JRN185 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Paul Dacre, Daily Sketch, Nick Davies
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Published on 29 Apr 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
PCC
JRN - 185
Newspaper Publishing
● Mid-Market
○ Mid-market renaissance is the story of one newspaper, the Daily Mail, and it's
Sunday sister the Mail on Sunday
○ Two have reversed the normal order of the newspaper industry
○ Red top tabloids sell more than midmarket papers
○ Sell more than the serious or 'price' papers
○ Today's Daily Mail is Britain's second-largest-selling daily newspaper
○ Sunday's Mail is second-largest-selling Sunday newspaper (to the News of the
World)
○ On average, both sell more than 23 million copies (audited ABC sales) every day
of release
● The Mail was founded by Alfred Harmsworth in 1896
○ Enjoyed the same ownership as any other national newspaper (with the exception
of the Guardian, which has a different arrangement and is owned by a trust)
○ Related Newspapers, the organization that operates the Mail service
○ Today is headed by the current Lord Rothermere and the family has never
deviated from helping their newspapers
○ Had a verified background
○ New good times really started in the early 1970s when the company ended its
participation in the red top tabloid business by closing the failed Daily Sketch and
relaunching the broadsheet mail as a tabloid on the midmarket
○ In 1982 the Mail began on Sunday
○ Owes the success of both newspapers to David English's journalistic style and
skill, who became editor-in-chief, and to his successor Paul Dacre
■ The current editor-in-chief, following his death
○ Two editorial giants have not only driven the Mail titles to a complete domination
of their business sector
○ Control and recognition in the national newspaper industry
○ Being scolded by their radical opponents
○ Guardian columnists and leader writers frequently ignore the Mail for what it
stands for
○ Mail frequently reacts with disdainful remarks regarding the Guardian
○ Since the readers' overlap is almost non-existent
○ Always a 'insider' fight fought in public prints to the bafflement of one or other
newspaper's readers