“CAM’S group text scandal” screamed yesterday’s front page in The Sun.

Apparently, Cameron and his aides are using encrypted What’s App messages to discuss the EU Referendum to keep the plan secret from the Leave campaign.

The Times yesterday preferred to concentrate on Sir Philip Green being at risk of losing his knighthood over the BHS collapse.

Where, where, was the nationally-important verdict on the Hillsborough disaster?

News judgement, I’ll admit, is a subjective thing.

But when, and how could these mediocre front page stories be deemed as more important than a 27-year fight for justice, a police cover-up - indeed, a national scandal?

The Murdoch empire has lost its way spectacularly over this one. Executives must have realised their mistake on Wednesday night.

Very quickly The Times, whose front page picture had been a snowy scene, changed the picture in its later editions to the Hillsborough families. A small concession, in the face of national uproar.

Twenty-seven years on, The Sun still doesn’t sell on Merseyside. The memories of the people there are long, and rightly so. The Hillsborough disaster is etched on to its collective consciousness, and will be for a very long time to come.

This was so much more than a tragedy, although it was unquestionably that. Former Liverpool keeper Bruce Grobelaar is still haunted by the memory of looking behind the goal during the 1989 match and watching panicked faces pressed up against the fences, voices calling, “Help me”.

A serious error of editorial judgement 27 years ago, when the Sun’s front page “The Truth” claimed drunk Liverpool fans urinated on police officers and stole from victims, could in part be explained away by the fact the newspaper had information from that most reliable of sources: South Yorkshire Police.

As a reporter, I have at least a little sympathy for this. Generally, we trust the police as sources of news. We do take a lot from Her Majesty’s Constabulary at face value. The Sun was tipped off by a “trustworthy” police source, although perhaps the reporters at the time should have looked at who might be pushing their own agenda. It later emerged officers had even been urged to change their pocket notebooks to cover up the force’s failings. It was just too easy for the police to smear a city long associated with unfounded negative stereotypes.

Despite that, and the fact the newspaper ran a front page apology, The Real Truth, in 2012 after an independent inquiry exonerated Liverpool fans of any blame, it completely ignored the outcome of Tuesday’s inquest verdict on its front page. It is unforgivable – even arrogant.

It did run two pages on the inquest’s verdict on pages 8 and 9, and dedicated an editorial to it, but the omission from its front page was particularly striking - and disrespectful to the memories of the 96 victims.

Murdoch claims to have no editorial input into his two best-selling British titles – but if that is the case, how could both have glossed over such an important and controversial story so spectacularly?

The national press has great power at their fingertips. That power is not always used responsibly. The purpose of a free press is to hold those in power to account, with reporters who will expose that which is in the public interest, to promote democracy by uncovering the truth.

It is dangerous when those who own those titles flirt with the Establishment to such an extent that the truth becomes a casualty.