Daily Mail

Daily Mail

Daily Mail front page 7 July 2010.
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	Daily Mail and General Trust
Publisher	Associated Newspapers Ltd
Editor	Paul Dacre
Founded	4 May 1896
Political alignment	right of centre Conservative[1]
Language	English
Circulation	1,993,698[2]
Official website	www.dailymail.co.uk

The Daily Mail is a British, daily middle market tabloid newspaper. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. The Daily Mail was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at the newly-literate "lower-middle class market resulting from mass education, combining a low retail price with plenty of competitions, prizes and promotional gimmicks",^[3] and the first British paper to sell a million copies a day.^[4] It was, from the outset, a newspaper for women, being the first to provide features especially for them, and is still the only British newspaper whose readership is more than 50% female.^[5][6][7]

Overview

The Mail was originally a broadsheet but switched to a compact format^[8] on 3 May 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding. On this date it also absorbed the Daily Sketch, which had been published as a tabloid by the same company. The publisher of the Mail, the Daily Mail and General Trust is currently a FTSE 250 company and the paper has a circulation of just under two million which is the third-largest circulation of any English language daily newspaper and one of the highest in the world.^[9]

Circulation figures according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in February 2010 show gross sales of 1,993,698 for the Daily Mail.^[2] According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of Daily Mail readers voted for the Conservative Party, compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats.^[10] The main concern of Viscount Rothermere, the current chairman and main shareholder, is that the circulation be maintained. He testified before a House of Lords select committee that "we need to allow editors the freedom to edit", and therefore the newspaper had no firm political allegiance or policy.^[11] The Mail has been edited by Paul Dacre since 1992.

History

Early history

The Daily Mail, devised by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) and his brother Harold (later Lord Rothermere), was first published on 4 May 1896. It was an immediate success. It cost a halfpenny at a time when other London dailies cost one penny, and was more populist in tone and more concise in its coverage than its rivals. The planned issue was 100,000 copies but the print run on the first day was 397,215 and additional printing facilities had to be acquired to sustain a circulation which rose to 500,000 in 1899. By 1902, at the end of the Boer War, the circulation was over a million, making it the largest in the world.^[12][13]

With Harold running the business side of the operation and Alfred as Editor, the Mail from the start adopted a imperialist political stance, taking a patriotic line in the Second Boer War, leading to claims that it was not reporting the issues of the day objectively.^[14] From the beginning, the Mail also set out to entertain its readers with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions (which were also the main means by which the Harmsworths promoted the paper).

In 1900 the Daily Mail began printing simultaneously in both Manchester and London, the first national newspaper to do so (in 1899 the Mail had organised special trains to bring the London-printed papers north). The same production method was adopted in 1909 by the Daily Sketch, in 1927 by the Daily Express and eventually by virtually all the other national newspapers. Printing of the Scottish Daily Mail was switched from Edinburgh to the Deansgate plant in Manchester in 1968 and for a while The People was also printed on the Mail presses in Deansgate. In 1987 printing at Deansgate ended and the Mail's northern editions were thereafter printed at other Associated Newspapers plants.

In 1906 the paper offered £1,000 for the first flight across the English Channel and £10,000 for the first flight from London to Manchester. Punch magazine thought the idea preposterous and offered £10,000 for the first flight to Mars, but by 1910 both the Mail's prizes had been won. (For full list see Daily Mail aviation prizes.)

In 1908, the Daily Mail began the Ideal Home Exhibition, which it ran until selling it to Media 10 in 2009.^[15]

The paper was accused of warmongering before the outbreak of World War I, when it reported that Germany was planning to crush the British Empire. Northcliffe created controversy by advocating conscription when the war broke out.^[16] On 21 May 1915, Northcliffe wrote a blistering attack on Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was considered a national hero, and overnight the paper's circulation dropped from 1,386,000 to 238,000. 1,500 members of the London Stock Exchange ceremonially burned the unsold copies and launched a boycott against the Harmsworth Press. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith accused the paper of being disloyal to the country.

When Kitchener died, the Mail reported it as a great stroke of luck for the British Empire. The paper then campaigned against Asquith, who resigned on 5 December 1916.^[17] His successor, David Lloyd George, asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him from criticising the government. Northcliffe declined.^[18]

Inter-war period

As Lord Northcliffe aged, his grip on the paper slackened and he might have nothing to do with it for months at a time. But light-hearted stunts might enliven him, such as the Hat campaign in the winter of 1920. This was a contest with a prize of £100 for new design of hat — a subject in which Northcliffe took a particular interest. There were 40,000 entries and the winner was a cross between a top hat and a bowler which was christened the Daily Mail Sandringham Hat. The paper subsequently promoted the wearing of it but without much success.^[19] In 1922, when Lord Northcliffe died, Lord Rothermere took full control of the paper.

In 1919, Alcock and Brown made the first flight across the Atlantic winning a prize of £10,000 from the Daily Mail. In 1930, the Mail made a great story of another aviation stunt, awarding another prize of £10,000 to Amy Johnson for making the first solo flight from England to Australia.^[20]

On 25 October 1924 the Daily Mail published the forged Zinoviev Letter, which indicated that British Communists were planning violent revolution. This was a significant factor in the defeat of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party in the 1924 general election, held four days later.^[21]

From 1923, Lord Rothermere and the Daily Mail formed an alliance with the other great press baron, Lord Beaverbrook. Their opponent was the Conservative party politician and leader Stanley Baldwin. By 1929, George Ward Price was writing in the Mail that Baldwin should be deposed and Beaverbrook elected as leader. In early 1930, the two Lords launched the United Empire Party which the Daily Mail supported enthusiastically. The rise of the new party dominated the newspaper and, even though Beaverbrook soon withdrew, Rothermere continued to campaign. Vice Admiral Taylor fought the first by-election for the United Empire Party in October, defeating the official Conservative candidate by 941 votes. Baldwin's position was now in doubt but, in 1931, Duff Cooper won the key by-election at St George's, Westminster, beating the UEP candidate, Sir Ernest Petter, supported by Rothermere, and this broke the political power of the press barons.^[22]

In 1927, the celebrated picture of the year, Morning by Dod Proctor was bought by the Daily Mail for the Tate Gallery.^[23]

Support for fascism under Rothermere

Lord Rothermere was a friend and supporter of both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, which influenced the Mail's political stance towards them up to 1939.^[24][25]

On 10 July 1933, Rothermere wrote an editorial titled "Youth Triumphant" in support of Adolf Hitler, which was subsequently used as propaganda by the Nazis.^[26] In early 1934, ceasing after a meeting at Kensington Olympia in June, Rothermere and the Mail were editorially sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists.^[27] Rothermere wrote an article entitled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts", in January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine".^[28]

Recent history

On 5 May 1946, the Daily Mail celebrated its Golden Jubilee. Winston Churchill was the chief guest at the banquet and toasted it with a speech,^[29]

In reply, Lord Rothermere II had something to say about the newsprint shortages at that time for, while the Mail of 1896 was 8 pages, the Mail of 1946 was reduced to just 4.^[29]

The Daily Mail was transformed by its editor of the seventies and eighties, Sir David English. Sir David began his Fleet Street career in 1951, joining The Daily Mirror before moving to The Daily Sketch, where he became features editor. It was the Sketch which brought him his first editorship, from 1969 to 1971. That year the Sketch was closed and he moved to take over the top job at the Mail, where he was to remain for more than 20 years. English transformed it from a struggling rival selling two million copies fewer than the Daily Express to a formidable journalistic powerhouse, which soared dramatically in popularity. After 20 years perfecting the Mail, Sir David English became editor-in-chief and chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1992.

The paper enjoyed a period of journalistic success in the 1980s, employing some of the most inventive writers in old Fleet Street including the gossip columnist Nigel Dempster, Lynda Lee Potter and sportswriter Ian Wooldridge (who unlike some of his colleagues — the paper generally did not support sporting boycotts of white-minority-ruled South Africa — strongly opposed Apartheid). In 1982, a Sunday title, the Mail on Sunday, was launched (the Sunday Mail was already the name of a newspaper in Scotland, owned by the Mirror Group.) There are Scottish editions of both the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, with different articles and columnists. In 1992, the current editor, Paul Dacre, was appointed.

Scottish, Irish and Indian editions

Scottish Daily Mail

The Scottish Daily Mail was published as a separate title from Edinburgh, starting in 1947.^[30] The circulation was poor though, falling to below 100,000 and the operation was rebased to Manchester in December 1968.^[31] In 1995 the Scottish Daily Mail was relaunched printed in Glasgow. With a circulation in Dec 2009 of 113,771 making it the third highest daily newspaper sale in Scotland.^[32]

Irish edition

The Daily Mail officially entered the Irish market with the launch of a local version of the paper on 6 February 2006; free copies of the paper were distributed on that day in some locations to publicise the launch. Its masthead differs from that of UK versions by having a green rectangle with the word "IRISH", instead of the Royal Arms. The Irish version includes stories of Irish interest alongside content from the UK version. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Irish edition had a circulation of 63,511 for July 2007,^[33] falling to an average of 49,090 for the second half of 2009.^[34] Since 24 September 2006 Ireland on Sunday, the Irish Sunday newspaper acquired by Associated in 2001, was replaced by an Irish edition of the Mail on Sunday (the Irish Mail on Sunday), to tie in with the weekday newspaper.

Mail Today

The newspaper entered India on 16 November 2007 with the launch of Mail Today,^[35] a 48-page compact size newspaper printed in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida with a print run of 110,000 copies. Based around a subscription model, the newspaper has the same fonts and feel as the Daily Mail and was set up with investment from Associated Newspapers and editorial assistance from the Daily Mail newsroom.^[36]

Libel lawsuits

The Daily Mail has been involved in a number of notable libel suits. Among them are:

• 2010 - July - £47,500 award to Parameswaran Subramanyam for falsely claiming he secretly sustained himself with hamburgers during a 23-day hunger strike in Parliament Square to draw attention to Tamils in Sri Lanka.^[37]
• 2009 - January - £30,000 award to Dr Austen Ivereigh, who had worked for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, following false accusations made by the newspaper concerning abortion.^[38]
• 2006 - May - £100,000 damages for Elton John, following false accusations concerning his manners and behaviour.^[39]
• 2003 - October — Actress Diana Rigg awarded £30,000 in damages over a story commenting on aspects of her personality.^[40]
• 2001 - February — Businessman Alan Sugar was awarded £100,000 in damages following a story commenting on his stewardship of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.^[41]

Editorial stance

The paper is generally critical of the BBC, which it says is biased to the left.^[42]

In the late 1960s, the paper went through a phase of being liberal on social issues like corporal punishment but returned to its traditional conservative line.

It has Richard Littlejohn, who returned in 2005 from The Sun, alongside Peter Hitchens, who joined its sister title the Mail on Sunday in 2001, when his former newspaper, the Daily Express, was purchased by Richard Desmond. The editorial stance was critical of Tony Blair when he was still Prime Minister, and endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election^[43] In Blair's earlier years as Labour leader and then Prime Minister, the paper wrote positively about him and his reforms of the party. Johann Hari, a noted gay journalist^[44] accused Littlejohn of having a "psychiatric disorder" about homosexuality with a "pornographic imagination."^[45]

The Mail has also opposed the growing of genetically-modified crops in the United Kingdom, a stance it shares with many of its left-wing critics.

On international affairs, the Mail broke with the establishment media consensus over the 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia. The Mail accused the British government of dragging Britain into an unnecessary confrontation with Russia and of hypocrisy regarding its protests over Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence, citing the British government's own recognition of Kosovo's independence from Russia's ally Serbia.^[46]

Famous stories

The Daily Mail's front page of 8 July 1934, featured the headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts".^[47] The Mail also referred to Hitler's "sturdy young Nazis".^[48]

On 7 January 1967, the Mail published a story, "The holes in our roads", about potholes, giving the examples of Blackburn where it said there were 4,000 holes. This detail was then immortalised by John Lennon in the Beatles song A Day in the Life along with an account of the death of Tara Browne which also appeared in the same issue.^[49]

The Mail campaigned on the case of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in Eltham, London in April 1993. On 14 February 1997, the Mail led its front page with a picture of the five men accused of Lawrence's murder and the headline "MURDERERS", stating that it believed that the men had murdered Lawrence and adding "if we are wrong, let them sue us".^[50] This attracted praise from Paul Foot and Peter Preston.^[51]

On 16 July 1993 the Mail ran the headline "Abortion hope after 'gay genes' finding";^[52] this headline has been widely criticised in subsequent years, for example as "perhaps the most infamous and disturbing headline of all" (of headlines from tabloid newspapers commenting on the Xq28 gene).^[53]

16 October 2009 Jan Moir article on the death of Stephen Gately,^[54] which many people felt was inaccurate, insensitive, and 'homophobic', generated over 25,000 complaints, the highest number of complaints for a newspaper article in the history of the Press Complaints Commission.^[55][56] Major advertisers such as Marks and Spencer responded to the criticism by asking for their own adverts to be removed from the Mail Online webpage around Moir's article. The Daily Mail removed all display ads from the webpage with the Gately column.^[57]

On October 9, 2009 the Mail ran the headline "Hunger striker's £7m Big Mac: Tamil who cost London a fortune in policing was sneaking in fast-food"^{[58] [59]} The article stated that "Scotland Yard surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief" as Parameswaran Subramaniyan; a Tamil hunger striker protesting outside the Houses of Parliament covertly broke his fast by secretly eating McDonald's burgers. When a request for an apology and retraction of this story was refused, Mr Subramanyam issued proceedings against the paper.^[60] In court, the newspaper's claim was shown to be entirely false, the Met superintendent in charge of the policing operation confirmed there had been no police surveillance team using the "specialist monitoring equipment". As a result, on 29 July 2010, Mr Subramanyam is understood to have accepted damages of £47,500 from the Daily Mail. The newspaper also paid his legal costs, withdrew the allegations and apologised "sincerely and unreservedly" for the distress that had been caused.^[61]

Supplements and features

The newspaper sponsored the first Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908 and this became a regular event. At first, Northcliffe disdained this as a publicity stunt to sell advertising and he refused to attend. But his wife exerted pressure upon him and he changed his views, becoming more supportive. By 1922, the editorial side of the paper was fully engaged in promoting the benefits of modern appliances and technology to free its female readers from the drudgery of housework.^[62]

Regular cartoon strips

• Garfield
• I Don't Believe It (discontinued)
• Odd Streak
• The Strip Show
• Chloe and Co. (by Knight Features)
• Up and Running (by Knight Features)
• The Gambols (Sunday, in the Cartoons section)
• Fred Basset
• Peanuts (Sunday, in the Cartoons section)

Current cartoon strips that are in the Daily Mail include Garfield which moved from the Daily Express in 2006 and is also included in The Mail on Sunday. I Don't Believe It is another 3/4 part strip, written by Dick Millington. Odd Streak and The Strip Show, which is shown in 3D are one part strips. Up and Running is a strip distributed by Knight Features and Fred Basset follows the life of the dog of the same name in a two part strip in the Daily Mail since 8 July 1963.^[65] The Gambols are another feature in the Mail on Sunday.

The long-running Teddy Tail cartoon strip, was first published on 5 April 1915 and was the first cartoon strip in a British newspaper.^[66] It ran for over 40 years to 1960, spawning the Teddy Tail League Children's Club and many annuals from 1934 to 1942 and again from 1949 to 1962. Teddy Tail was a mouse, with friends Kitty Puss (a cat), Douglas Duck and Dr. Beetle. Teddy Tail is always shown with a knot in his tail.^[67][68]

Online media

The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday publish most of their news online in a service called the Mail Online. Most of the site can be viewed for free and without registration, though some services require users to register.

Contributors

Notable regular contributors (past and present)

Past writers

• Paul Callan
• William Comyns Beaumont (left in 1903 to create The Bystander)
• Anthony Cave Brown (worked from mid-1950s through mid-1960s, won "Reporter of the Year" award in 1958)
• Nigel Dempster
• Simon Heffer (left in 2005 to join the Daily Telegraph)
• Ralph Izzard Journalist, author, adventurer and one time Berlin Bureau Chief, Izzard was a staff writer for the daily mail beginning in 1931 and continued contributing until his death in 1992, with the only interruption being his service in British Naval Intelligence during WWII.
• Paul Johnson (left the Mail in 2001; now writes for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator)
• Lynda Lee Potter (wrote for the Mail from 1967 until her death in 2004)
• William Le Queux – A prolific writer of invasion literature in the pre-First World War period.
• Valentine Williams (1883–1946) General news correspondent and, during the First World War, chief of the Daily Mail war service. Later a popular mystery novelist.^[69]
• Ian Wooldridge, a sportswriter on the paper from 1961 until his death in 2007

Editors

1896: S. J. Pryor

1899: Thomas Marlowe

1922: W. G. Fish

1930: Oscar Pulvermacher

1930: William McWhirter

1931: W. L. Warden

1935: Arthur Cranfield

1939: Bob Prew

1944: Sidney Horniblow

1947: Frank Owen

1950: Guy Schofield

1955: Arthur Wareham

1959: William Hardcastle

1963: Mike Randall

1966: Arthur Brittenden

1971: David English

1992: Paul Dacre

Source: D. Butler and A. Sloman, British Political Facts, 1900–1975 p. 378

See also

• Daily Chronicle, a newspaper which merged with the Daily News to become the News-Chronicle and was finally absorbed by the Daily Mail
• 1910 London to Manchester air race

References

External links

• Mail Online

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