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Daily Mail

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File:Daily Mail title logo.GIF
Daily Mail front page
Daily Mail front page
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Daily Mail and General Trust
EditorPaul Dacre
Founded1896
Political alignmentRight-Wing
HeadquartersNorthcliffe House Kensington
CirculationAround 2,342,000
Websitewww.dailymail.co.uk

The Daily Mail is a British newspaper and the oldest tabloid, first published in 1896. It is Britain's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun and arguably the most conservative in viewpoint. Its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, and an Irish version of the paper was launched on 6 February 2006. The Daily Mail was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at what is now considered the middle-market and the first to sell 1 million copies a day.

The Mail was originally a broadsheet, but switched to its current tabloid format on 3 May 1971, on the 75th anniversary of its founding (on this date it also absorbed the Daily Sketch, which had previously been published as a tabloid by the same company). Its long-standing rival, the Daily Express, has a broadly similar political stance and target readership, but nowadays sells one-third the number of copies. Since 2005, the publisher of the Mail, the Daily Mail and General Trust, has been a FTSE 100 company, and the paper has a circulation of more than two million, giving it one of the largest circulations of any English language daily newspaper, and the twelfth highest of any newspaper in the world.

The Daily Mail tries to occupy a position midway between the tabloid and broadsheet divide, covering much of the same celebrity ground as the tabloids but attempting to position itself as a more upmarket "middle class" publication.

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 and 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. Soon after its launch it had more than half a million readers.

Controlled editorially by Alfred, with Harold running the business side of the operation, the Mail from the start adopted a vigorously imperialist political stance, taking a strongly patriotic line in the Second Boer War, leading to claims that it was not reporting the issues of the day objectively. 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 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.

In 1908 the Daily Mail began the Ideal Home Exhibition, which it still runs today.

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. 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. His successor, David Lloyd George, asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him criticising the government. Northcliffe declined.

Inter-war period

In 1922, when Lord Northcliffe died, Lord Rothermere took full control of the paper.

In 1924 the Daily Mail published the forged Zinoviev Letter which indicated that British Communists were planning violent revolution. It was widely believed that this was a significant factor in the defeat of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party in the 1924 general election, held four days later. (In some Labour circles, e.g. by former Labour leader Michael Foot, the paper is often referred to as 'The Forgers' Gazette')

Support for Nazism and Fascism

In early 1934 Rothermere and the Mail were sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Rothermere wrote an article, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts", in January 1934, in which he praised Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine", though after the violence of the 1934 Olympia meeting involving the BUF, the Mail withdrew its support for Mosley.

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. During this period it was the only British newspaper consistently to support the German Nazi Party.[1][2] Rothermere visited and corresponded with Hitler on many occasions. On 1 October 1938, Rothermere sent Hitler a telegram in support of Germany's invasion of the Sudetenland, and expressing the hope that 'Adolf the Great' would become a popular figure in Britain.

In 1937, the Mail's chief war correspondent, George Ward Price, to whom Mussolini once personally wrote in support of him and the newspaper, published a book, I Know These Dictators, in defence of Hitler and Mussolini.

Rothermere and the Mail supported Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement, particularly during the events leading up to the Munich Agreement. However, after the Nazi invasion of Prague in 1939, the Mail changed position and urged Chamberlain to prepare for war, not least, perhaps, because on account of its stance it had been threatened with closure by the British Government.

The paper continued to be referred to on occasion by critics as the Daily Heil, referring to its conservative stance and its past support for Mosley.[3]

Recent history

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.

It 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 55,311 for July 2006. 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.

Editorial stance

The Daily Mail considers itself to be the voice of Middle England, speaking up for "small-c" conservative values against what it sees as a liberal establishment. It generally takes an anti-European, anti-immigration, anti-abortion view, and is correspondingly 'pro-family', 'pro-tax cuts' and 'pro-monarchy', as well as advocating stricter punishments for crime. The paper is generally critical of the BBC, which it perceives as being biased to the left. However, it is less supportive of deregulated commercial television than The Sun, and unlike Rupert Murdoch's tabloid it seems to be broadly nostalgic for what it believes the BBC once was.

In the late 1960s the paper went through a phase of being liberal on social issues like corporal punishment, but this proved short-lived and it soon reverted to its traditional right-wing conservative line.

In Richard Littlejohn, who returned in 2005 from The Sun, it has one of the most right-wing columnists in popular British journalism, 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 owner of a number of pornographic titles. The editorial stance has been highly critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair and endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election[4] Opponents of Littlejohn have accused the columnist of being preoccupied with homosexuality (which he frequently calls 'poofery') and lying about asylum seekers being 'hosed down in benefits'[5].

On Middle East issues it is generally pro-Israel, although it has expressed doubts about the Iraq War, and in 2004 the Conservative columnist (and now politician) Michael Gove wrote a piece in The Times accusing it of allying itself with the anti-war Left.

The Mail was one of the first papers to champion the case of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in Eltham, London in April 1993. In 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".

Moral Issues

The Mail is well-known for its strong stance on numerous issues which it sees as being of "moral significance". These include continuing condemnation of convicted criminals such as Myra Hindley and Maxine Carr, and attacks on television programmes such as Jerry Springer - The Opera or Brass Eye. The "Daily Hate" (or lately "Hate Mail") nicknames are in part because - according to Polly Toynbee in The Guardian [6] - the Mail's founder, Lord Northcliffe, said his winning formula was to give his readers "a daily hate". One widely-criticised headline in recent years was 'Abortion hope after “gay genes” find'.[7]

Immigration

The Mail is also known for its strong stance on immigration, and its treatment of issues such as asylum seekers has prompted opponents (including London Mayor Ken Livingstone in a well-publicised argument) to claim that the newspaper panders to racism in this respect. In the 1930s, the paper ran inflammatory articles about Jewish immigrants, serialised the anti-semitic fabrication The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and briefly supported the British Union of Fascists, as well as giving more long-standing support to Mussolini and Hitler. The modern paper strongly repudiates far-right groups, for instance on 3 February 2006 having the front page headline "In Britain: Two members of the odious BNP go free over remarks offensive to most decent people" on the same day as publishing the article 'Cheers as BNP leader walks free'. Despite its anti-immigration stance the paper has however campaigned for failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe to be allowed to stay in Britain.

Common satirical target

The "Daily Mail reader" has become a stock character in the UK, and is often featured in a negative light in other publications and media:

  • The Beatles mentioned it in their 1966 single, "Paperback Writer".
  • Alan Partridge, a television comedy character, states that it is "arguably the best newspaper in the world" in an episode of I'm Alan Partridge.
  • In the Harry Potter series, Vernon Dursley is depicted as reading the Daily Mail.
  • In the adult satirical comic Viz strip Jack Black, a near-fascist "Boy's Own" adventure strip, the Daily Mail is the only newspaper anyone reads in the village, until in one episode an incoming Guardian reader is uncovered as protecting an Al Qaeda cell.
  • In the BBC comedy show Little Britain, the racist Women's Institute member Maggie Blackamoor is depicted as reading the Daily Mail.
  • The satirical magazine Private Eye often refers to the Daily Mail as the Daily Hate Mail. In the Eye's frequent spoofs of the Mail's style, the by-line is usually "Sir David Fester": this refers to Sir David English (see above) and to a court case between the two publications, which the Mail won and then ran the story under the title "Anatomy of a festering lie".
  • In the BBC comedy show Monkey Dust, the editor of the Daily Mail is portrayed as a pile of excrement, with overtly bigoted and racist front pages of the paper shown in the background on a regular basis.
  • On an episode of Room 101 Linda Smith referred to fans of Tim Henman as "awful people with copies of the Daily Mail in their pants". The show's presenter, Paul Merton, responded by saying "Well, it's very absorbent".
  • The spoof TV listings site and TV show TVGoHome included a reality show entitled Daily Mail Island in which contestants were denied access to any form of media except for the Daily Mail. As the show progresses the inhabitants become increasingly right-wing and irrational.
  • David Aaronovitch, writing in The Observer, referred to the self-righteous as "those who have the Daily Mail where their hearts should be".
  • In the comedy series Extras a copy of the Daily Mail appears with the headline "Asylum seekers are eating our pets."
  • Stephen Fry, on the BBC series Comedy Connections, described some fans of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie as "…a massive audience out there for people who may not understand a single word... a rather strange constituency of Daily Mail readers..."
  • Hugh Laurie has said "The Daily Mail ... a crushing embarrassment. I wouldn't feed it to my worst dog" [1]
  • The Irish nationalist song "The Man from the Daily Mail" attacks the Daily Mail (and British media in general) for its coverage of Irish issues and portrayal of Irish people lyrics.
  • Bloc Party's "Hunting for Witches" from their 2007 album A Weekend In the City illustrates the Terrorist Attacks on London's transportation system in July 2005 and contains the lyric "The Daily Mail says the enemy's among us, taking our women, and taking our jobs."
  • The title track from The Smiths album The Queen Is Dead features the lines "I said Charles, don't you ever crave to appear on the front of the Daily Mail dressed in your Mother's bridal veil."
  • The Daily Mail is a favorite target of a number of satirical websites such as the "Rockall Times" [2] and Uncyclopedia

Daily Mail Weekend Magazine

The "Daily Mail Weekend Magazine" is a TV guide published by the Daily Mail, included free with the Mail every Saturday. The Guide is one of the most popular (in terms of readership and circulation) in the United Kingdom. The guide does not use a magazine-type layout but chooses a newspaper style similar to the Daily Mail itself. In April 2007 the "Weekend" had a major revamp which included new articles and the end of other ones, such as the popular Nigel Andrew's View next to the guide every day. A feature changed during the revamp was a dedicated Freeview channel page to ensure that the guide was more 'user-friendly' for people with the most used digital box in Great Britain.

Features

There are many features of the Weekend TV Guide which make it stand out amongst its competitors. Here are a selection of them:

Wish List

  • The Wish List is a page at the front of the magazine devoted to fashion. It shows their pick of the week's most desirable things with the tag line "and they could all be yours". The genres are
  • Love This - Usually cosmetics
  • Smell This - Mostly Perfume
  • Wear This/These - Clothing
  • Try This/These - Skincare products
  • Carry This - A designer bag
  • Read This/These - A book
  • Use This - Electronic Gadgets
  • Buy This - An essential fashion design

Off The Peg

  • Off The Peg is a selection of the best 6 of the same products (etc - Hats, Bird Houses) every week. Added April 2007.

My First...

  • My First... is a section where respected celebrities such as Terry Wogan and Lynda Bellingham tell us about their first something, such as a job or a party dress. Added April 2007.

Seven Days

  • Seven Days is an article for the TV Guide written by Nigel Andrew. It is a guide to the week's TV. It includes Highlight of the week - a short passage about several shows which will hit the eye.

Guest List

Daily Mail writers

In recent times, like some other London newspapers, the Daily Mail has taken to including some columnists with a starkly different political stance from the paper's own editorial line. Notable in the Mail's case is Roy Hattersley, a former Labour minister, who still takes a classic social-democratic line and nowadays attacks his own party very much from the left. Hattersley has written frequently for both the Mail and its political antithesis The Guardian, as has Geoffrey Wheatcroft.

Current writers

Past writers

Daily Mail Photographers

Mail on Sunday writers

Current writers

Past writers

Notes

  1. ^ Griffiths, Richard (1980). Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9. London: Constable. ISBN 0-09-463460-2.
  2. ^ Taylor, S. J. (1996). The Great Outsiders: Northcliffe, Rothermere and the Daily Mail. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81653-5.
  3. ^ "Where Have All The Goals Gone?". The Guardian Sport. The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-01-09.
  4. ^ However you vote, give Mr Blair a bloody nose, Daily Mail, 5th May 2005
  5. ^ Johann Hari. "On Fantasy Island". The New Statesman.
  6. ^ Dacre in the dock, Polly Toynbee, The Guardian March 26, 2004
  7. ^ Introducing ‘gay gene’: media and scientific representations

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

Criticism

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