Public turned off Brown telephone row

While bloggers of left and right have rounded on The Sun for their coverage of Gordon Brown’s telephone conversation with a grieving mother, the story appears to be of little interest to readers of the BBC’s website.

Although the story continues to top the bulletins on both BBC and Sky News, it does not even make the top 10 most popular stories with UK-based visitors to the BBC News website.

Bloggers across the political spectrum – including Tory Bear, the Spectator, Mark Reckons, Anthony Painter, and Next Left – have all rounded on The Sun today. Meanwhile Labour List uncovered remarks by Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun and Sky, who said he agreed with a controversial US TV presenter, Glenn Beck, and thought President Obama was a racist for remarks made in July over the arrest of a black scholar in July in Cambridge, Massachussets.

This provoked John Prescott to tweet: “Would anyone want Murdoch’s or Sun’s backing now?”

UPDATE 16.17

Michael White on BBC News:

“I’m amazed that the BBC have been making quite so much of The Sun’s story all day because they’re doing Mr Murdoch’s business for him.”