Daily Mail

[[Image:Dailymail2005-02-07.jpg|frame|right|The front page of the ''Daily Mail'' on the 7th February 2005.]] The ''Daily Mail'' and its Sunday edition the ''Mail on Sunday'' are United Kingdom newspapers, first published in 1896. Its editorial slant is right-wing. The ''Daily Mail'' was Britain's first middle-market newspaper - it had more populist content and its news coverage was less thorough than the then newspaper of record, ''The Times''. The ''Mail'' was originally a broadsheet, but on May 3rd 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding, it switched to the tabloid format in which it is published today. Its chief rival, the ''Daily Express'', has a similar political stance and target audience, but sells less than half as many copies. As of 2004 the paper's publisher, Daily Mail and General Trust, is a FTSE 100 company and the newspaper has a circulation of over 2 million giving it the second largest Newspaper_circulation of any English language newspaper, and the twelfth highest of any newspaper. ==History== The ''Daily Mail'' was devised by Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere and Lord Northcliffe as an alternative to the newspapers of the day. The paper was first published on May 4, 1896. The ''Mail'' was popular because of its short, simplified news stories, and pictures. A particularly popular feature of the paper was the introduction of serials. The paper initially cost a halfpenny, and the first edition was 8 pages. Soon after its launch the paper had over half a million readers. 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 (planet), but in 1910 both Rothermere'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. Lord Northcliffe created controversy by advocating conscription when the war broke out. On May 21, 1915, Northcliffe wrote a blistering attack on Horatio 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 Stock Exchange ceremonially burned the unsold copies and launched a boycott against the Harmsworth Press. Herbert 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, and Asquith resigned on December 5, 1916. His successor, David Lloyd George, asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him criticising the government. Northcliffe declined. 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 (UK) in the United Kingdom general election, 1924, held four days later. For a time in the early 1930s Rothermere and the ''Mail'' were sympathetic to some degree with 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. The paper also published articles lamenting the number of German Jews entering Britain as refugees after the rise of Nazism. 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. In 1992, the current editor, Paul Dacre, was appointed. ==Editorial Stance== The ''Mail'' considers itself to be the voice of Middle England, speaking up for the small-c conservative values of large swathes of the British population which it considers to be unjustly depised and neglected by the liberal establishment. It generally takes an Euroscepticism, anti-immigration, anti-abortion stance, and is correspondingly pro-family, pro-tax cuts and pro-monarchy, as well as advocating stricter punishments for crime. It values the British countryside, while being pro-car and anti-environmentalist. In Peter Hitchens it has (along with Richard Littlejohn, who recently defected to the Daily Mail from ''The Sun'') arguably the most right-wing columnist in popular British journalism. The editorial board has been highly critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair and endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=347259&in_page_id=1787&in_a_source=] The ''Mail'' issued a rather soft endorsement (titled "Time for a Change?") of U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry in its leader of November 2, 2004. However, after the election, it called the result "a victory for the values that are so often ignored or derided by political establishments in Britain and Europe and are never (to our detriment) debated with the moral seriousness seen in America." ''The Daily Mail'' is currently the most widely read paper amongst women, and has a higher proportion of female readers than any other British national daily. Moreover, the paper has led several causes more often associated with the left, and seemingly at odds with its ‘hateful’ reputation. Most notably, it was one of the first papers to champion the case of murdered black teenager, Stephen Lawrence [http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1130332,00.html]. ==Criticism== The ''Daily Mail'' is a target of satire and criticism by centrist and left-of centre media and individuals as well as certain satirical magazines. As a target of satire the stereotypical ''Daily Mail'' reader is characterised as a borderline-racist, homophobia, Middle class conservative who lacks the intelligence to read the broadsheet equivalents ''The Times'' or the ''Daily Telegraph''. In fact, in recent years the phrase 'Daily Mail reader' has become increasingly used in general parlance (not just in the media) as shorthand for any person with such attitudes. Due to its stance on moral issues - for instance, its continuing condemnation of already-punished criminals such as Myra Hindley and Maxine Carr, and its editorial outrage at television programmes such as Jerry Springer - The Opera or Brass Eye - some left-wingers refer to the paper with nicknames such as the "Daily Wail" and the "Daily Hate". The latter is in part because - according to Polly Toynbee in ''The Guardian'' [http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1178434,00.html] - the Mail's founder, Lord Northcliffe, said his winning formula was to give his readers "a daily hate". Another common criticism of the ''Mail'' is its treatment of Refugee. Several opponents (including London Mayor Ken Livingstone [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4287171.stm in a well-publicised argument]) have claimed that the newspaper panders to racism in this respect. The ''Mail'' is often ridiculed for its supposed obsession with the property market. This has led to ''Private Eye'' mock-headlines such as ''Influx of asylum seekers cause house values to plummet'' and ''Property prices fall as asteroid prepares to wipe out life on Earth''. Another aspect of the ''Mail'' that draws controversy is its alleged promotion of pseudoscience. Astrology is often the subject of articles, and the newspaper runs a [http://www.randi.org/jr/040204orange.html profitable telephone astrology service] through its association with Jonathan Cainer. Regular features are also run on Alien abduction, the Bible code, and other such paranormal subjects. In the same vein, the ''Mail'''s opposition to the "single-jab" MMR vaccine was condemned by medical practitioners. It is, however, inconsistent in such areas, and marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of homeopathy's founder with an article calling it "Undiluted Tosh!". The style of the ''Daily Mail'' is frequently criticised for its perceived conservatism. The Guardian, for example, referred to it as a "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,441198,00.html thick, grey tombstone of a tabloid]". ==Daily mail writers== ===Current writers=== *Paul Johnson (journalist) *Keith Waterhouse *Melanie Phillips *Peter Hitchens *Simon Heffer *Norman Tebbit *Richard LittleJohn ===Past writers=== *Lynda Lee Potter ==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'' ==External links== * [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Daily Mail official website] * [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BUrothermere.htm A biography of the 1st Lord Rothermere] * [http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/ Daily Mail Watch] British newspapers

Daily Mail

Copyright violation ? : Much of this is from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BUrothermere.htm which does not appear to be public domain... :That would be one of the main sources, but it's not cut & paste, so it's not a copyvio. As far as I know Wikipedia is allowed to use non public domain sources ;) --User:Steinsky 18:45, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC) : Them : Rothermere moved further to the right and gave support to Oswald Mosley and the National Union of Fascists. He wrote an article, Hurrah for the Blackshirts, in January, 1934, in which he praised Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine". ... he argued that the Nazi leader desired peace. In one article written in March, 1934 he called for Hitler to be given back land in Africa that had been taken as a result of the Versailles Treaty. : Us : Rothermere and the Mail were supporters of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. He wrote an article, Hurrah for the Blackshirts, in January 1934, in which he praised Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine" ... he argued that the Nazi leader wanted peace, and in 1934 campaigned for the African land confiscated in the Versailles Treaty to be returned to Germany. Entire sentences are used with only cosmetic alteration. Thats a copyvio. ==Some criticisms== # The section on Stereotypes and Satire is highly POV - it is implicit in the tone that view of the Daily Mail as 'racist' etc. is necessarily correct. It is undeniable that the DM vilifies the asylum *system* but it is POV to state as fact that it vilifies the *people*. I do not argue that any of this should be removed, merely re-phrased to show that it is opinion rather that straight fact (perhaps balanced by the views of those who would defend it - eg the DM's long campaign for Justice in the Stephen Lawrence case and their welcoming of the widening of the EU) # Compounding that problem, the section on Facism is not put in its correct historical context. At the time (1930s), people were not aware of how murderous the Nazi regime was. '''[They should have been aware by 1933 - so this criticism is invalid. ''See below''.]''' To outsiders, it looked as though Hitler was simply a strong but peaceful leader who had got Germany back on the rails and restored its national pride in a very short space of time. Many bought Hitler's line that he was only restoring their military to what would normally be expected of a country of that size, and thought that he should be allowed as the Treaty Of Versailles had been unfairly harsh. It was only in the last few months before war broke out that outsiders widely began to realise their mistake and see the Nazis for who they really were. So the Daily Mail's volte face - which the tone of text suggests was purely cynical - was in fact typical of many at the time who quickly came to change their opinion of Hitler as more detail emerged. Apolgies for not just editing it myself - I am still quite new to Wikipedia and not totally sure of the etiquette or confident in my writing yet! Would be interested to know peoples' opinions of the above points. : Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. Feel free to make the changes yourself, Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages, if you make any mistakes others will correct them. One last thing, you might like to know that you can sign your posts on the talk pages using ~~~~. User:Edward 09:17, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) *Who added the \"this criticism is invalid\" bit? I think it is very bad etiquette to stick that in the middle of someone else's paragraph, without any justification. In fact, Wikipedia's own articles on Hitler and the Nazis show that anti-Jewish laws were not introduced until 1935, and the first sign of political violence obvious to the outside world (Night Of The Long Knives) was at the end of June 1934 - it was at this time that Rothermere withdrew support for any fascist organisations. It is important to remember that in the 21st century we know what Fascism means - in 1933 they did not have the benefit of hindsight. This issue is always brought up as a cheap way of making the Mail of today look bad by misinterpreting its actions long ago. **'''Nonsense. After the Reichstag fire in 1933, laws were passed that basically allowed them to arrest any political opposition. And that's exactly what they did. The Jews weren't the first ones in the concentration camps. It was the socialists, and indeed all others who could be a threat to the Nazis. Moreover, the fact that the Mail supported the Nazis for a while after this surely shows that the Mail was indeed aware of "how murderous the Nazi regime was", and chose to continue support despite that fact.''' ***Also see recent reports in the [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/story/0,9061,1450023,00.html Guardian]: In June 1939, according to papers recently released by the Foreign Office, Rotermere (the proprietor of the Daily Mail), wrote: "My Dear F�hrer, I have watched with understanding and interest the progress of your great and superhuman work in regenerating your country." Like it or not, Rothermere was in bed with the fascists prior to the invasion of Poland. -- User:Markbrough 17:50, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC) ****Again, are you not judging actions in the 1930s from the standpoint of a 24-hour news culture which has the benefit of hindsight? How can you say for sure that Rothermere was supportive rather than naive? When Rothermere talked of 'regeneration', was he not referring to economic regeneration (even though this turned out to be a facade)? The fact is, we are better informed today, we understand far earlier the implications of what regimes like this are doing - partly due to our experience in WW2. And even if you are positive of Rothermere's evil nature - there is still a strong, unfair implication that this somehow reflects on the Mail of today. ****'''Utter nonsense. To suggest everyone was just stupid, or ignorant of the reality is incredibly naive, and totally false as shown by the evidence we have. The reality is that people were well aware of what was going on. It was simply that they ''didn't care'' at that time that socialists and commies were being jailed and tortured for simply holding political views. As far as fascists are concerned, it is perfectly acceptable to supreess the working class. And moreover, Nazi Germany wasn't the first fascist state, so no one could claim they "hadn't seen that kind of thing happen before".''' *****Socialists and commies didn't care. Stalin signed a pact with Hitler to partition Poland and the British Communist party opposed the war to start with. User:Oliver Chettle 00:52, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC) *****'''Please! Don't suggest to me that Stalin was a "socialist". Or, if you insist he was, can you explain why he supported the capitalist government before the revolution? Or can you explain why Russia bore no comparison to anything Marx ever envisaged? Or can you explain how there was no communism in Russia after the NEP, and that communism was off the agenda long before Stalin rose to power (and long before it became an oppressive hellhole)? ******That was what communism was like in the real world, and not once but several times. It is pitiable that there are still people who fantasise that it could have worked. User:Oliver Chettle 22:17, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ******'''By what standard was it "communism in the real world"? Are we to believe that communism doesn't work simply because you say so? Or because the media wrongly calls nations such as China and the USSR communist? I mean, they still insist on calling China communist, and yet by any standard it is capitalist and has been so for a long time. Yes, we can ask why revolutions such as those in Russia failed - and there are answers. But it is wildly unproductive for someone like yourself to just blindly peddle the same myths without any real understanding of the situation, or any real understanding of the concepts that you criticise.''' ==First World War circulation plummet== From here: ''On May 21, 1915, Northcliffe wrote a blistering attack on Horatio 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 Stock Exchange ceremonially burned the unsold copies and launched a boycott against the Harmsworth Press.'' From Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe: ''His next venture was the creation of a series of halfpenny dailies, which culminated in the establishment of the ''Daily Mail'' in 1896. Harmsworth focused on keeping the reading public interested in the paper by keeping feature articles short, reporting on political and social gossip, and including material for women and serial stories. The first issue immediately set a new world circulation record when it debuted on May 4, 1896, and it never lost the top spot during Hamsworth's lifetime.'' Either the Mail was light years ahead of all other papers in the circulation so that a loss of over 75% and the corresponding increase in other papers picking up ex Mail readers didn't affect its position in the sales table or else one of these articles is wrong. User:Timrollpickering 00:29, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) ==I've corrected the POV sections but there is still pov disproportionality== I have substantially altered the sections on the 1930s (previously called something else) and stereotypes, which were previously little more than hatchet jobs. However this has made them longer rather than shorter, and there is still implicit pov in the excessive prominence given to negative issues. Much more content is needed to balance this out, so I will mark it pov for disproportionality. There should be sections on famous writers for the Daily Mail, and on campaigning journalism by the paper. This is a very popular, influential, indisputably democratic newspaper , and the article should not consists of 50% slurs and rebuttals of slurs. I'll go and have a look at the Guardian article now for contrast User:Pcpcpc 06:14, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC) :I did some more POV work. Still needs more, and some things I took out/combined may need to go back in. I tried to make it less of a concerted attack on the Mail. Feel free to shred it. Was going to add famous Mail writers, but could only think of Lynda Lee Potter and John Junor, both dead. Will add them and more later if I get the chance. User:The Mighty Ren 03:14, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) * '''The assertion that the paper is "indisputably democratic" ''is'' actually disputable - I don't know of a single paper that could be truly called "democratic", least of all the Mail''' **it is democratic by real world standards (but you are apparently the sort of person who would call Cuba democratic!). And he didn't say that in the article. User:Oliver Chettle 22:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) **'''What are these "real world standards"? Democratic to most people means society is controlled by the people themselves in their own interests. The Mail, and indeed our whole society, cannot be further away from such a setup. Moreover, what did he "say in his article"? I quote "This is a very popular, influential, indisputably democratic newspaper" - I don't know which page you had read, or what you had drunk, when you wrote this feeble rebuttal. == When did it go tabloid? == We have these statements: * "For most of its history it was a broadsheet but is currently published in a tabloid format." * "The Mail was the first tabloid newspaper in Britain" * "The Sun was launched in 1964 as a tabloid replacement for the Daily Herald" which together indicate that the Daily Mail made the transition sometime between 1950 and 1964. However, someone claimed it was in 1971, which can't be right unless at least one of the last two statements is wrong. Does anyone know when it happened? Maybe someone here remembers it happening first-hand, or maybe someone knows a reliable source. Moreover, was there a dual-format period like The Independent and The Times went through more recently? And was it always the middle-market paper it is now, or is this something that has changed with time? -- User:Smjg 15:32, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC) Definitely 1971. There was an article in the Independent on Sunday about this a while ago. The only incorrect statement was the one about the Mail being the first tabloid, it was the first middle-market paper (it was never a true quality paper). I think (but am not sure) that the Mirror was the first. But I'm confident that the Mail switched to tabloid in 1971 and if there are no objections I shall soon change the article accordingly. So the statements We have these statements: * "For most of its history it was a broadsheet but is currently published in a tabloid format." Correct. * "The Mail was the first tabloid newspaper in Britain" Incorrect * "The Sun was launched in 1964 as a tabloid replacement for the Daily Herald" Correct. Regards, --User:Mrclarke 12:33, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) I remember the early ''Sun'' - it was broadsheet. User:Charles Matthews 12:57, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) I think The Sun launched in Berliner size - between broadsheet and tabloid. --User:Mrclarke 17:36, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) The first British tabloid was the Daily Mirror, launched by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) in 1903 as a sister paper to the Mail. The next daily was the Daily Sketch, the date of launch of which I'd need to look up. The Sun went tabloid after Rupert Murdoch bought it in 1969 and the Mail followed in 1971. The history section of this entry is appallingly slack!User:Paulanderson 18:36, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC) Confirmation: I just checked the Times Digital Archive. It was May 3rd 1971 - date chosen as the 75th anniversary of its founding (I assume a weekend stopped them using the exact date). User:Raygirvan 30 Apr 2005 == Pro War == This article claims that the Daily Mail is Pro War. This should be removed as the daily mail was against the war in Iraq. The mail like the Sun supports the troops on the ground in Iraq however unlike the sun it was not in favour the 2003 invasion of iraq. Putting the phrase 'pro war' toegther with 'pro family' and 'anti abortion' is a clear attempt by a left wing user of wikipedia to equate a pro family stance with a automatic pro war perspective and it will not stand. :It reads fine as it is now, but you might have noted the use of the qualifier 'generally'. The patriotic Mail strongly supported every war the British fought (although, of course, it was at first against any attack on Germany in the 1930s) with the exception of the second Iraq war. Pro-armed forces or Pro-defence would have perhaps been a better choice (as they have spoken out against the proposed merging of regiments, the dilapidated state of British troops' equipment and banning nuclear weapons etc), but it didn't have as good a ring to it. :In fact, putting the phrase 'pro war' together with 'pro family and 'anti abortion' was a clear attempt by a wikipedia user to adequarely sum up the Mail's editorial stance. It probably needs something about it's opinions of crime (awful, rising) and punishment (need more of it, prison works etc) slotting in too. User:The Mighty Ren 23:22, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC) :: Certainly. The toughness-on-crime aspect is important to mention, as it puts a slightly different slant on its championing the case of Stephen Lawrence. The motive almost certainly wasn't any alignment with left-wing causes, but its usual outrage at alleged criminals going unpunished. :::Yep and it reads much better now (the whole article). User:The Mighty Ren 00:01, 23 May 2005 (UTC) ==Neutrality - or lack of it== This article is riddled with left wing bile and needs a total overhaul. User:CalJW 22:24, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC) *It seems to me that the problem is the masses of rightwing dross that exists within this article. **How brave and persuasive it is to shout but not to sign your comment. User:Oliver Chettle 00:49, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC) **Shout? I'm merely putting my comments in bold so that people can more clearly distinguish between who is saying what. And I thought SHOUTING was when you typed in capitals? — As for the signing, I didn't realise it made any difference. But if it pleases you: Steve 00:37, 25 Apr 2005 (GMT) ==1930s== The whole of the section on the 1930s has now been removed. I'm not arguing that it should have neccessarily been kept in it's current form, but some mention of it should be in the article. Afterall, it was an important era for the Daily Mail, and it should definatly be in the article. -- User:Joolz 18:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :Yes, not to mention the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s etc, but lets wait for someone to come along who is actually interested in writing the history of the Daily Mail as a newspaper and knows something about it, as opposed to cutting and pasting propaganda from a hard left website for broader political purposes. It was a copy-vio after all and should have been removed straight away on that basis. User:Oliver Chettle 22:11, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::Which site was this copyvio from? A Google search turned up nothing. User:Rls 22:18, 2005 May 1 (UTC) ::I assume you were talking about the reference on this page to http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BUrothermere.htm . I can't see that the stuff you've removed is a copyvio of anything on that page so I've replaced it. User:Rls 22:38, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

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