From ANDREW DRUMMOND,
Bangkok, May 28 2011
It was greeted with the comments ‘ The end of the world is coming’ , ‘Jesus Wept’ and ‘I might cry’ but today it looks like Mail Online, the net version of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers in Britain is tipped now to become the world’s most popular news site.*
I have to say, much as I hate the Daily Mail sometimes, and hated working on it for quite a period despite its hilarious moments, the camaraderie, and the upstairs bar at the ‘Harrow’, a certain amount of smugness took over my normal facial expression.
Mail Online has now taken over from the Huffington Post and is ranking as the second most popular news site in the world after the New York Times. Its bosses predict 70 million unique visitors will be reported in the next few days for the month of May, topping the New York Times, which boasted 60 million plus before it went behind a pay-wall.
This would explain why recently I have been getting calls from the Mail Online New York office asking about deaths in Chiang Mai. They have been hitting the US heavily and now about 10 per cent of the group’s advertising revenue comes from the Mail Online.
So is this something to celebrate? Not for many I guess. But it’s a pretty good website even though the website is only divesting itself of some of the baggage you get when you buy the newspaper.
The thumbnail on this story is a letter submitted to and printed by the Daily Mail from a reader who is bored with watching matches from countries like ‘Bongo Gongo land’. It was of course reprinted in the Guardian, the Daily Mail’s righteous but struggling opponent. Below is also a spoof of the Daily Mail as some people see it.
Americans will of course be decrying ‘yellow journalism’ an attribute they seem to attach to most of the British press.
But if the truth be told most of Fleet Street, including the Guardian, Times and Telegraph, have been following in the Mail’s footsteps on most of the major stories for the last quarter of a century, ever since it battered Britain’s once most famous newspaper, the Daily Express, into oblivion.
In Britain it has always been a journalists paper, even though half the time the journalists hate its politics and are screaming to get off. It seems to have a policy of creating ‘bastards’ as news editors, and once they get soft they are booted upstairs, or sideways. Its a policy that seems to have worked well.
The Americans have Fox News amongst others, so their cries of protest are somewhat muted by hosting some of the worst media in the world.
When I was on the Daily Mail we were always the last to be called off a doorstep. Reporters, who did not come back with that little extra that another newspaper did not have, did not last long.
Today the Daily Mail is leading on the fact that a burglar was released from a jail sentence because the court at which he was sentenced did not take into account that he had to look after his children.
The story is loaded but its making a point. And that’s what people will be talking about in British pubs this lunchtime. It’s a bit sad about the New York Times, which has, compared to the British heavies, retained a lot of its foreign staff, but then again the Daily Express once had the most foreign staff of any newspaper in the world.
Above: A spoof Daily Mail front page. How the left perceives the paper
Our semi-local author Stephen Leather also did his time at the Mail and is forever sending out links to Mail stories on Facebook. S’okay Stephen. I’ve read them already!
When I was very young and comparatively inexperienced I went for a job at the Daily Express’s ‘Belfast’ office. The newspaper was then actually in competition with the Daily Mail. I remember being told i no uncertain terms that the newspaper was on the side of law and order (British law and order that is) I went to the Daily Mail instead and was glad on reflection that I was sent to the mini-war in Cyprus rather then report in any part of Ireland.. I do not think I want to go into details of my involvement in the Daily Mail’s Saigon airlift of ‘orphans’.
Talking of Ireland, the IRA were still strong then and their operators were no admirers of the Daily Mail, which, as the song goes, knew how to flam up a terrorist story. If you just like humming, fine, but the words are below.
Andrew Drummond at the Daily Mail
Journalism UK – Mail Online Set to Lead
“Now Ireland’s a very funny place, sir
It’s a strange and a troubled land
And the Irish are a very funny race, sir
Every girl’s in the Cumann na mBan
Every doggie wears a tri-coloured ribbon
Tied firmly to its tail
And it wouldn’t be surprising
If there’d be another rising
Said the man from the Daily Mail
Every bird upon my word
Is singing treble – I’m a rebel
Every hen it’s said is laying hand grenades
Over there sir, I declare Sir
And every cock in the farmyard
Stock crows in triumph for the Gael
And it wouldn’t be surprising
If there’d be another rising
Said the man from the Daily Mail
Now the other day I travelled down to Clare, sir
I spied in an old boreen
A bunch of busy gooses there, sir
Dressed in orange, white and green
They marched to the German goose step
As they whistled Grann na bheal
and I’m shakin’ in me shoes
As I’m sending out the news
Said the man from the Daily Mail
Every bird upon my word
Is singing treble – I’m a rebel
Every hen it’s said is laying hand grenades
Over there sir, I declare Sir
And every cock in the farmyard
Stock crows in triumph for the Gael
And it wouldn’t be surprising
If there’d be another rising
Said the man from the Daily Mail
Now the whole place is seething with sedition
It’s Sinn Fein through and through
All the peelers they are joining local units
And the password’s Sinn Fein too
Every doggie wears a tri-coloured ribbon
Tied firmly to its tail
And it wouldn’t be surprising
If there’d be another rising
Said the man from the Daily Mail
Every bird upon my word
Is singing treble – I’m a rebel
Every hen it’s said is laying hand grenades
Over there sir, I declare Sir
And every cock in the farmyard
Stock crows in triumph for the Gael
And it wouldn’t be surprising
If there’d be another rising
Said the man from the Daily Mail”
(anonymous)
* For the incredulous, according to the BBC, CNN has 40 million off unique visitors, BBC has 35 million, but Fox has 93 million, so maybe he Mail is hamming this one up a little.
QUOTE Both the Queen and David Cameron have given tacit agreement to a State funeral — in honour of Britain’s first woman Prime Minister who transformed the country from the ‘sick man of Europe’ to one of the world’s economic powerhouses. UNQUOTE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1391768/Twilight-Titan-An-insight-Margaret-Thatchers-autumn-years
That's a pretty fancy claim for a country in which a tiny minority became hideously rich out of financial 'services'. Totally laughable really. Fat lot of good it did most of us. Government is now always for the sake of the multinationals, the rich and those poor doiwntrodden bankers, regardless of who is elected.
I admit I have taken to reading it online lately for it amusement value. I actually enjoy reading a lot of it. I even find myself agreeing with them about some of the wackier trends that have long afflicted the UK. But then again your average DM reader wouldn't be seen dead living at the standard many UK expats here live at. In the UK now, I would be classed as poor. But judging by many of the reports I read in all UK newspapers the expats I know here probably behave with a great deal more decorum and practicality than those who still command a reasonably decent working income back home. The DM is living proof that those who made a good buck in the UK over the past few decades are now living in a far greater post-colonial fantasy land than anything that the Thatcherites ever got their knickers in a knot over in the 80s.
We're on the same wavelength Ron. I recently had an angry letter from a Slovak who complained that the English were lazy to study and lazy to work. It does seem, reading the Daily Mail that the East Europeans are doing all the work in the UK and the Brits are on benefits!
Mr. Angry is married to 'Wachiraporn'. She entered Britain on a spouse visa. The UK cannot turn away spouses of European nationals. I guess this could fire up a few Pataya Brits.
As for Maggie. Bless her cotton socks. Amazing what you can achieve by squandering all that North Sea old cash which came on stream in time for her glorious reign. But she always saw herself as a Winston Churhill. Will the funeral be soon?
Now imagine being constantly marooned in the bottom 5% of UK income levels, despite having both enjoyed higher education and being no stranger to hard work. One could never aspire to own a house, for instance. The DM just does not even remotely begin to realize such realities. Too busy playing hunt the sponger with their own kith & kin!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174640.stm
Mr Slovak's comments are probably pretty apt. Indeed, Daily Mail readers might well be some of the worst spongers. I've met some lefty loafers in my time in the UK, but right-wing reactionaries often took an even bigger biscuit for pushing ahead of the queue. Indeed, isn't that precisely how most of them got where they are today! 😉
I can only ever remember working long hours in the UK for wages Mr Slovak almost certainly wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
The DM was voted in a journalist poll as the 'Most Admired' and the 'Most Disliked' daily paper in the UK. That says it all really. The online version is very successful and is more celebrity-news oriented than the print.
The stories are very good at leading the readers by the nose, in order to achieve the desired fuming reaction.
How much do they pay for freelance pieces? I don't see any newsdesk link on their site.
s
I think that survery is pretty much on the ball Simon. Journalists hate the DM but look up to it. Its ahead on most stories even though it has its own twist.Unfortunately Associated Newspapers Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, the Evening Standard, and News International are about the only papers who actually pay any realistic rates. A freelance working for the Telegraph on a daily rate during the Tsnumai in Japan claims he was only paid fifty pounds a day for ten days.
Times. Guardian, and Telegraph seem to be losing up to and over 10 per cent of readers per year. Indie circulation is about 80,000 – less then my local paper when I worked on one.