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Sponsor pulls out after weekly’s Hillsborough ‘insult’

A high street chain has withdrawn its sponsorship of a weekly’s newspaper column after it accused Hillsborough mourners of using the 25th anniversary memorial service as “an excuse for more rabble rousing.”

The Lynn News Citizen in West Norfolk has carried an apology for the piece entitled “We endure a Hillsborough on our roads every 18 days”, by the anonymous Big Eye.

A spokesman for eyecare chain Specsavers confirmed it had pulled out of a deal with the newspaper.

Editor Nick Woodhead declined to expand further on his comment posted online which was headed “a personal message from Editor Nick Woodhead.”

It said: “The Lynn News of Tuesday, April 22, included a comment article by weekly columnist The Big Eye entitled ‘We endure a Hillsborough on our roads every 18 days.’ While the piece sought to draw attention to the numbers of road traffic tragedies, the reference to the Hillsborough memorial and the tone of the article were wholly inappropriate and running it was ill-advised on my part.

 

Liverpool fans pay tribute

The columnist and this newspaper in no way intended to offend anyone involved in Hillsborough or affected by the tragedy and we would like to apologise profusely for any offence caused.”

The Liverpool Echo has reported how the Lynn News Citizen came under fire from supporters online for suggesting fans at the anniversary service were exhibiting “partisan menace” and “territorial attitudes.”

In response to tweets from members of the public the Specsavers said: “We in no way endorse @LynnNewsCitizen‘s ‘Big Eye’ opinions and withdraw our sponsorship of the column with immediate effect.”

The memorial service marking 25 years since the tragedy was held at Anfield last Tuesday.

The column in the weekly read: “A spokesperson for the Hillsborough Family Support Group still succeeded in insinuating into her references to their ongoing campaign for justice a rallying call for her team and their ongoing title ambitions.

“Whatever else has happened and however awful the deaths of those 96 people there is still something that will ease everyone’s pain – a big shiny cup with ribbons on it.

“The defiant flag waving and brandishing of their scarves seemed to be more redolent of another football match than a poignant commemorative occasion and I have to say it pretty much confirmed my opinion of the nature of the game and the whole belligerent atmosphere that surrounds the spitting players, the boorish managers and the oafish supporters”.

The piece goes on to compare the reaction to the 1989 tragedy to people killed in car crashes and says: “There’s no public hand wringing for the UK’s traffic accident victims.”

Hillsborough Family Support Group chairman Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, 18, died in the disaster, described the column as “an absolute disgrace”.

Hundreds of fans took to Twitter this morning to criticise the Lynn News Citizen, on the day the Hillsborough inquests reopened in Warrington.

Respected Liverpool FC author and blogger Paul Tomkins labelled the piece “horrible” and “mean spirited.”

 

21 comments

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  • April 24, 2014 at 8:54 am
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    This is a ridiculous lack of common sense, what’s more dangerous, driving or going to a football match? And the people who died at hillsborough were obviously were huge liverpool fans so supporters show their respect by willing their team to get the 3 points for the 96. Most fans also spend a few minutes at the memorial outside the gates to pay their respects. I doubt there’s not one single person not thinking about the 96 when they sing ‘you’ll never walk alone’.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 9:03 am
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    Mr Woodhead has changed his tune.

    When it was kicking off on Twitter he tweeted: “Our columnist has created quite the furore, tweet us your responses”

    I think his change of heart may have something to do with the amount of Tweets Ashley Highfield got over it.

    If I was Mr Woodhead I would be polishing my CV quick sharp

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  • April 24, 2014 at 9:07 am
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    I sincerely hope that this editor won’t suffer the same fate as Maurice O’Brien of the Reading Chronicle who lost his job after his paper published comments about Hillsborough which were promptly pounced on by the Liverpool Echo.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 9:55 am
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    So let me get this straight so I completely understand the rules. No newspaper anywhere is allowed to say anything even remotely negative about the Hillsborough saga, ever, without a marauding Scouse lynch mob after their blood? And anyone who does say something has to immediately offer a grovelling apology? OK, just needed to check.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 10:25 am
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    Yet another example of some third-rate columnist churning out puerile and offensive drivel in a pathetic effort to appear controversial.
    Ignoring them (and it) completely would be the best option, but such insensitivity does deserve some comment.
    The editor’s (apparently-belated) apology would seem genuine — and so it should — but his original lack of forethought in allowing the article to be published speaks volumes.
    So much for quality churnalism!

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  • April 24, 2014 at 10:35 am
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    What is a national chain doing sponsoring a column in a weekly newspaper in the first place?
    A business doesn’t give money away for nothing so this is going to undermine the integrity of the writing to start with.
    How ironic that managers and editors of newspaper always want other people to comment, hold public inquiries etc, but when the mess happens on their own kitchen floor they are willing to run a mile rather than say anything publicly. Still, I hope the Ed. does not get the chop.
    Specsavers felt bound to make some move fearing that readers would rightly or wrongly link them with Big Eye.
    What worries me is how these highly emotional soccer fans from all the different clubs could so easily be manipulated by some political demagogue and used to intimidate people who do not agree with their views. This is particularly dangerous now because all the professional media, broadcast and print, is more concentrated in fewer hands than ever before.
    Where social media has brought own governments (ie Arab Spring) it is largely because unseen outside forces have been directing it.
    I suppose this could happen in the UK, but at the moment the established media is still overwhelmingly dominant.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 10:50 am
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    Frank Brown,

    Yes, comments about Hillsborough are allowed, but not when they spout the same lies about the tragedy that have become accepted by many who do not know the facts, which I’m sure will come out over the next few months or so.

    And to suddenly throw in ‘marauding Scouse lynch mob’ shows your thinking. The city has got used to insults over the years – think on that one.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 10:55 am
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    I think the column by “Big Eye” was cruel and it was a bad call by the editor to run it.

    However the Liverpool Echo hacks’ self-appointed role as Witch Finder General, hunting down any journalist they consider has strayed from the Hillsborough narrative, is starting to feel extremely sinister.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 11:05 am
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    The Liverpool Echo has somehow appointed itself the national enforcer on local newspaper comment regarding Hillsborough. Woe betide any hack who strays beyond what this small editorial clique finds acceptable.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 11:09 am
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    I agree with Frank Brown and Bluestringer. While it is right that the memories of the victims are honoured, in this of all years, and that justice is eventually served on those who did wrong, there is a disturbing wild-eyed fundamentalism about the whole thing now.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 11:44 am
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    I agree with Observer. The Editor has apologised so let that be an end to the matter. He doesn’t deserve to go the same way as the Editor in Reading.

    Yes, it was a bad call. But people make bad calls all the time (including, no doubt, staff at the Liverpool Echo) and he shouldn’t be hung out to dry.

    Let’s hope common sense prevails, rather than temporary hysteria.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 11:46 am
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    I would just like to put on the record that I am insulted by the very use of the word H*llsborough.

    How dare anyone anywhere in the world ever use this word? Don’t they know how insulting it is?

    Yours angrily

    Everyone

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  • April 24, 2014 at 11:55 am
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    the other issue with Hillsborough is that the AG has placed a very strict contempt of court warning on papers and media with the inquest ongoing so that at least should have made the editor at least think of holding off.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 12:30 pm
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    Surely with the new inquest going on and all the publicity surrounding the 25th anniversary, common sense should have told the editor not to go there.
    The Reading experience ought to have flagged up problems with passing comments on such an emotive subject.
    I doubt that there are many people – certainly a columnist on a local weekly paper – who are in a position to comment with real authority on this particular issue.
    It wreaked on someone hurriedly looking for a subject for a column and arriving at Hillsborough because it was not only emotive, but also an easy option.
    I hope the editor doesn’t pay with his job, but he must learn a lesson and take it on board.

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  • April 24, 2014 at 2:02 pm
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    Hope the Editor doesn’t pay with his job? Some posters make themselves look silly with such ill-informed piffle. The editor here is a thoroughly professional, experienced guy, and a very good, thinking editor, who will be genuinely sorry that this slipped through the net, and has said so. Of course it was best avoided, but the twitterstorm it created is, as usual, over the top. No one has disrespected the Hillsborough dead here. JP management are, despite what you might read elsewhere, enlightened and fairly well informed about this kind of artificial furore and will be supportive to the editor, as will his staff.
    And no I don’t work there, but like a lot of JP people, I did once!

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  • April 24, 2014 at 2:40 pm
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    Observer,

    The Lynn News column doesn’t seem to have spouted any lies about Hillsborough at all. The only references it makes are to (admittedly very clumsily) question why 96 road deaths don’t get the same public attention as the Hillsborouogh 96 and whether the tone of the commemorations was entirely tasteful. While not particularly tactful at this time, both of those areas seem fair game to me.

    It does seem to me that you only have to mention Hillsborough in the merest and slightest of negative contexts before the likes of the self-righteous Liverpool Echo are on your case baying for blood.

    As for my lynch mob comment, what else would you call a stream of critical and abusive comments from Liverpool supporters through social media, most of whom probably hadn’t read the actual article?

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  • April 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm
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    Desker, a piece in Lynn can’t prejudice the inquest… i think the AG is referring to the nationals.

    Need a copy of McNae’s on that desk!

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  • April 24, 2014 at 5:43 pm
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    Just wondering why anybody thought people picking up a copy of a local weekly newspaper in Norfolk would want to read anything about Hillsborough. All a bit Skibbereen Eagle

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  • April 24, 2014 at 7:27 pm
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    Sorry that Idle Rich sees my hope that the editor encounters no problems over his position as “ill-informed piffle”. I shall think twice about offering support in future. For the record, I thought what happened to the guy at Reading was very harsh.

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  • April 26, 2014 at 5:38 am
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    I see the stereotype mob are out in force, with very little in the way of love lost on the people of Liverpool.
    If you’d all like to take your hate anything Liverpool attitude away for a moment…The Attorney General was the one who warned the media not to make any comments about The Hillsborough Disaster that could be detrimental in any way! Whether you like that fact or not Lynn News ran a story that was detrimental to it’s core! Road Traffic victims don’t get 25 years of mud slung at them, accused of urinating on and pickpocketing dead or dying victims! then have witness statements altered by The Law of The Land or intimidated by The Law of The Land into making inaccurate statements. Or the families of road traffic victims don’t get spied on with their phones tapped or followed wherever they go or have their bank accounts and assets checked into!
    The Hillsborough Disaster was a terrible day for The people of Liverpool which was compounded by those in charge wanting to absolve themselves from any blame no matter how they went about it! This was Thatcher’s Government giving ultimate unequivocal power to The Police Force who ruled with metal toe capped boots and batons and a penchant for getting their man…normally any man… as long as they had somebody to blame and make their collar records gleam! The Police that day were incompetent because they knew the amount of fans that were heading to Hillsborough far exceeded the ticket allocation. They had the knowledge of how many fans were traveling by trains, they had the knowledge of how many were headed via roads/motorways and yet they allowed pandemonium to ensue by not stopping fans headed towards the ground without tickets. When they realized the error of their ways they just let the gates open to one section and the rest is heinous history, covered up and hidden, in any deplorable way possible to abstain themselves from blame!
    We have another despicable incident just come out how Government computers were used in 2009 & then again in 2012 to alter the wikipedia page about The Hillsborough Disaster, mocking the dead!
    Using that old passage Scousers have a blame anybody else complex is old and untrue hat! Scousers don’t take s**t, they are determined, especially about getting to the truth, no matter how long it takes no matter how many untruths are spoke or wrote about them!
    JFT96 YNWA

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