Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, first published in 1896. Its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday, was launched in 1982. The editorial slant of both papers is right-wing. 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. Originally broadsheet, the Mail switched to the tabloid format in which it is published today on May 3 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding. Its chief rival, the Daily Express, has a similar political stance and target audience, but sells fewer than half as many copies. As of 2004 the publisher of the Mail, the Daily Mail and General Trust, is a FTSE 100 company and the paper has a circulation of more than 2 million, the second largest circulation of any English language daily newspaper, and the twelfth highest of any newspaper.

Editorial stance

The Daily 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 despised and neglected by the liberal establishment. It generally takes an anti-European, 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 Richard Littlejohn, who recently returned from The Sun, it has arguably 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. 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=

Related Topics:
Middle England - Anti-European - Richard Littlejohn - The Sun - Peter Hitchens - 2001

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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."

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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, although this is in part because of its Femail supplement aimed at women, and the popularity of its crosswords and horoscopes, in addition to its embrace of the popular Sudoku number puzzles. 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.

Related Topics:
Crossword - Sudoku - Stephen Lawrence

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