Nobody's Buying the Sun's Victim Routine

Amid the apologies and lame excuses that have characterized the British Leveson Inquiry into press ethics, the Sun's former political editor Trevor Kavanagh has finally fought back on the paper's behalf calling the police investigations into journalists a "witch hunt," but nobody's buying the victim routine. Kavanagh's piece in the Sun took police to task for the investigations into alleged phone hacking and other illegal practices, which got five Sun editors and journalists arrested on Saturday. "journalists are being treated like members of an organized crime gang," Kavanagh wrote. "Major crime investigations are on hold as 171 police are drafted in to run three separate operations" investigating papers such as the Sun. Kavanagh decried journalists "needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked."

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But while The Guardian points out that some of the Sun's tabloid brethren have joined it in attacking the police's use of resources, readers on Twitter had no sympathy, thanks to the Sun's own record. "The Sun said the Anders Breivik killings were an 'Al-Qaeda massacre.' Now Kavanagh says we 'shouldn't jump to conclusions,' " tweeted blogger Primly Stable. "Must ask Trevor Kavanagh what fairness & due process preceded today's #Sun headline claim of precise length (48h) of Whitney's final 'binge,' " tweeted Pavel Konnolsky. "Trevor Kavanagh is right, we need to stand up for the Sun and protect good journalism, like this," tweeted Cardiff-based journalist Adam C. Smith, pointing to the Sun's hard-hitting look at the correlation between Aaron Ramsey's soccer goals and celebrity deaths.