Sunday World

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Type	Sunday newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Independent News and Media
Founded	1970s.
Political position	populist Right Wing
Headquarters	Talbot Street, Dublin
Editor
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 the Republic of Ireland and is also sold in Northern Ireland (where a modified edition with more stories relevant to that region is produced).

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, columnists, and use of sexual imagery.

Investigative journalism

In 2001, a journalist working for the paper in Northern Ireland, Martin O'Hagan, was killed by Loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh. O'Hagan was the first journalist to draw attention to the activities of Billy Wright. 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.^[1][2]

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.^{[citation needed]} 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 been noted in its coverage of crime in the Republic of Ireland compared to other papers. It's crime correspondent, Paul Williams, has received death threats and on occasion needed Garda Siochána protection.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[3]

On March 19, 2006, Sunday World reporter Hugh Jordan tracked down former Sinn Féin official and British Forces informant Denis Donaldson at a remote, rustic cottage in County Donegal.^[4][5]. Sixteen days later, Donaldson was murdered there, and the paper was heavily criticized as having blood on its hands for identifying and showing a photo of the location. In 2009 the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing.^[6]

On November 1, 2009, Northern Editor Jim McDowell attracted complaints to the Press Complaints Commission after the paper published on the front page the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge, having taken his own life under the headline "Halloween Horror".^[7]. McDowell claimed on the Stephen Nolan's BBC Radio Ulster show on the 2nd November that it was meant to dissuade individuals thinking about suicide but the decision to publish was condemned by suicide awareness and support groups.^[8].

Awards

In 2008, the newspaper won the prize for the Newspaper of the Year (Sunday) at the annual Chartered Institute of Public Relations Press and Broadcast Awards for Northern Ireland.^[9]

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (August 2008)

External links

• Scotsman: Brave journalism reveals Northern Ireland's underbelly