After what I thought was a somewhat shaky start for The Sun Sunday a week ago – Britain’s newest national newspaper showed signs of getting into its stride yesterday.
And to be fair to editor Dominic Mohan and his team, they were given just a week’s notice to get the new title into print – so it is no surprise that there was room for improvement after week one.
While the front page story WHITNEY’S SECRET AFFAIR WITH JACKSON, didn’t float my boat – it was a genuine exclusive.
Stories inside that caught my eye included: Frank Lampard paying a councillor to help with plans that almost doubled the value of his £4m house; news that David Rathband’s family are pressing for him to be posthumously promoted to sergeant, a beefy investigation on human trafficking in the UK by Sharon Hendry and a report by Oliver Harvey on the Bavarian-style village in Argentina where some crackpot historians think Hitler may have lived out his days.
It was good to see Sun Thames Valley district reporter Jamie Pyatt back at work four moths after he became the first Sun journalist to be arrested in the Operation Elveden bribes inquiry. Most of the 10 Sun journalists who were suspended following arrests are now understood to back in harness.
His page 19 lead told the cracking story of a groom who was tarred, feathered and dressed up like a giant penis on a stag do which ended with two of his mates being sprayed with CS gas and tasered by police.
With The People and Sunday Mirror now both back up to £1 (after just one week of competing on price) versus The Sun Sunday on 50p – the new title must be well set to win back a good proportion of the millions of readers lost to News International since the closure of the News of the World in July.
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