Media coverage of the Hillsborough disaster (1989) and the Grenfell Tower fire (2017) exposes systemic failures in British journalism that prolonged injustice and protected powerful institutions.
In both cases, the media amplified official narratives that blamed victims, failed to scrutinise authorities, and marginalised working-class and minority communities.
These were not isolated errors but structural problems rooted in weak investigative practice, commercial pressures, and over-reliance on official sources.
Hillsborough: Manufacturing Blame
On 15 April 1989, 97 Liverpool supporters died in a crush at Hillsborough Stadium during an FA Cup semi-final. Four days later, The Sun published the headline “The Truth”, falsely accusing fans of drunken violence and interference with rescue efforts. These claims, later admitted by police to be fabrications, were reported as fact. Other outlets, including the Daily Express and the BBC, repeated police accounts without verification, embedding falsehoods into public understanding.
Example: The Sun’s Front Page, 19 April 1989
The Sun’s front page carried three sub-headings beneath its headline: “Some fans picked pockets of victims,” “Some fans urinated on the brave cops,” and “Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life.” These allegations came from unnamed police sources, the local Conservative MP, and a South Yorkshire Police Federation spokesperson. None were independently verified. The claims were later comprehensively discredited by the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012 and the 2016 inquest jury.
Read more: Coverage of the Hillsborough disaster by The Sun (Wikipedia) →
Some newspapers, such as the Daily Mirror and the Liverpool Echo, rejected these claims, showing that editorial judgement could have prevented the spread of misinformation. The Mirror’s reporters in Liverpool investigated the police claims but told their London editors they could not substantiate the allegations; one reporter reportedly threatened to resign if the unverified slurs appeared under his byline. Instead, the Mirror ran with the more cautious headline: “Fury as police claim victims were robbed.”
Key Contrast: Different Editorial Choices
The fact that some newsrooms rejected the police narrative while others amplified it demonstrates that this was a failure of editorial judgement, not an unavoidable consequence of chaotic reporting conditions. The Liverpool Echo, closest to the community and its sources, was among the most cautious. The Sun, under editor Kelvin MacKenzie, pushed ahead despite internal misgivings about the story’s reliability.
Media narratives aligned with longstanding stereotypes of football fans and Liverpool as unruly and disorderly. Media academic Chris Horrie has argued that The Sun treated Liverpool as essentially a foreign country from the mid-1980s onwards, linked to the city’s multiracial culture, left-wing politics, and high unemployment. This framing dominated public discourse for 27 years, obstructing justice until the 2016 inquest ruled the deaths unlawful.
Journalistic misconduct extended beyond reporting. Reporters impersonated officials to access grieving families and obstructed rescue efforts. These practices compounded trauma and reinforced distrust between Liverpool and the national press, a distrust that endures to this day, with the city’s boycott of The Sun still active over three decades later.
Timeline: The Long Road to Justice
1989
Disaster at Hillsborough. The Sun publishes “The Truth.” Boycott begins on Merseyside, with sales reportedly falling by around 40% in the immediate aftermath. The 80% figure above refers to the longer-term collapse in local sales associated with the sustained boycott.
1991
First inquests return verdicts of “accidental death.” Families dispute the findings and campaign for new inquests.
1997
Lord Justice Stuart-Smith concludes there is no justification for a new inquiry. Families are devastated.
2009
Hillsborough Independent Panel established by the government to review all evidence.
2012
The Panel’s report reveals the full extent of the cover-up, including 164 altered police statements. PM David Cameron apologises. The Sun issues a front-page apology.
2016
New inquest jury returns verdicts of unlawful killing. Fans formally cleared of any responsibility.
2025
IOPC publishes its final report, confirming fundamental failures by South Yorkshire Police and the defensive approach adopted in the aftermath.
Key Reference
The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s full report (2012) is available from the UK Government: GOV.UK: Hillsborough Independent Panel Report →. The Panel reviewed over 450,000 pages of documentation from 85 organisations. The IOPC’s 2025 final report is available at policeconduct.gov.uk →.
• • •
Grenfell: Ignored Warnings and Victim-Blaming
The Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 killed 72 residents. Unlike Hillsborough, the media’s main failure occurred before the disaster. Residents had publicly warned of serious fire risks through the Grenfell Action Group blog, yet mainstream media ignored these concerns. Only specialist outlets, such as Inside Housing, sustained attention on fire safety in social housing.
Example: The Grenfell Action Group Blog, November 2016
Eight months before the fire, the Grenfell Action Group published a blog post which predicted with chilling accuracy that only a catastrophic loss of life would expose the management failures at the tower. The group had published at least eight warnings about fire safety over the preceding three years. In 2013, the council threatened one of the bloggers with legal action, calling their posts “defamation and harassment.” Two women who had campaigned for improved fire safety, Mariem Elgwahry and Nadia Choucair, were also threatened with legal action by the management organisation. Both later died in the fire.
Veteran television journalist Jon Snow used the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival to ask why the mainstream media had failed so completely. He argued that the media was “comfortably with the elite, with little awareness, contact or connection with those not of the elite,” and demanded to know why nobody in the mainstream press had seen the Grenfell Action Group blog.
Example: The Role of Specialist Journalism
Inside Housing journalist Sophie Barnes had been reporting on fire safety problems in social housing long before Grenfell, including the 2009 Lakanal House fire (which killed six people due to exterior cladding) and a 2016 fire in Shepherd’s Bush where the London Fire Brigade wrote to all London councils warning about cladding dangers. After Grenfell, Barnes filed Freedom of Information requests to all councils in the country, uncovering that 268 tower blocks had problems with fire doors, 71 had no emergency lighting, and 54 lacked ventilation in escape routes. Read more: How specialist journals uncovered the real story (The Conversation) →
After the fire, sections of the press quickly turned to victim-blaming. The Daily Mail identified a resident, Behailu Kebede, implying his fridge caused the fire. Despite widespread complaints, the article deflected attention from systemic failures later identified by the Grenfell Inquiry, including government inaction, regulatory failure, and industry dishonesty.
Example: The Scapegoating of Behailu Kebede
Just two days after the fire, the Daily Mail published Kebede’s name, photo, and address, framing him as the person whose “faulty fridge started the Grenfell Tower inferno.” The article tracked down the traumatised survivor to his emergency accommodation. Kebede’s lawyer later told the Grenfell Inquiry that the media harassment was so severe that police offered him witness protection. He was also falsely called an Islamist in some online coverage. The Inquiry’s Phase 1 report formally exonerated Kebede, finding that the fire resulted from an electrical fault in a fridge-freezer and spread catastrophically due to combustible cladding, not due to any action or negligence by the resident.
Read: Grenfell Inquiry hears Kebede was offered police protection (HuffPost) →
Key Reference
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 2 report (September 2024) found the fire was the culmination of decades of failure by central government and systematic dishonesty by cladding manufacturers. The government’s response, published February 2025, accepts all 58 recommendations. GOV.UK: Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 Government Response →
• • •
Class, Race, and Structural Bias
Both disasters reveal how media narratives draw on class and racial stereotypes. Hillsborough victims were portrayed as irresponsible working-class “yobs”, while Grenfell residents, many of them ethnic-minority residents in social housing, were marginalised before the fire and framed as irrational when demanding justice afterwards. Sympathy proved conditional and short-lived.
| Dimension | Hillsborough (1989) | Grenfell (2017) |
|---|---|---|
| Community profile | Working-class football supporters from Liverpool, a city stigmatised for its politics and unemployment | Predominantly ethnic-minority residents in social housing in one of London’s wealthiest boroughs |
| Pre-disaster stereotyping | The Sun had nicknamed an Everton-Liverpool cup final “The Giro Cup” (a welfare reference); Liverpool was treated as culturally alien | Residents’ complaints about fire safety were dismissed; bloggers were threatened with legal action for “defamation” |
| Post-disaster framing | Victims blamed as drunken hooligans; police narrative accepted as “The Truth” | Individual resident scapegoated; survivors framed as unreasonable for demanding accountability |
| Duration of injustice | 27 years for unlawful killing verdicts (1989–2016); no individual criminal convictions to date | 7 years to final Inquiry report (2017–2024); criminal prosecutions are still pending |
| Institutional response | The Grenfell Next of Kin group noted the parallels, and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea adopted the “Hillsborough Charter” for its approach to the Grenfell Inquiry | PM committed to a “Hillsborough Law”, a legal duty of candour on public servants |
“Systemic racism goes deep to the heart of the problem that caused the catastrophe. Questions around race and social class is at the heart of this truth-seeking.”
The Grenfell Next of Kin group, in a letter to the Prime Minister regarding the Inquiry’s terms of reference
Further Context: The Collapse of Local Journalism
A 2019 article in The Conversation drew a direct line between the collapse of local journalism and the failure to detect the conditions that produced the Grenfell disaster. As former local journalist Peter Sands recalled: “Any local newspaper journalist worth his or her salt would have been all over that story because of that blog. We would have known about that local group’s concerns because we were very much in the local community.” Instead, he noted, “there is no-one there.”
Read: Grenfell warnings and the collapse of local journalism (The Conversation) →