Daily Star Sunday

Daily Star Sunday

Type	Weekly newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Richard Desmond
Publisher	Northern and Shell Media
Editor	Stuart James
Founded	15 September 2002
Political alignment	Populist
Headquarters	10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN
Circulation	310,063 (January 2014)
Website	http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sunday

The Daily Star Sunday is a weekly tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom. It was launched as a sister title to the Daily Star on 15 September 2002.

The Daily Star Sunday is published by Express Newspapers, which along with the Daily Star also publishes the Daily Express and Sunday Express. The group is owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell company. The paper predominately features stories about celebrities, sport, and news and gossip about popular television programmes, such as soap operas and reality TV shows.

The current editor is Stuart James, who took over the post in February 2014 from the paper's previous editor, Peter Carbery.

Regular features

The newspaper features a picture of a glamorous woman on Page 3, however in contrast to its daily stablemate, the Daily Star Sunday is almost always nudity-free.

Other regular features in the Daily Star Sunday include Bushell On The Box, a TV column by Gary Bushell, a film column by Andy Lea, James Ingham's showbiz column Wired, Soaper Star, travel pages and Mark Forsyth's No Limits motoring pages. Football, racing and rugby league make up the bulk of the sports pages, with the weekend's football action covered in depth in the Result pullout. In addition, the Irish edition covers Gaelic Games and the domestic soccer scene.

The newspaper features a large amount of showbiz coverage, including lots of reality TV and soap stories. There is also weekly coverage of troops, crime and consumer stories. In addition there is a readers' comment page based around Twitter messages that are apparently printed verbatim.

It celebrated its tenth anniversary in late 2012.

Controversy

Madeleine McCann

Both the Daily Star Sunday and its daily equivalent, as well as its stablemates the Daily Express and Sunday Express, featured heavy coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in May 2007. In 2008 the McCann family sued the Star and Express for libel. The action concerned more than 100 stories across the Daily Express, Daily Star and their Sunday sisters, which accused the McCanns of involvement in their daughter's disappearance. The newspapers' coverage was regarded by the McCanns as grossly defamatory. In a settlement at the High Court of Justice, the newspapers agreed to run a front-page apology to the McCanns on 19 March 2008, publish another apology on the front pages of the Sunday editions on 23 March and make a statement of apology at the High Court. They also agreed to pay costs and substantial damages, which the McCanns plan to use to aid their search for their daughter. In its apology, the Daily Star apologised for printing "stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be responsible for, the death of their daughter Madeleine and for covering it up" and stated that "We now recognise that such a suggestion is absolutely untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance."

Editors

2002: Hugh Whittow

2003: Gareth Morgan

2013: Peter Carbery

2015: Stuart James

Political allegiance

Like its sister paper the Daily Star, the Daily Star Sunday carries fewer political stories than its rivals, and it has never openly supported one political party. However its political stance has been seen to be more centre-ground than the right-of-centre Daily Star, and when the daily paper was accused of supporting the far-right English Defence League, the Sunday version pointedly spoke out against the group.