# Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror is a British newspaper. Founded in 1903, it became a very popular tabloid in the United Kingdom. Though it is less popular today, the *Mirror* is still published daily.

## History

### Creation

The *Daily Mirror* was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women. Harmsworth intended the newspaper to be "a mirror of feminine life ... entertaining without being frivolous, and serious without being dull". Along with women, he invited men to read the paper, which cost one penny.

### *The Daily Illustrated Mirror*

The newspaper was not an immediate success. In 1904, Harmsworth decided to turn it into a pictore newspaper. He changed the header to *The Daily Illustrated Mirror* and made Hamilton Fyfe editor; Fyfe then fired all the women journalists. The paper ran as *The Daily Illustrated Mirror* from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), then reverted to *The Daily Mirror*.

### The new *Daily Mirror*

Unlike the old *Daily Mirror*, the new version's first issue did not have advertisements on the front page. Instead it featured news text and engraved pictures of a traitor and an actress, with the promise of photographs inside.

Two days later, the price was dropped to one halfpenny, and the tagline "A paper for men and women" was added to the newspaper's masthead (header). This combination was more successful: by issue 92, the guaranteed circulation was 120,000 copies, and by issue 269, it had grown to 200,000:

In 1913 Harmsworth sold the newspaper to his brother Harold Harmsworth (called Lord Rothermere beginning in 1914). Four years later, its price increased back to one penny.

Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than 1 million copies a day, making *The Daily Mirror* the largest daily picture paper in the United Kingdom.

### Changes in the 1930s

By the mid 1930s, the *Mirror* was struggling. With the *Mail*, it had been a main casualty of the early 1930s circulation war that saw the *Daily Herald* and the *Daily Express* establish circulations of more than two million. In response, Rothermere sold his shares in the company.

In the late 1930s the paper moved from being a conservative, middle-class newspaper into a left-wing paper for the working class. It became the first British newspaper to adopt the visual style of New York tabloids like the *New York Post*. By 1939, *The Daily Mirror* was selling 1.4 million copies a day.

### During World War II

The paper was threatened with closure during World War II after Winston Churchill thought one of its cartoons made fun of the British navy. The cartoon showed a sailor clinging to a piece of wreckage. In fact, the cartoon was attacking the waste of petrol and other goods that sailors were trying to bring across the Atlantic while avoiding Nazi Germany's submarines.

### The 1950s to 2000

Thanks to its working-class readership, the *Mirror* grew into the United Kingdom's best-selling daily tabloid newspaper.

In 1960 the *Mirror* bought Odhams Press, a British publishing company, acquiring the *Daily Herald* (the popular daily paper of the labour movement). This was one of a series of takeovers which created the International Publishing Corporation (IPC).

The *Mirror's* management did not want the *Herald* competing with the *Mirror* for readers. In 1964, they relaunched the *Herald* as a mid-market paper, now named the *Sun*. When it failed to win readers, the *Sun* was sold to Rupert Murdoch — who immediately relaunched it as a more populist and sensationalist tabloid that competed directly with the *Mirror*. In 1978, the *Sun* overtook the *Mirror* in circulation, and in 1984 the *Mirror* was sold to Robert Maxwell.

After Maxwell's death in 1991, the *Mirror* went through a protracted crisis. Eight years later, it merged with the regional newspaper group Trinity to form Trinity Mirror. Trinity Mirror now prints the daily and Sunday *Mirror* at Watford and Oldham.

### 21st century

In 2002, the *Mirror* changed its masthead logo from red to black, because the term "red top" is a name for a sensationalist mass-market tabloid. At times the logo was blue. On 6 April 2005, the red top came back.

Under then-editor Piers Morgan, the *Mirror* opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ran many front-page articles that criticized the war. It also gave financial support to the 15 February 2003 anti-war protest, paying for a large screen and providing thousands of placards.

On 4 November 2004, after George W. Bush was re-elected as United States President, the *Mirror* ran a front-page headline titled "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?". It gave a list of states and their average IQs, claiming that states which voted for Bush (except Virginia) were below average, while states that voted for Kerry were average or above. The article cited *The Economist* as the source for this information, while in fact the list was published as a hoax.

After Piers Morgan resigned in 2004, Richard Wallace became the paper's editor. He was followed by Peter Willis (2012-2018) and Allison Phillips (2018 - present).

In recent years, the paper's circulation has been overtaken by the *Daily Mail's*.

## Editors

1903-1904: Mary Howarth
1904-1907: Hamilton Fyfe
1907-1915: Alexander Kenealy
1915-1916: Ed Flynn
1916-1931: Alexander Campbell
1931-1934: Leigh Brownlee
1934-1948: Cecil Thomas
1948-1953: Silvester Bolam
1953-1961: Jack Nener
1961-1971: Lee Howard
1971-1974: Tony Miles
1974-1975: Michael Christiansen
1975-1985: Mike Molloy
1985-1990: Richard Stott
1990-1991: Roy Greenslade
1991-1992: Richard Stott
1992-1994: David Banks
1994-1985: Colin Myler
1995-2004: Piers Morgan
2004-2012: Richard Wallace
2012-2018: Peter Willis
2018-present: Allison Phillips
Source: *Tabloid Nation* p. 248.

## Other websites

* "Official website".
* "Official mobile website". Archived from the original on 25 August 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2021.