Daily Mirror

1903–1995

Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), founder of the Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred 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 one penny (equivalent to 48p in 2021).

It was not an immediate success and in 1904 Harmsworth decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper with a broader focus. Harmsworth appointed Hamilton Fyfe as editor and all of the paper's female journalists were fired. The masthead was changed to The Daily Illustrated Mirror, which ran from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), when it reverted to The 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 one halfpenny 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 brother Harold 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 the 1924 Women's Olympiad held at Stamford Bridge in London.

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere

Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and directed the Mirror's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s.^[16][17] On Monday, 22 January 1934 the Daily Mirror ran the headline "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand" urging readers to join Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and giving the address to which to send membership applications.^[18] By the mid-1930s, 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 Daily Express establish circulations of more than two million, and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it.

In 1935 Rothermere sold the paper to H. G. Bartholomew and Hugh Cudlipp.^[19] With Cecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of the paper's finances and Guy Bartholomew as editor, during the late 1930s the Mirror was transformed from a conservative, middle class newspaper into a left-wing paper for the working class.^[20] Partly on the advice of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, the Mirror 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 strip Beelzebub Jones in the Daily Mirror. After taking over as cartoon chief at the Mirror in 1945,^[22] he dropped Beelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips.

During the Second World War the Mirror 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 a Philip Zec cartoon (captioned by William Connor), which was misinterpreted by Winston Churchill and Herbert Morrison.^[23] In the 1945 general election the paper strongly supported the Labour Party in its eventual landslide victory. In doing so, the paper supported Herbert Morrison, who co-ordinated Labour's campaign, and recruited his former antagonist Philip Zec to reproduce, on the front page, a popular VE 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 the Express; 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.

The Mirror was an influential model for German tabloid Bild, which was founded in 1952 and became Europe's biggest-selling newspaper.^[25]

Daily Mirror Building (1957–1960) in Langham Place, London

In 1955, the Mirror and its stablemate the Sunday Pictorial (later to become the Sunday Mirror) began printing a northern edition in Manchester. In 1957 it introduced the Andy Capp cartoon, created by Reg Smythe from Hartlepool, in the northern editions.^[26]

The Mirror's mass working-class readership had made it the United Kingdom's best-selling daily tabloid newspaper. 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 which created the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). The Mirror management did not want the Herald competing with the Mirror for readers, and in 1964, relaunched it 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 and a direct competitor to the Mirror.

In an attempt to cater to a different kind of reader, the Mirror launched the "Mirrorscope" pull-out section on 30 January 1968. The Press Gazette commented: "The Daily 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] The British 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.

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, David Montgomery became Mirror Group's CEO, and a period of cost-cutting and production changes ensued. The Mirror went through a protracted period of crisis before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity to form Trinity Mirror in 1999. Printing of the Daily and Sunday Mirror moved to Trinity Mirror's facilities in Watford and Oldham.

1995–2004

Front page of the Mirror 24 June 1996, with headline "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over", and accompanying contribution from the editor, "Mirror declares football war on Germany"

Under the editorship of Piers Morgan (from October 1995 to May 2004) the paper saw a number of controversies.^[29] Morgan was widely criticised and forced to apologise for the headline "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over" a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro 96 football championships.^[30]

In 2000, Morgan was the subject of an investigation after Suzy Jagger wrote a story in The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy.^[31] Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The 'City Slickers' columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges.^[32] 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.^[33]

In 2002, the Mirror 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-editor Piers Morgan, the newspaper's editorial stance opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and ran many front pages critical of 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. Morgan re-hired John Pilger, who had been sacked during Robert 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 direct tabloid rivals The Sun and the Daily Star.^[34]

Morgan was fired from the Mirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.^[35] Within days the photographs were shown to be fakes. Under the headline "SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.^[36]

2004–present

The Mirror's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election of George 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 for Virginia), and all John Kerry states at or above average intelligence. The source for this table was The Economist,^[37] although it was a hoax.^[38] Richard Wallace became editor in 2004.

On 30 May 2012, Trinity Mirror announced the merger of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror into a single seven-day-a-week title.^[39] Richard Wallace and Tina Weaver, the respective editors of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, were simultaneously dismissed and Lloyd Embley, editor of The People, appointed as editor of the combined title with immediate effect.^[40][41] 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, and Alison Phillips (previously deputy editor-in-chief for the Trinity Mirror titles) was appointed editor of the Daily Mirror.

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Hamilton Fyfe

Hamilton Fyfe

Henry Hamilton Fyfe was a British journalist and writer who was editor of both the newspapers the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald.

Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin)

Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin)

The British pre-decimal halfpenny,, historically also known as the obol and once abbreviated ob., was a denomination of sterling coinage worth 1/480 of one pound, 1/24 of one shilling, or 1/2 of one penny. Originally the halfpenny was minted in copper, but after 1860 it was minted in bronze. In the run-up to decimalisation, it ceased to be legal tender from 31 July 1969. The halfpenny featured two different designs on its reverse during its years in circulation. From 1672 until 1936 the image of Britannia appeared on the reverse, and from 1937 onwards the image of the Golden Hind appeared. Like all British coinage, it bore the portrait of the monarch on the obverse.

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere

Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, was a leading British newspaper proprietor who owned Associated Newspapers Ltd. He is best known, like his brother Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Northcliffe, for the development of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. Rothermere was a pioneer of popular tabloid journalism.

1924 Women's Olympiad

1924 Women's Olympiad

The 1924 Women's Olympiad was the first international competition for women in track and field in the United Kingdom. The tournament was held on 4 August 1924 in London, United Kingdom.

Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as "Duce" of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.

British Union of Fascists

British Union of Fascists

The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, following the start of the Second World War, the party was proscribed by the British government and in 1940 it was disbanded.

Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608.

Hugh Cudlipp

Hugh Cudlipp

Hubert Kinsman Cudlipp, Baron Cudlipp, OBE, was a Welsh journalist and newspaper editor noted for his work on the Daily Mirror in the 1950s and 1960s. He served as chairman of the Mirror Group group of newspapers from 1963 to 1967, and the chairman of the International Publishing Corporation from 1968–1973.

Cecil Harmsworth King

Cecil Harmsworth King

Cecil Harmsworth King was Chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers, Sunday Pictorial Newspapers and the International Publishing Corporation (1963–1968), and a director at the Bank of England (1965–1968).

Left-wing politics

Left-wing politics

Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."

Hugh McClelland (cartoonist)

Hugh McClelland (cartoonist)

Hugh McClelland was a cartoonist who headed the cartoon department of the Daily Mirror in the UK.

The Mirror has consistently supported the Labour Party since the 1945 general election.^[42] On 3 May 1979, the day of the general election, the Daily Mirror urged its readers to vote for the governing Labour Party led by James Callaghan.^[43] As widely predicted by the opinion polls, Labour lost this election and Conservative Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister.^[43] The Mirror's continued support of the Labour government was in spite of its falling popularity over the previous few months which had been the result of the Winter of Discontent, where the country was crippled by numerous public sector strikes.^[44]

By the time of the 1983 general election, Labour support was at a postwar low, partly due to the strong challenge by the recently formed SDP–Liberal Alliance. Despite this, the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour and urged its readers to vote for the party, now led by Michael Foot, condemning the Thatcher-led Tory government for its "waste of our nation"^[43] and the rise in unemployment that Thatcher's Conservative government had seen in its first term in power largely due to monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation, although the government's previously low popularity had dramatically improved since the success of the Falklands conflict a year earlier.^[45] 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.^[43]

At the 1987 general election, the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour, now led by Neil Kinnock, and urged its readers with the slogan "You know he's right, chuck her out."^[43] By this stage, unemployment was falling and inflation had remained low for several years.^[46] As a result, the Tories were re-elected for a third successive term, although Labour did cut the Tory majority slightly.^[43] For the 1992 general election, the Daily Mirror continued to support Labour, still led by Neil Kinnock. By this stage, Thatcher had stepped down and the Tory government was now led by John Major.^[43] 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 the early 1990s recession which had pushed unemployment up again after several years of decline. Labour's credibility was helped by plans including extra National 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.^[47]

By the time of the 1997 general election, support for the Labour Party, now led by Tony Blair, in the opinion polls had exceeded that of support for the Conservative government led by John Major since late 1992, whose reduced popularity largely blamed on the failings of Black 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 reinvented New 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.^[48] The Daily Mirror urged its readers that their country needed Tony Blair, and to vote Labour.^[43]

The 1997 election produced a Labour landslide that ended the party's 18-year exile from power, followed by two further election wins in 2001 and 2005. On 4 May 2010, the newspaper printed a picture of Conservative leader David Cameron with a giant red cross through his face. The headline read "How to stop him" in reference to the 2010 general election two days later, confirming the Daily Mirror's Labour allegiance. The election ended in Britain's first hung parliament since 1974, but Cameron still became prime minister within days as the Conservatives formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The Daily Mirror was the only leading national newspaper to remain loyal to Labour and Gordon Brown at a time when opinion polls showed the party on course for their worst election result since 1983.^[49]

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 leader Nick Clegg as Pinickio (alluding to the lying fictional character Pinocchio)^[50] for going back on numerous pre-election pledges. It has frequently referred to the party as the "Fib Dems"^[51] or "Lib Dumbs".^[52] The Daily Mirror endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 United States presidential election.^[53] Also in 2016, the newspaper asked for Jeremy Corbyn's resignation "for the good of the party and of the country."^[54] Despite this critical position, the Daily Mirror endorsed the Labour Party in the 2017 general election.^[55] For the 2019 general election, the newspaper again endorsed Labour "to protect NHS, end poverty and for a kinder Britain."^[56]

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Labour Party (UK)

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. Since the 2010 general election, it has been the second-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast, behind the Conservative Party and ahead of the Liberal Democrats. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference, at which party policy is formulated.

1945 United Kingdom general election

1945 United Kingdom general election

The 1945 United Kingdom general election was a national election held on Thursday 5 July 1945, but polling in some constituencies was delayed by some days, and the counting of votes was delayed until 26 July to provide time for overseas votes to be brought to Britain. The governing Conservative Party sought to maintain its position in Parliament but faced challenges from public opinion about the future of the United Kingdom in the post-war period. Prime Minister Winston Churchill proposed to call for a general election in Parliament, which passed with a majority vote less than two months after the conclusion of the Second World War in Europe.

1979 United Kingdom general election

1979 United Kingdom general election

The 1979 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the House of Commons.

James Callaghan

James Callaghan

Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff,, commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is the only person to have held all four Great Offices of State, having served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967, Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970 and Foreign Secretary from 1974 to 1976. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1987.

Conservative Party (UK)

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 355 Members of Parliament, 260 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 4 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 6,619 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher , was a British politician and stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

1983 United Kingdom general election

1983 United Kingdom general election

The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945, with a majority of 144 seats and the first of two consecutive landslide victories.

1987 United Kingdom general election

1987 United Kingdom general election

The 1987 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive general election victory for the Conservative Party, and second landslide under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool in 1820 to lead a party into three successive electoral victories.

1992 United Kingdom general election

1992 United Kingdom general election

The 1992 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 April 1992, to elect 651 members to the House of Commons. The election resulted in the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party since 1979 and would be the last time that the Conservatives would win an overall majority at a general election until 2015. It was also the last general election to be held on a day which did not coincide with any local elections until 2017. This election result took many by surprise, as opinion polling leading up to the election day had shown the Labour Party, under leader Neil Kinnock, consistently, if narrowly, ahead.

John Major

John Major

Sir John Major is a British retired politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from November 1990 to May 1997 and Leader of the Conservative Party from November 1990 to June 1997. He previously held Cabinet positions under prime minister Margaret Thatcher, lastly as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1989 to 1990. Major was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Since stepping down as an MP in 2001, Major has focused on writing and his business, sporting and charity work, and has occasionally commented on political developments in the role of an elder statesman.

Early 1990s recession

Early 1990s recession

The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incumbent president George H. W. Bush. The recession also included the resignation of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, the reduction of active companies by 15% and unemployment up to nearly 20% in Finland, civil disturbances in the United Kingdom and the growth of discount stores in the United States and beyond.

1997 United Kingdom general election

1997 United Kingdom general election

The 1997 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 1 May 1997. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister John Major was defeated in a landslide by the Labour Party led by Tony Blair, achieving a 179-seat majority.

• Cartoon strips "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" (1919–56), "Jane" (1932–59), "Garth" (1943–97, reprints 2011), "Just Jake" (1938–52), "Andy Capp" (1957–), and "The Perishers" (1955–2006 and later reprints).^[57]
• "The Old Codgers", a fictional pair who commented on the letters page from 1935 to 1990.^[58]
• Chalky White, who would wander around various British seaside resorts waiting to be recognised by Mirror readers (an obscured photo of him having been published in that day's paper). Anyone who recognised him would have to repeat some phrase along the lines of "To my delight, it's Chalky White" to win £5. The name continues to be used on the cartoons page, as Andy Capp's best friend.
• "Shock issues" intended to highlight a particular news story.
• The columnist Cassandra (1935–67).
• "Dear Marje", a problem page by agony aunt Marjorie Proops.
• Investigative reporting by Paul Foot and John Pilger (including the latter's exposé of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia).
• "The Shopping Basket". Starting in the mid-1970s, the paper monitored the cost of a £5 basket of shopping to see how it increased in price over the years.

Blue issue

On 2 April 1996, the Daily Mirror was printed entirely on blue paper.^[59] This was done as a marketing exercise with Pepsi-Cola, who on the same day had decided to relaunch its cans with a blue design instead of the traditional red and white logo.^[60]

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Pip, Squeak and Wilfred

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred was a British strip cartoon published in the Daily Mirror from 1919 to 1956, as well as the Sunday Pictorial in the early years. It was conceived by Bertram Lamb, who took the role of Uncle Dick, signing himself (B.J.L.) in an early book, and was drawn until c. 1939 by Austin Bowen Payne, who always signed as A. B. Payne. It concerned the adventures of an orphaned family of animals. Pip, who assumed the "father" role, was a dog, while the "mother", Squeak, was a penguin. Wilfred was the "young son" and was a rabbit with very long ears.

Jane (comic strip)

Jane (comic strip)

Jane is a comic strip created and drawn by Norman Pett exclusively for the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mirror from 5 December 1932 to 10 October 1959.

Garth (comic strip)

Garth (comic strip)

Garth was a comic strip in the British newspaper Daily Mirror that ran from 24 July 1943 – 22 March 1997. It belonged to the action-adventure genre and followed the exploits of the title character, an immensely strong hero who battled various villains throughout the world and in different eras. It was widely syndicated in English-speaking countries. 1960s Australian fast bowler Garth McKenzie was nicknamed after its hero. Book collections of the strip were first published in 2011.

Just Jake

Just Jake

Just Jake was a comic strip that ran for 14 years in the British newspaper The Daily Mirror. Drawn by Bernard Graddon, it was published daily beginning 4 June 1938 and concluding early in 1952 after Graddon's death.

Andy Capp

Andy Capp

Andy Capp is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe, seen in the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a single-panel cartoon, it was later expanded to four panels.

The Perishers

The Perishers

The Perishers was a long-running British comic strip about a group of neighbourhood children and a dog. It was printed in the Daily Mirror as a daily strip and first appeared on 19 October 1959. For most of its life it was written by Maurice Dodd, and was drawn by Dennis Collins until his retirement in 1983, after which it was drawn by Dodd and later by Bill Mevin. When Dodd died, the strip continued with several weeks' backlog of unpublished strips and some reprints until 10 June 2006. The strip then returned to the Daily Mirror, again as reprints, on 22 February 2010, replacing Pooch Café.

William Connor

William Connor

Sir William Neil Connor was an English newspaper journalist for the Daily Mirror who wrote under the pen name of "Cassandra".

Marjorie Proops

Marjorie Proops

Rebecca Marjorie Proops OBE was a journalist and agony aunt in the United Kingdom, writing the column Dear Marje for the Daily Mirror newspaper.

John Pilger

John Pilger

John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.

Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow.

Pepsi

Pepsi

Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961.

• In the 1959 Liberace v Daily Mirror case, Liberace sued the Mirror for libel. William Connor had written a pseudonymous column hinting that the American entertainer was a homosexual; homosexual acts were illegal in Britain at the time. The jury found in Liberace's favour and he received £8,000 in damage (estimated at around £500,000 in 2009).^[61] After Liberace's death, the paper editorially asked, "Can we have our money back, please?"^[62]
• In 1991, shortly after the death of Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury, the Daily Mirror ran a homophobic column by Joe Haines which contained extensive insults towards Mercury, HIV/AIDS victims, and homosexuals.^[63][64] The article prompted an open letter in condemnation from folk singer Lal Waterson, later recorded as a song by her sister Norma.^[65]
• In December 1992, Scottish politician George Galloway won libel damages from the Daily Mirror and its Scottish sister the Daily Record, who had falsely accused him of making malicious allegations about their foreign editor Nicholas Davies. Galloway had used parliamentary privilege to call for an independent investigation into allegations about Davies made in the book The Samson Option.^[66]
• In May 2004, the Daily Mirror published what it claimed were photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at an unspecified location in Iraq. The decision to publish the photos, subsequently shown to be hoaxes, led to Piers Morgan's sacking as editor of the paper on 14 May 2004. The Daily Mirror then stated that it was the subject of a "calculated and malicious hoax".^[67] The newspaper issued a statement apologising for the printing of the pictures. The paper's 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.
• In June 2004, American model Caprice Bourret won a libel case against the Daily Mirror for an article in April that year which falsely claimed that her acting career had failed.^[68]
• In November 2007, the Daily Mirror paid damages to Sir Andrew Green after having likened him and his group MigrationWatch UK to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party in September of that year. The newspaper admitted that such allegations were "untrue".^[69]
• In February 2008 both the Daily and the Sunday Mirror implied that TV presenter Kate Garraway was having an affair. She sued for libel, receiving an apology and compensation payment in April 2008.^[70]
• On 18 September 2008, David Anderson, a British sports journalist writing for the Mirror, repeated a claim deriving from vandalism on Wikipedia's entry for Cypriot football team AC Omonia, which asserted that their fans were called "The Zany Ones" and liked to wear hats made from discarded shoes. The claim was part of Anderson's match preview ahead of AC Omonia's game with Manchester City, which appeared in the web and print versions of the Mirror, with the nickname also quoted in subsequent editions on 19 September.^{[71][72][73][74]}
• In November 2009, the Mirror paid "substantial libel damages" to Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo after it admitted that a story about him becoming highly intoxicated in a Hollywood nightclub was untrue.^[75]
• On 12 May 2011, the High Court of England and Wales granted the Attorney General permission to bring a case for contempt against The Sun and the Daily Mirror for the way they had reported on the arrest of a person of interest in the Murder of Joanna Yeates.^[76][77] On 29 July, the Court ruled that both newspapers had been in contempt of court, fining the Daily Mirror £50,000 and The Sun £18,000.^[78]
• In October 2013, a defamation case brought by the Irish airline Ryanair against the Daily Mirror was settled out of court. The Mirror had repeated allegations about the airline's safety from a Channel 4 documentary which were not reflected by its most recent evaluation by the Irish Aviation Authority.^[79]
• On 19 July 2011 the Mirror published an article labelling comedian Frankie Boyle a racist. He later sued for defamation and libel, winning £54,650 in damages and a further £4,250 for a claim about his departure from Mock the Week. The Mirror had argued he was "forced to quit" but this was found to be libellous by the court.^[80]
• On 20 March 2017 the Mirror painted the traditional Russian pancake celebration Maslenitsa as a Hooligan training ground. One of the centuries-old tradition in this Russian festival is "wall-to-wall" ('stenka na stenku', Ru) which is sparring between men dressed in traditional folk clothes. This tradition was wrongly represented by the Mirror in the pictures and text, labelled as violent acts and living in fear without giving context or any information about this Russian traditional festival at all. The Mirror article was titled "Russia's Ultra yobs infiltrated amid warnings England fans could be KILLED at World Cup.", and received negative receptions from Russian media, also being described as fake news.^[81][82] Representatives of the Daily Mirror acknowledged that the original material of the publication about Russian Hooligans was incorrectly illustrated with images of the traditional festival. In the updated version of the article the newspaper continued to insist that the photographed people were hooligans in the pictures, but gave no evidence of their participation in the festival.^[83]
• In March 2019, the Daily Mirror faced criticism from social media users, as well as from columnist Owen Jones and journalist Mehdi Hasan, for covering the Christchurch mosque shootings with the headline "Angelic boy who grew into an evil far-right mass killer" in reference to perpetrator Brenton Tarrant. Users criticised it for humanising Tarrant while ignoring the victims, and for the perceived double standard of how attacks conducted by Islamists are portrayed more negatively than those by white supremacists. These criticisms typically contrasted the Daily Mirror's coverage of Tarrant with its coverage of Orlando nightclub shooting perpetrator Omar Mateen three years earlier, who was covered with the headline "ISIS Manic Kills 50 in Gay Nightclub".^[84][85]

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Editors

Source: Tabloid Nation^[24]

Notable columnists

Notable former and current columnists of the Daily Mirror include:

• The 3AM Girls (gossip columnists)
• Anne Robinson (columnist and deputy editor)
• William Connor (opinion under the pseudonym Cassandra (1935–1967))
• Caradoc Evans (1917–1923)
• Richard Hammond (motoring and Saturday columnist)
• Oliver Holt (sports columnist)
• Kevin Maguire (UK politics)
• Penman & Greenwood (investigators)
• Fiona Phillips (Saturday columnist)
• Brian Reade (Thursday columnist; also does a sports column on Saturdays)
• Keith Waterhouse (largely humorous (1970–1986, previously a reporter.)
• Chris Hughes (security and defence)
• Geoffrey Goodman (1969–1986)

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Hamilton Fyfe

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Leigh Brownlee

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Michael Robin Christiansen was a British newspaper editor.

Mike Molloy

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Richard Stott

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Richard Keith Stott was a British journalist and editor.

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Arthur David Banks was a British newspaper editor and broadcaster.

Colin Myler

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Colin Myler is a US-based British journalist.

Piers Morgan

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Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at The Sun. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century. From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was fired in 2004. He was the editorial director of First News during 2006 to 2007.

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Peter Willis was a British journalist and newspaper editor.

Alison Phillips

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Anne Robinson

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Anne Josephine Robinson is an English television presenter and journalist. She was the host of BBC game show The Weakest Link (2000–2017). She presented the Channel 4 game show Countdown from June 2021 to July 2022, taking over from Nick Hewer. She left the programme on 13 July 2022 after recording 265 episodes.

The Daily Mirror won "Newspaper of the Year" in 2002 at the British 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).^[86] The Mirror 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.^[86] The Mirror also won the "Cudlipp Award" in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2010.^[86]