The Daily Mirror

Alternate newspaper: The Daily Mirror (Australia)

The Daily Mirror is a British left-leaning tabloid daily newspaper. During a couple of periods in its history - 1985-87 and 1997-2002 - it was known simply as The Mirror.

Early years

The Daily Mirror was launched on November 2, 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women. It was not a success, and in 1904 he decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper, firing the women journalists and appointing Hamilton Fyfe as editor. With its innovative use of photography and populist right-wing politics, the relaunched Mirror rapidly established itself with a circulation of more than 500,000.

When Northcliffe died in 1921, ownership of the Mirror passed to his brother Harold Harmsworth (Lord Rothermere). Circulation continued to grow: by 1930 the Mirror was selling more than 1 million copies a day and had the third-largest sale among British national newspapers, behind only the Daily Express (owned by Lord Beaverbrook) and the Daily Mail (also owned by Rothermere).

Rothermere used the Mirror for his own political purposes just as he used the Mail. Both papers were an integral part of his joint campaign with Beaverbrook for "Empire Free Trade" in 1929-32, and the Mirror, like the Mail, gave enthusiastic support to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists in 1933-34 — support that Rothermere hastily withdrew after middle-class readers recoiled at the BUF's violence at a rally at Olympia.

By the mid-1930s, however, the Mirror was struggling — it and the Mail were the main casualties of the early-1930s circulation war that saw the Daily Herald and the Express establish circulations of more than 2 million — and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it. His withdrawal paved the way for one of the most remarkable reworkings of a newspaper's identity ever seen.

The Mirror transformed

With Cecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of the paper's business side and Guy Bartholomew in charge of the editorial side, the Mirror in the late 1930s transformed itself from a gently declining, respectable, right-wing, middle-class newspaper into a sensationalist left-wing paper for the working class that was a runaway business success. The Mirror was the first UK paper to adopt the appearance of the New York tabloids and the only popular paper to campaign consistently against the appeasement of Hitler. By 1939, it was selling 1.4 million copies a day.

During the second world war, the Mirror positioned itself as the paper of the "ordinary" soldier and civilian, critical of the incompetence of the old-fashioned establishment, and in the 1945 general election it campaigned vigorously for a Labour government. By the late 1940s, it was selling 4.5 million copies a day, outstripping the Express – and for some 30 years after that it dominated the British daily newspaper market, selling at its peak in the mid-1960s more than 5 million copies a day.

Open To The Public

One of the most 'open' publishers of tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mirror arranged regular tours of its printing presses at the Holborn Circus site in London. This had been built on the site of Gamidges Store which had burnt down some time previously and was, at that time, one of the most technologically advanced printing works in the world. Small numbers of visitors were taken on a tour of the entire production process and shown everything involved in producing a newspaper. From the linotype machines where the text was entered to the lead-melting plant where the curved leaden printing plates were cast before being attached to the cylindrical printing press rollers; from the huge reels of newsprint (paper) to the presses themselves, they could see the work from start to finish. Shortly after the paper was 'put to bed' (a publishing term meaning the newspaper was completed and was ready to be printed), the visitors could get a fresh copy of the day's news literally 'hot off the press'.

Toppled by Murdoch

The Mirror was the first newspaper to achieve a mass working-class readership - but it was also complacent about its success. In 1960, it acquired the Daily Herald, the popular daily of the labour movement, when it bought Odhams, in one of a series of takeovers that created the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). The Mirror management did not want the Herald competing with the Mirror for working-class readers and in 1964 relaunched it as a mid-market paper, the Sun. And when it failed to win readers, the Sun was off-loaded unceremoniously to Rupert Murdoch -- who immediately relaunched it as a more populist and more sensationalist tabloid competitor to the Mirror.

Since then, the story of the Mirror has been one of continuous decline. By the mid-1970s, the Sun had overtaken the Mirror's circulation, and in 1984 the Mirror was sold to Robert Maxwell, who bled the paper dry. After Maxwell's death in 1991, the Mirror went through a protracted crisis before ending up in the hands of Trinity Mirror, its current owner. In recent years the paper's circulation has also been overtaken by that of the Daily Mail.

The Mirror today

Trinity Mirror is based at One Canada Square — the focal building in London's Canary Wharf development.

In 1978, the paper announced its support for a United Ireland.

During the 1990s, the paper was accused of dumbing-down in an unsuccessful attempt to poach readers from Rupert Murdoch's Sun. In 2002, the Mirror changed its logo from red to black in an attempt to dissociate the paper from the term "red top", meaning a sensationalist mass-market tabloid. On 6 April 2005, the red top came back. It has made efforts to concentrate on solid journalism rather than celebrity scandals — not always successfully.

Under then-editor Piers Morgan, it was the only tabloid newspaper in the UK to be hostile to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as running many front pages critical of the war. It also gave financial support to the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest, paying for a large screen and providing thousands of placards. In May 2004, it published what it claimed were photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The decision to publish the photos, which were subsequently shown to be hoaxes, led to the sacking of Morgan on 14 May 2004.

The tabloid gained national fame within the United States with its cover on November 4. 2004. By this point, President Bush had been officially re-elected, and the newspaper headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" The cover became a favourite of liberal web sites.

In April 2006 the paper exposed Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott for having an affair with his secretary.

The current editor is Richard Wallace.

Fake abuse photos

In 2004, the Daily Mirror was the subject of a "calculated and malicious hoax" ^* , publishing what turned out to be mocked-up fake pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees. The newspaper issued a statement apologizing for the printing of the pictures and immediately accepted the resignation of then editor Piers Morgan. The paper's then Deputy Editor, Des Kelly took over as Acting Editor during the crisis. The tabloid's rival, The Sun, offered a £50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those accused of faking the Mirror photographs.

The Sunday Mirror

The Sunday Mirror is a Sunday newspaper with the same ownership as and a similar style to The Daily Mirror.

The current editor is Tina Weaver.

References in popular culture

A sketch in a 1969 episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus parodied the Mirror's letters pages: 'Dear Mirrorview, I would like to paid five guineas for saying something stupid about a television programme.'

References

Morgan, Piers. "Daily Mirror statement in full", CNN World. May 13, 2004. Retrieved November 28, 2005.
"Fake abuse photos: Editor quits", CNN London. May 15, 2004. Retrieved November 27, 2005.

External links

The Daily Mirror Picture Site
The Daily Mirror
The Sunday Mirror
History of Trinity Mirror
Editor Piers Morgan sacked over hoax Iraq photos
Newspaper Marketing Agency - Facts and Figures for The Daily Mirror
Newspaper Marketing Agency - Facts and Figures for The Sunday Mirror

British newspapers | 1903 establishments

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