Should the Sun carry a health warning?

The Media Blog has an excellent spot in the Sun this morning...



Just what I needed yesterday on a long driving day. A big can of energy drink.

But why would that make it into the Sun Lies? Surely there can't be any hypocrisy going on with a drinks promotion, can there? Especially a non-alcoholic drinks promotion?

There has been a little controversy in the past about these types of drinks. All that concentrated caffeine and what-not can't be good for you, really. Just like any responsible company, The Sun and News Corp wouldn't want to do anything that might harm their customers, so maybe The Sun/News Corp didn't know about that side of it.

oh...

ENERGY drinks like Red Bull can cause heart attacks and strokes...

er...

ENERGY drink Red Bull may claim to give you "wings" but it could also give you a heart attack

um...

RESTLESSNESS, headaches, agitated behaviour and chest pains.
These are some of the symptoms of caffeine addiction, a growing problem among Britain's schoolkids.

Consumption of caffeine-enriched drinks such as Red Bull and Diet Coke is soaring among youngsters.

ah...

THE father of an 11-year-old boy found hanged has blamed his death on energy drinks.
Lee Johns said son Tyler had mood swings after becoming hooked on popular caffeine-filled drinks

*shrugs*...

...a worrying study at the Cardiovascular Research Centre in Adelaide, Australia, showed a single can of sugar-free Red Bull could have a damaging effect on the heart within 60 MINUTES.

None of these articles name Relentless, but as The Media Blog point out...

one can of Relentless contains 160 mg of caffeine. That's twice the amount of caffeine in a can of Red Bull

"It wasn't me, it was the other three!"

BBC...

Claims back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin smuggled his memoirs out of jail using a rule allowing correspondence with lawyers are to be investigated.

What's this got to do with the Sun? Well, the Sun serialised them.

Christopher Hutchings, a media lawyer told the BBC there was currently no law that prevented criminals selling their stories.

"However, the Press Complaints Commission, which governs the newspaper and magazine industry, does have in its code of practice provision preventing such a situation," he said.

Very true. Item 16, part i) of the PCC code states...

Payment or offers of payment for stories, pictures or information, which seek to exploit a particular crime or to glorify or glamorise crime in general, must not be made directly or via agents to convicted or confessed criminals or to their associates – who may include family, friends and colleagues.

The Sun received the memoirs through Darwins' lawyer. Only Darwins' lawyer wasn't a lawyer but a fraudster and they both then abused the rule allowing confidential correspondence between lawyer and client.

This arrangement is used to lovely effect by the Sun to deflect the attention of breaking the PPC code of conduct back on to the Ministry of Justice...

However, the Sun claims, the Prison Service failed to carry out basic checks which would have revealed that Darwin's new "lawyer" was really a conman who was freed on licence earlier this year.

I've seen an attitude like that before. Now where was it...?

Gaunts' Britian

Talking of Jon Gaunt...

Matthew Norman:

In Brits we trust

On the op-ed page of The Sun are extracts from Gaunty’s Best of British: It’s Called Great Britain Not Rubbish Britain, and many thanks to Rebekah Wade for offering the choicest cuts from an opus on which I still haven’t lavished £18.99. Included in this saliva-inducing amuse bouche of Gaunty faves are not only the great British summer fete, pork scratchings, saucy seaside postcards, queuing (“What is it with us Brits and queuing?”), HP Sauce, marmalade and the NHS (no direct comparison with the French system, but we take the point).

Also making the cut is tolerance.

The ghost of Hillsborough

Hillsborough still haunts The Sun.

The Morning Advertiser:

Carlsberg has teamed up with The Sun newspaper to offer readers a free pint of Carlsberg on the August bank holiday weekend.

The promotion will run in The Sun on 23 August, offering 3.2 million readers a voucher that can be redeemed for a free pint of Carlsberg on Sunday, 24 August in more than 13,000 UK pubs.

Erm. Not anymore:

Carlsberg's Sun promotion: Probably worst idea in the world

RED-FACED Carlsberg bosses have apologised to outraged Liverpool fans for their aborted beer promotion with The Sun.

The Danish brewer yesterday axed a deal with the tabloid newspaper to give readers a free pint over the August bank holiday weekend.
...
Mr Strudahl, part of the [Carlsberg] team which sealed the Anfield sponsorship deal in 1992, confirmed hundreds of strongly-worded letters and emails were sent to their Scandinavian headquarters from all corners of the world.

Probably for the best