The Power of The Sun
I have often secured coverage for those I represent in The Sun. Although rightly detested by anyone who remembers Wapping, Hillsborough or the days when they used to call gay members of the clergy ‘pulpit poofs’, it is still the largest English-language newspaper in the world. More than that, it is a place to run and win heart and mind lobbying campaigns. If you want to defeat some ridiculous piece of legislation, you use The Sun.
There is a case for saying that if left-wing campaign groups could put aside their prejudice and cannily construct stories which The Sun would feature, they could see some real successes. The complex dance of articulation between the title’s journalists and their audience is both pull and push. Be as snide as you want to be about the paper, but never underestimate its readership or its readers.
If upon landing in America I was ‘detained’ thanks to the little bit of trouble I got into with the CIA when writing Secrets & Lies, I would bloody well want The Sun campaigning for my release. Yes a lead in The Independent is nice when you are up shit creek, but the firepower of Murdoch is actually more useful. Especially when it is combined with The Sun galvanising an English mob to raise a fighting fund and ensuring pub conversations feature the line: ‘Those CIA are bastards, nabbing that writer just because he wrote about them sinking a ship in the Thames’.
Even though 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die was always intended primarily as a book for Australia and Matt and I were not doing any publicity in Britain, The Sun decided to cover our publication. Under the headline: ‘Way to go!’ the story started:
‘Some people have had such bizarre deaths there’s a danger you could die laughing just reading about them.
A new book has rounded up hilarious true stories of people kicking the bucket in truly crazy fashion.
In 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die by David Southwell and Matt Adams you’ll find tales such as …’
Before going on to use 15 entries from our book to make a feature.
The power of The Sun is such that from this single bit of coverage, suddenly Matt and I were suddenly appearing in papers across the globe. Our names echoing across titles in India, Thailand, Australia and the United States. There has been a nice bump in sales and the analytics for English Dreaming, English Rain are even more interesting than usual. Not exactly a case of ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’, but neither of us are complaining.
There is a case for saying that if left-wing campaign groups could put aside their prejudice and cannily construct stories which The Sun would feature, they could see some real successes. The complex dance of articulation between the title’s journalists and their audience is both pull and push. Be as snide as you want to be about the paper, but never underestimate its readership or its readers.
If upon landing in America I was ‘detained’ thanks to the little bit of trouble I got into with the CIA when writing Secrets & Lies, I would bloody well want The Sun campaigning for my release. Yes a lead in The Independent is nice when you are up shit creek, but the firepower of Murdoch is actually more useful. Especially when it is combined with The Sun galvanising an English mob to raise a fighting fund and ensuring pub conversations feature the line: ‘Those CIA are bastards, nabbing that writer just because he wrote about them sinking a ship in the Thames’.
Even though 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die was always intended primarily as a book for Australia and Matt and I were not doing any publicity in Britain, The Sun decided to cover our publication. Under the headline: ‘Way to go!’ the story started:
‘Some people have had such bizarre deaths there’s a danger you could die laughing just reading about them.
A new book has rounded up hilarious true stories of people kicking the bucket in truly crazy fashion.
In 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die by David Southwell and Matt Adams you’ll find tales such as …’
Before going on to use 15 entries from our book to make a feature.
The power of The Sun is such that from this single bit of coverage, suddenly Matt and I were suddenly appearing in papers across the globe. Our names echoing across titles in India, Thailand, Australia and the United States. There has been a nice bump in sales and the analytics for English Dreaming, English Rain are even more interesting than usual. Not exactly a case of ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’, but neither of us are complaining.
Labels: 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die, Matt Adams, Publicity, The Sun
posted by David at 11:59 PM
1 Comments:
Ah, now I understand why you are uncomfortable with tabloid publicity.
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