by Alice WatkinsThis morning the Sun newspaper led with: ‘BBC presenter suspended over sex claims ‘broke Covid law’ to meet young stranger from a dating site.’

This appears to be an attempt to present a greater public interest justification for the newspaper’s recent coverage on the conduct of an unnamed BBC presenter, after Hacked Off and others called for The Sun to answer questions about its journalistic practices in pursuit of the story.

But apart from anything else, The Sun’s coverage today highlights the hypocrisy of the paper.

Last year we reported that the Deputy Editor of The Sun attended a lockdown party held, in his honour, by No 10 after it was announced he would be leaving Downing Street to take up his new position with the newspaper. Did The Sun report on it at the time, with a front page splash? It certainly did not.

Then there are the series of meetings between the Government and newspaper editors which occurred on the same dates that lockdown parties are alleged to have taken place, including a party in November 2020, which was even addressed by the Prime Minister himself.

We still don’t know everything that happened at those lockdown parties - including the question of whether Sun journalists or editors knew about them, and failed to report on those too.

Regardless of the merits of The Sun’s reporting on this alleged lockdown breach today, it is yet another example of hypocrisy from the paper.