DAILY EXPRESS

The '''Daily Express''' is a conservative, middle-market British tabloid newspaper. It is the flagship title of Express Newspapers and is currently owned by Richard Desmond. As of February 2007, it has a circulation of 761,637.¹
Express Newspapers publishes the ''Daily Express'', ''Sunday Express'' (launched in 1918), ''Daily Star'' and ''Daily Star Sunday''.

Contents

History

Desmond era

The Daily Express and the Daily Mail

Criticisms

"Diana Express"

"Maddie" Express

"Real values"

"Non-newsworthy front pages"

Editors

Columnists

See also

References

External links

History

The ''Daily Express'' was founded in 1900 by Cyril Arthur Pearson, publisher of ''Pearson's Own'' and other titles. Pearson sold the title after losing his sight and it was bought in 1916 by the future Lord Beaverbrook. It was one of the first papers to carry gossip, sports, and women's features, and the first newspaper in Britain to have a crossword. It moved in 1931 to 133 Fleet Street, a specially-commissioned art deco building. Under Beaverbrook the newspaper achieved a phenomenally high circulation, setting new records for newspaper sales several times throughout the 1930s.^[2] Its success was partly due to an aggressive marketing campaign and a vigorous circulation war with other populist newspapers. Beaverbrook also discovered and encouraged a gifted editor named Arthur Christiansen, who showed an uncommon gift for staying in touch with the interests of the reading public. The paper also featured Alfred Bestall's ''Rupert Bear'' cartoon and satirical cartoons by Carl Giles. An infamous front page headline of these years was ''"Judea Declares War on Germany"'', published on March 24 1933.
The arrival of television and the public's changing interests took their toll on circulation, and following Beaverbrook's death in 1964, the paper's circulation declined for several years.²
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid form in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers. In 1982 Trafalgar House spun off its publishing interests into a new company, Fleet Holdings, but this succumbed to a hostile takeover by United Newspapers in 1985. Under United's ownership, the Express titles moved from Fleet Street to Blackfriars Road in 1989. As part of a marketing campaign designed to increase circulation, the paper was renamed ''The Express'' in 1996 (with the Sunday Express becoming "The Express on Sunday").
Express Newspapers was sold to publishing mogul Richard Desmond in 2000, by which time the names had reverted to "Daily Express" and "Sunday Express". In 2004 the newspaper moved to its present location on Lower Thames Street in the City of London.²
On October 31 2005 UK Media Group Entertainment Rights secured majority interest from the ''Daily Express'' on Rupert Bear. They paid £6 million for a 66.6% control of the character. The Express Newspaper retains minority interest in Rupert Bear of 33.33% plus the right to publish Rupert Bear stories in certain Express publications.

Desmond era

In 2000, it was bought by Richard Desmond, publisher of a range of magazines including the celebrity magazine ''OK!''. Controversy surrounded the acquisition because, at the time, Desmond also owned a selection of pornographic magazines such as ''Big Ones'' and ''Asian Babes'' (which led to him being nicknamed "Dirty Des" by ''Private Eye''). He is still the owner of the most popular pornographic television channel in the UK, Television X. Desmond's purchase of the paper led to the departure of many staff including the then editor, Rosie Boycott, and columnist Peter Hitchens moved to ''The Mail on Sunday'', stating that he could not morally work for a newspaper owned by a pornographer. Boycott, despite her different politics, had an unlikely respect for Hitchens. Other stars of old Fleet Street, like the showbiz interviewer and feature writer Paul Callan, were brought in to restore some of the journalistic weight enjoyed by the paper in its heyday.

The Daily Express and the Daily Mail

The ''Daily Express'' has for many years been a rival of the ''Daily Mail'', and each frequently attacks the other's journalistic integrity. In the late 1990s, as Tony Blair's New Labour government was at its most popular, the ''Express'' attempted to reinvent itself somewhat: it developed a less stridently right wing political stance than the ''Mail'' and, under editor Rosie Boycott, presented an agenda to the left of the ''Mail's, referring to itself as "the voice of New Britain". Since its acquisition by Richard Desmond, however, the paper has moved back considerably to the right. In the 2001 general election it supported the Labour Party, but in 2004 switched its support to the Conservative Party.^[3]
The newspaper does not have a "newspaper of the year" banner on its front page, and instead has one saying the oddly more strident (and somewhat less probable) "The World's Greatest Newspaper".
Circulation figures to July 2007 show gross sales of 794,252 for the Daily Express, compared with 2,400,143 for the Daily Mail. This is a 60% reduction over the figures 25 years ago, when the Daily Express was selling over 2 million copies a day, at the time higher than the Mail's figures. By comparison, the Daily Mail 25 years ago was selling 1.87 million copies a day, so its circulation has increased by almost a third over the period.

Criticisms

"Diana Express"

The ''Daily Express'' has a reputation for consistently printing conspiracy theories based on the death of Princess Diana as front page news, earning it the nickname, the ''Daily Ex-Princess''; this is often satirised in ''Private Eye'', the newspaper being labelled the ''Diana Express'' or the ''Di'ly Express'', possibly due to Desmond's close friendship with regular ''Eye'' target Mohamed Fayed. ^[4] Even on July 7 2006, the anniversary of the London bombings (used by most other newspapers to publish commemorations) the front page was given over to Diana. BBC News Online's ''Magazine Monitor'' has frequently noted that articles about Princess Diana are often printed on Mondays regardless of the existence of more pressing news.^[5] This tendency was also mocked on Have I Got News for You when on 6 November 2006, the day other papers reported the death sentence given to Saddam Hussein on their front pages, the Express led with “SPIES COVER UP DIANA ‘MURDER’”. Furthermore, the newspaper's obsession with the late princess actually extends to its official website: sending a blank request through the site's search engine causes the search field to be filled with "Princess Diana" when the results page loads^[6].
For the week beginning August 27, 2006, the paper printed the "Diana Dossier" in which it claimed to ask all the questions related to the death. Diana was on the front page every day (except Sunday) that week.

"Maddie" Express

The Daily Express has dedicated many front pages to the missing girl Madeleine McCann, however many of these have been criticised as unjustified and not adding anything to the case. In August 2007, the Express dedicated every front page from August 3 onwards to Madeleine, making 34 front pages in a row featuring the toddler.

"Real values"

In January 2006 the Daily Express introduced its new advertising tagline - "The paper that stands for real values and gives you real value for money". These "real values" include "traditions, progress, good manners, family fun".
These values have often manifested themselves, however, in nationalist ways, such as the post-July 7th headline, "Bombers are all spongeing asylum seekers" (which earned the ''Daily Express'' a substantial amount of negative attention from media watchdogs and other newspapers such as ''The Guardian''). None of the bombers were asylum seekers, and when the headline was printed the identities of two of them were still unknown. The newspaper has also been criticised by the Press Complaints Commission for its repeated use of the self-contradictory term "illegal asylum seeker".^[7] The ''Express's obsession with the asylum issue even led to a member of the British National Party crediting the paper with boosting the BNP's electoral fortunes by focusing on the issue.^[8]
The paper has made such sweeping generalisations about numerous other targets, such as Tony Blair, the Labour Party and self-injurers (the paper published an ill-received editorial under the title "all self-harmers are tiresome attention seekers", in parody of the original asylum seeker heading, claiming that self-injurers are all teenagers who are looking for attention and should not be treated by the NHS). In addition, some of its articles have been considered homophobic, for example, voicing distaste about civil partnerships for gay couples in a December 2004 editorial, and printing an article in 2006 about the BBC show Torchwood with the headline 'It Contains Gay Sex and Bloody Violence, But Never Mind, Let Your Children Watch It, Say BBC'. The programme contained no onscreen gay sex (and very infrequent strong violence) and, in the article, the BBC spokesman merely stated that it was up to parents to decide on Torchwood's suitability for their children, just like any other post-watershed show. The editorial in that edition also claimed that same-sex kissing is 'not something that most families would choose to watch'.

"Non-newsworthy front pages"

The ''Daily Express'' often dedicates its front page to stories that would appear to rotate around several key themes including; house prices, food scares, miracle medical cures and the weather. These front pages are generally not based on a major news story of the day and are often sexed up with spurious headlines with little factual content to follow, for example 'The Secret Killer in our Food' - creating a front page headline about the dangers of hydrogenated vegetable oil in food or 'The Amazing Protein Diet' creating a front page headline about ketosis. Both such medical stories would appear to have been in the public domain in some form for several years making it hard to see how they could be worthy of newspaper front pages. House prices or inheritance tax stories also appear to be extremely popular, e.g.'House Prices to Rise by 50%'.
Nicknames for the ''Daily Express'' include ''Daily Excess'' and ''Daily Sexpress'', due to its ownership by Richard Desmond, and also its tendency to print a lot of pictures of attractive young women, especially murder victims, and a lot of sex-related "non-news" stories.

Editors

★ Arthur Pearson (April 1900 - 1901)

★ Fletcher Robinson (1901 - 1909)

★ R. D. Blumenfeld (1909 - 1929)

★ Beverley Baxter (1929 - October 1933)

★ Arthur Christiansen (1933 - August 1957)

★ Edward Pickering (1957 - 1961)

★ Robert Edwards (acting) (November 1961 - February 1962)

★ Roger Wood (1962 - May 1963)

★ Robert Edwards (1963 - July 1965)

★ Derek Marks (1965 - April 1971)

★ Ian McColl (1971 - October 1974)

★ Alastair Burnet (1974 - March 1976)

★ Roy Wright (1976 - August 1977)

★ Derek Jameson (1977 - June 1980))

★ Arthur Firth (1980 - October 1981)

★ Christopher Ward (1981 - April 1983)

★ Sir Larry Lamb (1983 - April 1986)

★ Sir Nicholas Lloyd (1986 - November 1995)

★ Richard Addis (November 1995 - May 1998)

★ Rosie Boycott (May 1998 - January 2001)

★ Chris Williams (January 2001 - December 2003)

★ Peter Hill (December 2003 - )

Columnists

Present columnists:

★ Vanessa Feltz

★ Anne Widdecombe

★ Frederick Forsyth

★ Leo McKinstry

★ Richard and Judy
Past columnists:

★ Peter Hitchens

★ Andrew Marr

★ Carol Sarler

★ Jenni Murray

See also

★ ''Scottish Daily News''

★ ''Daily Express, Pakistan'' - similar name

References

1. ABC Circulation Figures
2. Daily Express: A chequered history
3. Express switches after Euro shift
4. For instance in the "Hackwatch" column of ''Private Eye'' #1174, December 19, 2006.
5. The Magazine Monitor : A service highlighting the riches of the daily press
6. Daily Express Search Page
7. Media Guardian December 31 2004
8. The Guardian April 30 2003


★ Derek Jameson, ‘Matthews, Victor Collin, Baron Matthews (1919–1995)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 9 Sept 2007

External links

★ ''Daily Express'' official website

★ Mail Watch - Archive of each ''Daily Express'' cover featuring Princess Diana since January 2006.

★ Online e:edition