| The Heart of Britain | |
 | |
 Front page on 9 March 2017 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Red top |
| Owner(s) | Reach plc |
| Editor | Caroline Waterston |
| Founded | 2 November 1903; 121 years ago (1903-11-02) |
| Political alignment | Labour[1] |
| Headquarters | One Canada Square,London, United Kingdom |
| Circulation | 196,150 (as of February 2025)[2] |
| OCLC number | 223228477 |
| Website | www |
TheDaily Mirror is a British national dailytabloid newspaper.[3] Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent companyReach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on itsmasthead was simplyThe Mirror. It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year.[4] Its Sunday sister paper is theSunday Mirror. Unlike other major British tabloids such asThe Sun and theDaily Mail, theMirror has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by theDaily Record and theSunday Mail, which incorporate certain stories from theMirror that are of Scottish significance. TheMirror publishes an Irish edition, theIrish Mirror.
Originally pitched to the middle-class reader, it was converted into a working-class newspaper after 1934, in order to reach a larger audience. It was founded byAlfred Harmsworth, who sold it to his brotherHarold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1963 a restructuring of the media interests of the Harmsworth family led to theMirror becoming a part ofInternational Publishing Corporation. During the mid-1960s, daily sales exceeded 5 million copies, a feat never repeated by it or any other daily (non-Sunday) British newspaper since.[5] TheMirror was owned byRobert Maxwell between 1984 and 1991. The paper went through a protracted period of crisis after his death before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity in 1999 to form Trinity Mirror (now known as Reach plc). In August 2023 Reach launched aUS division of theDaily Mirror, titledThe Mirror US.
The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 byAlfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women.[6] About the name, he said: "I intend it to be really a mirror of feminine life as well on its grave as on its lighter sides ... to be entertaining without being frivolous, and serious without being dull."[7] It cost onepenny (equivalent to 57p in 2023).
It was not an immediate success and in 1904 Harmsworth decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper with a broader focus. Harmsworth appointedHamilton Fyfe as editor and all of the paper's female journalists were fired. The masthead was changed toThe Daily Illustrated Mirror, which ran from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), when it reverted toThe Daily Mirror.[8] The first issue of the relaunched paper did not have advertisements on the front page as previously, but instead news text and engraved pictures (of a traitor and an actress), with the promise of photographs inside.[9] Two days later, the price was dropped to onehalfpenny and to the masthead was added: "A paper for men and women".[10] This combination was more successful: by issue 92, the guaranteed circulation was 120,000 copies[11] and by issue 269, it had grown to 200,000:[12] by then the name had reverted and the front page was mainly photographs. Circulation grew to 466,000 making it the second-largest morning newspaper.[13]
Alfred Harmsworth sold the newspaper to his brotherHarold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1917, the price was increased to one penny.[14] Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than a million copies a day, making it the largest daily picture paper.[15] In 1924 the newspaper sponsored the1924 Women's Olympiad held atStamford Bridge in London.
Lord Rothermere was a friend ofBenito Mussolini andAdolf Hitler, and directed theMirror's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s.[16][17] On Monday, 22 January 1934 theDaily Mirror ran the headline "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand" urging readers to join SirOswald Mosley'sBritish Union of Fascists, and giving the address to which to send membership applications.[18] By the mid-1930s, theMirror was struggling – it and theMail were the main casualties of the early 1930s circulation war that saw theDaily Herald and theDaily Express establish circulations of more than two million, and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it.
In 1935 Rothermere sold the paper toHarry Guy Bartholomew andHugh Cudlipp.[19] WithCecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of the paper's finances and Guy Bartholomew as editor, during the late 1930s theMirror was transformed from a conservative, middle class newspaper into aleft-wing paper for the working class.[20] Partly on the advice of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, theMirror became the first British paper to adopt the appearance of the New York tabloids. The headlines became bigger, the stories shorter and the illustrations more abundant.[21] By 1939, the publication was selling 1.4 million copies a day. In 1937,Hugh McClelland introduced his wild Western comic stripBeelzebub Jones in theDaily Mirror. After taking over as cartoon chief at theMirror in 1945,[22] he droppedBeelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips.
During the Second World War theMirror positioned itself as the paper of the ordinary soldier and civilian, and was critical of the political leadership and the established parties. At one stage, the paper was threatened with closure following the publication of aPhilip Zeccartoon (captioned byWilliam Connor), which was misinterpreted byWinston Churchill andHerbert Morrison.[23] In the1945 UK general election, the paper strongly supported theLabour Party in its eventual landslide victory. In doing so, the paper supportedHerbert Morrison, who co-ordinated Labour's campaign, and recruited his former antagonist Philip Zec to reproduce, on the front page, a popularVE Day cartoon on the morning of the election, suggesting that Labour were the only party who could maintain peace in post-war Britain.[24] By the late 1940s, it was selling 4.5 million copies a day, outstripping theExpress; for some 30 years afterwards, it dominated the British daily newspaper market, selling more than 5 million copies a day at its peak in the mid-1960s.
TheMirror was an influential model for German tabloidBild, which was founded in 1952 and became Europe's best-selling newspaper.[25]
In 1955, theMirror and its stablemate theSunday Pictorial (later to become theSunday Mirror) began printing a northern edition inManchester. In 1957 it introduced theAndy Capp cartoon, created byReg Smythe from Hartlepool, in the northern editions.[26]
TheMirror's mass working-class readership had made it the United Kingdom's best-selling dailytabloid newspaper. In 1960, it acquired theDaily Herald (the popular daily of the labour movement) when it boughtOdhams, in one of a series of takeovers which created theInternational Publishing Corporation (IPC). TheMirror management did not want theHerald competing with theMirror for readers, and in 1964, relaunched it as a mid-market paper, now namedThe Sun. When it failed to win readers,The Sun was sold toRupert Murdoch – who immediately relaunched it as a morepopulist and sensationalist tabloid and a direct competitor to theMirror.
In an attempt to cater to a different kind of reader, theMirror launched the "Mirrorscope" pull-out section on 30 January 1968. ThePress Gazette commented: "TheDaily Mirror launched its revolutionary four-page supplement "Mirrorscope". The ambitious brief for the supplement, which ran on Wednesdays and Fridays, was to deal with international affairs, politics, industry, science, the arts and business".[27] TheBritish Journalism Review said in 2002 that "Mirrorscope" was "a game attempt to provide serious analysis in the rough and tumble of the tabloids".[28] It failed to attract significant numbers of new readers, and the pull-out section was abandoned, its final issue appearing on 27 August 1974.[citation needed]
In 1978,The Sun overtook theMirror in circulation, and in 1984 theMirror was sold toRobert Maxwell. The firstMirror using colour appeared on the 1st August 1988 edition.[29] Following Maxwell's death in 1991,David Montgomery became Mirror Group's CEO, and a period of cost-cutting and production changes ensued. TheMirror went through a protracted period of crisis before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity to formTrinity Mirror in 1999. Printing of theDaily andSunday Mirror moved to Trinity Mirror's facilities in Watford and Oldham.[citation needed]
Under the editorship ofPiers Morgan (from October 1995 to May 2004) the paper saw a number of controversies.[30] Morgan was widely criticised and forced to apologise for the headline "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over" a day beforeEngland metGermany in a semi-final of theEuro 96 football championships.[31]
In 2000, Morgan was the subject of an investigation after Suzy Jagger wrote a story inThe Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer companyViglen soon before theMirror's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy.[32] Morgan was found by thePress Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The 'City Slickers' columnists,Anil Bhoyrul andJames Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by theDepartment of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges.[33] On 7 December 2005 Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his wife's name too.[34]
In 2002, theMirror attempted to move mid-market, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. The paper changed its masthead logo from red to black (and occasionally blue), in an attempt to dissociate itself from the term "red top", a term for a sensationalist mass-market tabloid. (On 6 April 2005, the red top came back.) Under then-editorPiers Morgan, the newspaper's editorial stance opposed the2003 invasion of Iraq, and ran many front pages critical of the war. It also gave financial support to the15 February 2003 anti-war protest, paying for a large screen and providing thousands of placards. Morgan re-hiredJohn Pilger, who had been sacked duringRobert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite such changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation, a decline shared by its directtabloid rivalsThe Sun and theDaily Star.[35]
Morgan was fired from theMirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs allegedly showingIraqi prisoners being abused byBritish Army soldiers from theQueen's Lancashire Regiment.[36] Within days the photographs were shown to be fakes. Under the headline "SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED", theMirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.[37]
TheMirror's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election ofGeorge W. Bush as U.S. president, read "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?". It provided a list of states and their alleged average IQ, showing the Bush states all below average intelligence (except forVirginia), and allJohn Kerry states at or above average intelligence. The source for this table wasThe Economist,[38] although it was a hoax.[39]Richard Wallace became editor in 2004.
On 30 May 2012, Trinity Mirror announced the merger of theDaily Mirror andSunday Mirror into a single seven-day-a-week title.[40] Richard Wallace and Tina Weaver, the respective editors of theDaily Mirror andSunday Mirror, were simultaneously dismissed andLloyd Embley, editor ofThe People, appointed as editor of the combined title with immediate effect.[41][42] In 2018, Reach plc acquired the Northern & Shell titles, including the Daily Express, which led to a number of editor moves across the stable. Lloyd Embley was then promoted to editor-in-chief across the entire group, andAlison Phillips (previously deputy editor-in-chief for the Trinity Mirror titles) was appointed editor of the Daily Mirror.
In August 2023[43] MGN Ltd and Reach plc launched a division of theDaily Mirror for theUnited States. It consists of a news website, titledThe MirrorUS, with offices based inNew York City.[44][43]
TheMirror has consistently supported theLabour Party since the1945 UK general election.[45] On the day of the1979 UK general election, theDaily Mirror urged its readers to vote for the governing Labour Party led byJames Callaghan.[46] As widely predicted by the opinion polls, Labour lost this election andConservativeMargaret Thatcher became prime minister.[46] TheMirror's continued support of the Labour government was in spite of its falling popularity over the previous few months which had been partly as a result of what was labelled by theDaily Mail the "Winter of Discontent", where the country was crippled by numerous public sector strikes.[47]
By the time of the1983 UK general election, Labour support was at a postwar low, partly due to the strong challenge by the recently formedSDP–Liberal Alliance. Despite this, theDaily Mirror remained loyal to Labour and urged its readers to vote for the party, then led byMichael Foot, condemning the Thatcher-led Tory government for its "waste of our nation",[46] as well as the rise in unemployment that Thatcher's Conservative government had seen in its first term in power largely due tomonetarist economic policies to reduce inflation, although the government's previously low popularity had dramatically improved since the success of theFalklands conflict a year earlier.[48] However, the Conservatives were re-elected and Labour suffered its worst postwar general election result, only narrowly bettering the SDP–Liberal Alliance in terms of votes whilst winning considerably more seats.[46]
At the1987 UK general election, theDaily Mirror remained loyal to Labour, led byNeil Kinnock, and urged its readers with the slogan "You know he's right, chuck her out."[46] By this stage, unemployment was falling and inflation had remained low for several years.[49] As a result, the Tories were re-elected for a third successive term, although Labour did cut the Tory majority slightly.[46] For the1992 UK general election, theDaily Mirror continued to support Labour, still led byNeil Kinnock. By this stage, Thatcher had stepped down and the Tory government was now led byJohn Major.[46] The election was won by the Conservatives, although Labour managed to significantly cut the Tory majority to 21 seats compared to the triple-digit figure of the previous two elections, which led to a difficult term for Major. The outcome of this election had been far less predictable than any of the previous three elections, as opinion polls over the previous three years had shown both parties in the lead, although any Labour lead in the polls had been relatively narrow since the Conservative government's change of leader from Thatcher to Major in November 1990, in spite of the onset of theearly 1990s recession which had pushed unemployment up again after several years of decline. Labour's credibility was helped by plans including extraNational Health Service (NHS) funding and moving away from firm commitments on re-nationalisation to reverse the Conservative policy of privatisation, but its decision to be up-front about tax increases was seen as a key factor in its failure to win.[50]
By the time of the1997 UK general election, support for the Labour Party, by then led byTony Blair, in the opinion polls had exceeded that of support for the Conservative government led byJohn Major since late 1992, whose reduced popularity largely blamed on the failings ofBlack Wednesday in September of that year and it had failed to recover popularity in spite of a strong economic recovery and fall in unemployment. A reinventedNew Labour had further improved its credibility under Blair by promising traditional Labour essentials including more funding for healthcare and education but also promising not to increase income tax and ending its commitment to the nationalisation of leading industries.[51] TheDaily Mirror urged its readers that their country needed Blair, and to vote Labour.[46]
The 1997 election produced a Labour landslide that ended the party's 18-year exile from power, followed by two further wins in the2001 and2005 UK general elections. On 4 May 2010, the newspaper printed a picture of Conservative leaderDavid Cameron with a giant red cross through his face. The headline read "How to stop him" in reference to the2010 UK general election two days later, confirming theDaily Mirror's Labour allegiance. The election ended in Britain's firsthung parliament since1974 but Cameron still became prime minister within days as the Conservatives formed a coalition with theLiberal Democrats. TheDaily Mirror was the only leading national newspaper to remain loyal to Labour andGordon Brown at a time when opinion polls showed the party on course for their worst election result since 1983.[52]
The newspaper was critical of the Liberal Democrats for forming the coalition which enabled the Conservatives to form a new government in 2010, and branded leaderNick Clegg as Pinickio (alluding to the lying fictional characterPinocchio)[53] for going back on numerous pre-election pledges. It has frequently referred to the party as the "Fib Dems"[54] or "Lib Dumbs".[55] TheDaily Mirror endorsedDemocratic candidateHillary Clinton in the run-up for the2016 U.S. presidential election.[56] Also in 2016, the newspaper asked forJeremy Corbyn's resignation "for the good of the party and of the country."[57] Despite this critical position, theDaily Mirror endorsed the Labour Party in the2017 UK general election.[58] For the2019 UK general election, the newspaper again endorsed Labour "to protect NHS, end poverty and for a kinder Britain."[59] TheDaily Mirror threw its support behind the Labour Party for the2024 UK general election, stating that "a Labour government is more crucial than ever for the new generation."[60]
On 2 April 1996, theDaily Mirror was printed entirely on blue paper.[63] This was done as a marketing exercise withPepsi-Cola, who on the same day had decided to relaunch its cans with a blue design instead of the traditional red and white logo.[64]
Source:Tabloid Nation[24]
Notable former and current columnists of theDaily Mirror include:
The Daily Mirror won "Newspaper of the Year" in 2002 at theBritish Press Awards. It won "Scoop of the Year" in 2003 ("3am", 'Sven and Ulrika'), 2004 (Ryan Parry, 'Intruder at the Palace'), 2006 and 2007 (both Stephen Moyes).[90] TheMirror won "Team of the Year" in 2001 ('Railtrack'), 2002 ('War on the World: World against Terrorism'), 2003 ('Soham'), and 2006 ('London bombings'); and "Front Page of the Year" in 2007.[90] TheMirror also won the "Cudlipp Award" in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2010.[90]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)And that is why, regretfully, the Mirror today calls on him to step down for the good of the party and the country.
