Murdoch’s Sun Covered Up Page 3 Topless Women

(Corrects first and second paragraphs of story published
on Jan. 20 to show the Sun hasn’t permanently removed topless
women from page 3. The Sun published a topless woman again on
Jan. 22 under the heading “clarifications and corrections,”
without commenting on its future policy.)

Readers of Britain’s best-selling tabloid,
The Sun, found women clad in bikinis instead of the topless
models who have featured on page 3 since 1970.

Rupert Murdoch tweeted in September that the feature was
old-fashioned. A “No More Page 3” campaign has won support on
social media in recent years, garnering almost 220,000
signatures in favor of scrapping the controversial images.

The newspaper continues to show women clad in lingerie and
bikinis on the page, while topless pictures are still available
on its website.

“Page 3 is really beyond its use-by date,” said David
Banks, a former editor at The Sun whose job as night editor was
choosing the woman for the next day’s newspaper. “It’s
inevitable its time has come.”

Murdoch’s News U.K. operation, a division of News Corp. (NWSA:US)
that owns The Sun and The Times of London newspapers, did not
respond to queries about the decision.

The Sun is Britain’s No. 1 newspaper with a daily
circulation of 1.89 million at the end of December, according to
the U.K.’s Audit Bureau of Circulations. While the paper is best
known for Page 3 and covering celebrity sex scandals, it has
been polishing its image recently to appeal more to families.

Double Standards

The “No More Page 3” Facebook site, a campaign started by
writer Lucy-Anne Holmes to “Take the Bare Boobs Out of The
Sun,” was filled with congratulatory messages today and notes
on TV appearances to discuss the move.

“It wasn’t about Page 3 being offensive but about the
impact on our society of judging men and women by different
standards,” Stella Creasy, a lawmaker for Walthamstow in
London, said in a BBC Radio 4 interview today. “It was saying
to all of us that what mattered was our breasts not our
brains.”

Page 3 first drew opposition in the 1980s, when lawmaker
Clare Short introduced a bill in Parliament to kill the feature.
In recent years British universities including Oxford and the
London School of Economics canceled subscriptions. The Murdoch-owned Irish Sun dropped its version of Page 3 a year and a half
ago.

Banks said the end of the topless version of the Page 3
girl is only a partial victory, given the continuing appearance
of barely dressed women on the page and the topless pictures on
Page3.com. “We’re still going to be titillated, though I admire
The Sun for beginning this progress toward not producing soft
porn.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Kristen Schweizer in London at
kschweizer1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Kenneth Wong at
kwong11@bloomberg.net
Emma Ross-Thomas

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