Today (UK newspaper)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Type Daily newspaper
Format Tabloid

Owner Eddy Shah/Lonrho/News International
Founded 4 March 1986
Ceased publication 17 November 1995
Headquarters Wapping, London

Website: none

Today was a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, which existed for less than a decade (1986-95). It was launched on Tuesday, 4 March 1986 and was a middle-market tabloid that pioneered the use of computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when British national newspapers were still using Linotype machines and letterpress. The colour was initially crude, being produced on equipment which had no facility for colour proofing, so the first view of the colour was on the finished product. However, it can be seen as the trigger which forced the eventual conversion of all UK national newspapers to electronic production and colour printing.

Launched by regional newspaper entrepreneur Eddy Shah, it was bought by Tiny Rowland's Lonrho within four months. (Shah would launch the short-lived, unsuccessful national tabloid The Post in 1988).

For some years Alastair Campbell was its news editor.

Today was subsequently sold to Rupert Murdoch's News International in 1987. In 1995, the paper's owners decided to cease production. This was after years of decline and shortly after it became infamous for its front page on the Oklahoma City bombing: Today printed a photograph of a fireman carrying out the body of a young girl accompanied by the block headline "IN THE NAME OF ALLAH", which proved highly embarrassing when it soon became clear the bombing had nothing to do with Muslim militants but rather with American extremists.[citation needed]

One of the newspaper's early controversial front page photographs was in 1988, when it portrayed an image of politician Nigel Lawson as a terminator, accompanied by the headline Nigel the Great Tax Terminator.

The newspaper began a sponsorship of the English Football League at the start of 1986-87, but withdrew its backing after just one season.

Its offices are now used by one of News International's other papers, The Sun. Today ceased publishing on Friday, 17 November 1995, making it the first long-running national newspaper title to fail since the Daily Sketch in 1971. The last edition's headline was "Goodbye. It's been great to know you", the editorial saying "... Now we are forced into silence by the granite and unforgiving face of the balance sheet...".

Richard Stott was the editor when Today ceased publication; he died in July 2007.