The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply The Mirror. It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year. Its Sunday sister paper is the Sunday Mirror. Unlike other major British tabloids such as The Sun and the Daily Mail, the Mirror has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail, which incorporate certain stories from the Mirror that are of Scottish significance. The Mirror publishes an Irish edition, the Irish Mirror.
Originally pitched to the middle-class reader, it was converted into a working-class newspaper after 1934, in order to reach a larger audience. It was founded by Alfred Harmsworth, who sold it to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1963 a restructuring of the media interests of the Harmsworth family led to the Mirror becoming a part of International Publishing Corporation. During the mid-1960s, daily sales exceeded 5 million copies, a feat never repeated by it or any other daily (non-Sunday) British newspaper since. The Mirror was owned by Robert Maxwell between 1984 and 1991. The paper went through a protracted period of crisis after his death before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity in 1999 to form Trinity Mirror (now known as Reach plc). In August 2023 Reach launched a US division of the Daily Mirror, titled The Mirror US.
Contents
History
1903–1995
The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women. 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." It cost one penny (equivalent to 44p in 2025).
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. 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. Two days later, the price was dropped to one halfpenny and to the masthead was added: "A paper for men and women". 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: 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.
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. Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than a million copies a day, making it the largest daily picture paper. In 1924 the newspaper sponsored the 1924 Women's Olympiad held at Stamford Bridge in London.
Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and directed the Mirror's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s. 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. 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 Harry Guy Bartholomew and Hugh Cudlipp. 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. 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. 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, he dropped Beelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips.
1995–2004
Under the editorship of Piers Morgan (from October 1995 to May 2004) the paper saw a number of controversies. 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.
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. 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 dismissed before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges. 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.
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 dismissed 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.
Morgan was dismissed 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. 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.
2004–present
The Mirror's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election of George W. Bush as US 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, although it was a hoax. 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. 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. 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.
In August 2023 MGN Ltd and Reach plc launched a division of the Daily Mirror for the United States. It consists of a news website, titled The Mirror US, with offices based in New York City.
Political allegiance
The Mirror has consistently supported the Labour Party since the 1945 UK general election. On the day of the 1979 UK general election, the Daily Mirror urged its readers to vote for the governing Labour Party led by James Callaghan. As widely predicted by the opinion polls, Labour lost this election and Conservative Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. The Mirror's continued support of the Labour government was in spite of its falling popularity over the previous few months which had been partly as a result of what was labelled by the Daily Mail the "Winter of Discontent", where the country was crippled by numerous public sector strikes.
By the time of the 1983 UK 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, then led by Michael Foot, condemning the Thatcher-led Tory government for its "waste of our nation", as well as 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. 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.
At the 1987 UK general election, the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour, led by Neil Kinnock, and urged its readers with the slogan "You know he's right, chuck her out." By this stage, unemployment was falling and inflation had remained low for several years. As a result, the Tories were re-elected for a third successive term, although Labour did cut the Tory majority slightly. For the 1992 UK 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. 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.
Famous features
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).
"The Old Codgers", a fictional pair who commented on the letters page from 1935 to 1990.
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. 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.
Libel, contempt of court, errors and criticism
In the 1959 Liberace v Daily Mirror case, Liberace sued the Mirror for libel. On 26 September 1956, William Connor had written a pseudonymous column hinting that the American entertainer was a homosexual; at the time, homosexual acts were illegal in Britain. The jury found in Liberace's favour and he received £8,000 in damages (estimated at £500,000 in 2009). After Liberace's death, the paper editorially asked, "Can we have our money back, please?"
In 1991, shortly after the death of Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury, the Daily Mirror ran a column by Joe Haines which contained extensive insults towards Mercury, HIV/AIDS victims, and homosexuals. The article prompted an open letter in condemnation from folk singer Lal Waterson, later recorded as a song by her sister Norma.
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.
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". 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.
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".
Significant staff members
Editors
Source: Tabloid Nation
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)
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)
Awards
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). 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. The Mirror also won the "Cudlipp Award" in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2010.