The Sun has called time on its standalone politics site, less than a year after it launched as a “loud and disruptive” platform for stories outside the title’s paywall.
Links to Sun Nation now direct to the Sun’s politics section, and a spokesperson confirmed the brand was being absorbed into the main operation.
The spokesperson said: “With the Sun’s online content now freely available we felt it was no longer necessary for a standalone politics site, but the same brilliant political exclusives, funnies and virals will still be available.”
Sun Nation provided a way for the newspaper to publish stories during last year’s general election that could travel outside its then strict paywall. It was also a way for the Sun to experiment with ways of taking advantage of social media, something that is likely to be key to helping the newly free Sun.co.uk website grow its audience.
At the time, the Sun website editor, Tim Gatt, described the project as an “experiment” and said there was no guarantee it would keep running after the election.
However, the Sun began making an increasing number of stories on its main website free to read last summer, and by the end of November had dropped its paywall entirely, removing much of the rationale for the standalone site.
