The Morning Star

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Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid

Owner	People's Press Printing Society
Editor	John Haylett
Founded	1930
Political allegiance	Socialist, Communist
Headquarters	William Rust House, 52 Beachy Road, Bow, London E3 2NS

Website: www.morningstaronline.co.uk

For other uses, see Morning Star.

The Morning Star is a left-wing, British, daily newspaper.

The Morning Star was founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker, the official organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but since 1945 it has been owned and published by an independent readers' cooperative, the People's Press Printing Society. The paper was re-launched as the Morning Star in 1966.

Its reports of foreign and national news often cover events overlooked by the mainstream media, especially industrial relations matters and trade union politics; and has less of the celebrity gossip and other trivia that feature in all the other national dailies. It also features fewer articles on crime than other British newspapers. There are daily sports pages, television and radio listings, arts reviews, a weekly crossword, a regular gardening column and a fortnightly cookery spot ("The Commie Chef").

1 Editorial policies
2 Finances and circulation
3 On-Line version
4 External links

[edit] Editorial policies

The current editor of the paper was part of the group that left the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1988 to found the Communist Party of Britain. There is what is described as a "special relationship" between the Communist Party of Britain and the Morning Star.

This is in part because of the paper's history, prior to 1945, as a communist party publication, but also since successive Annual General Meetings of the People's Press Printing Society have agreed that the editorial policy of the paper is guided by "Britain's Road to Socialism", the political programme of the Communist Party of Britain.[1][2]

However, the Morning Star does not consider itself to be the mouthpiece of any political party [3]: features are contributed by writers from a variety of socialist, social democratic and green perspectives. In addition, it does not force its political stance into areas where it is unnecessary - the Sport section, for example, is told as 'straight' news.

The paper carries frequent contributions from campaigning journalists John Pilger and Uri Avnery, Green MEP Caroline Lucas, Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Alan Simpson, Respect MP George Galloway and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

" ... We have articles from people that at one time we would never have given the time of day to - like the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, the Greens, and regular contributions from church people ... [but] ... things that happened in the Soviet Union 70 years ago are still being used as a stick to beat the Morning Star" (John Haylett, current Editor)

Generally, the editorial line of the paper is in support of the ideals of peace and socialism. Until relatively recently it was largely uncritical of the politics and actions of the Soviet Union. It is moderately Euroskeptic.

It is critical of the 'upper' or 'ruling' classes. It defends peaceful protests and civil disobedience and industrial action by groups of workers to improve their working conditions and wages. The Morning Star is also concerned with environmental issues and supports several environment campaigning groups; it advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament. In elections the paper endorses the Communist Party of Britain; where the CPB is not standing, the paper (albeit with some reluctance) advocates a vote for the Labour Party – although not what it terms the 'New Labour' faction.

The paper was the only British daily to support the NUM during the UK miners' strike (1984-1985), and it still campaigns for the coal industry to be rebuilt to this day. It adopts the phrase "clean coal" to emphasise that the environmental impact of mining must be taken into account. The 2006 energy review by the Blair government was criticised for not giving enough consideration to clean coal energy[4].

On international issues the paper generally advocates a "two-state" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and calls for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. It is also critical of the Republican Party of the United States. It was the only paper in Britain that took a serious stance against the Kosovo war, denouncing NATO military intervention, and was the only paper to criticise the way that Slobodan Milosevic was removed from office. It also opposed the Iraq war, but has been much less eager to defend Saddam Hussein.

On Northern Ireland the paper generally takes a pro-nationalist line. News reports from Northern Ireland are almost invariably described as being "from our foreign newsdesk".

[edit] Finances and circulation

The paper carries very little commercial advertising, and its daily cover price of 60p at the newsagent's counter is not sufficient to cover the costs of its production and distribution. Consequently the paper has always been heavily dependent on donations by readers. Although at one time the paper also received some indirect subsidy from the Soviet Union, in the form of bulk orders, today it relies for its funding almost entirely on donations to its perpetual "Star Fund" appeal (monthly target £16,000). Although this arrangement means that Morning Star is likely to remain a relatively minor player in the world of newspaper publishing, it should guarantee that the paper is always a genuinely independent voice, and for many readers this is its greatest selling point. While reporters on all the other national dailies may at times have to strike a balance between the financial interests of their employers and the informational interests of their readers (for example by reporting in such a way as to avoid causing offence to a major corporate advertiser or a billionaire proprietor), with the Morning Star the readers are the proprietor, so in theory no such conflict can arise. Having said this, some socialist groups argue that the Star's reporting is often skewed by its close relationship with the major trade unions, who regularly take out full page advertisements, especially at conference time.

On Saturdays, the paper reserves advertising space for a list of "progressive websites", which ranges from the usual unions and left-wing campaign groups to hiking and cycling groups.

According to the BBC, the Morning Star has a circulation of between 13,000 and 14,000. [5]

[edit] On-Line version

An on-line version of the paper was launched on 1 April 2004. Parts of the site (including the editorial "star comment") are free, but all the actual news reporting is subscription only.