its Crime Correspondent, Paul Williams, has received death threats and on occasion needed Garda Siochána (Irish Police) protection.
Often Williams' stories contain quotations from "Garda sources" or other unattributable figures that cannot be verified. In January 2007 he described the corrupt Garda activities detailed in the report of the Morris Tribunal as "the work of a few rogues" on the Late Late Show and lamented the fact that the Garda Síochána does not have a free hand in criminal investigations. He has referred to the Police Service of Northern Ireland as the weakest police force in Europe because of the oversight of the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan and decries attempts to establish a similar system in the Republic of Ireland.
In 2005 the paper was sued by a well known Dublin criminal figure Martin "the Viper" Foley after it reported that he was a leading figure in gang related crime and had links with the IRA elements. Foley argued that the report placed his life in jeopardy and sought to gag the paper.The attempt failed as the High Court rejected his allegations and refused to prevent further reporting.[6]
[edit] External links
| National & regional newspapers in Ireland |  |
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See also: List of newspapers in Ireland |
