Tabloid Nation is the story about the history of The Daily Mirror. Albert Harmsworth created The Daily Mirror on 2nd November 1903 and was seen as the first Tabloid newspaper. Harmsworth, who was later to be known as Lord Northcliffe had already established himself as a media mogul thanks to the creation of his successful newspaper The Daily Mail in 1896.
However, Lord Northcliffe wanted to create the first newspaper, which was “produced for and by gentlewomen.” There were two key problems he had identified and that was Women in the early 20th century could not write and did not have the desire to learn to read. Northcliffe wanted to change that and he hired Hamilton Fyfe, the editor of The Morning Advertiser to help make his vision a reality.
The paper was initially a disaster and Fyfe’s first job was to fire the female staff, including the Daily Mirror’s first editor, Mary Howarth who had been a close alley to Lord Northcliffe as she has wrote for the women’s page of The Daily Mail.
Lord Northcliffe learnt from an early age that the key to gaining a reader’s attention is to entice to their greatest desires and treat them as common folk by entice them with prizes, but with questions that were near enough impossible to answer.
This was achieved with the creation of his first Magazine, Answers where he would create ridiculous competitions and offers, this included where in one edition he offered reader’s £200 of free “life insurance”, which would be paid to the family of anyone killed in a railway accident. This was smart because in the beginning of the 20th century poverty was rife and £200 was a lot of money to many people and resulted in Answers having over 700,000 for one competition and increased circulation dramatically.
Northcliffe because known as “The Chief” and he hired Kennedy “KJ” Jones to spearhead the written format of the mission. KJ had previously worked for William Randolph Hurst’s premier newspaper, The New York Morning Journal and was a very experienced journalist who was not afraid to speak his mind and this was constant throughout his stay at The Daily Mirror.
The Daily Mirror was to be written in a way to ensure that everyone would be able to read the paper and understand, which was key to Northcliffe's vision. It was not just the words that were key to the operation as Northcliffe hired Hannen Swaffer, who would save the paper and was the first photo Journalist. The Daily Mirror became the first British newspapers to show photographs on the front page.
The April 2 1904 edition was the first edition of “the photo paper” and a picture of King Edward VII and his family trebled circulation to 71,000. Fyfe and Swaffer played to the reader’s emotions and used “tear-jerking” photos to move the reader’s and drawn their interest in. This would change in 1907 when Fyfe left The Mirror to be replaced by another former employee of Hurst; Alexander Kenealy.
It was the words of Kenealy and the pictures of Swaffer that drove The Daily Mirror’s success forward. This included a story about a pony that was living in poor living conditions and a Mirror reporter was sent to buy the pony and rescue it. This was financed by Northcliffe and was then purchased by the Lord Mayoress of London. Again playing to the reader’s emotion, which is still the same today as any news story, which involving innocent groups like children and the elderly will sell newspapers.
Other successful tactics included Kenealy writing ridiculous stories, which any educated person would know was not true and knew that the majority of the readership would believe his every word. The defining moment of The Daily Mirror would be on 14th May 1910 when Swaffer had obtained photos of the body of King Edward VII and decided to use them on the front page and this resulted in a then world-recording breaking 2,013,000 copies of The Daily Mirror were sold that day.
Swaffer and Kenealy knew that they were to face severe backlash from the Royal Family, but they both liked the prospect of being held in a tower, but Queen Alexandria reacted by saying that she allowed The Mirror to print the photos as it was her” favourite paper.” This expressed two key elements of today’s Tabloid newspapers, which are the press’s fascination with the Royal Family and the duty to never reveal your sources even if it means you end up in prison.
Lord Northcliffe was starting to dislike the newspaper he founded and the tactics of Swaffer who he felt was damaging the paper reputation. This was never more so than on April 15th 1912 when Swaffer wanted to use the every page in the newspaper to show pictures of The Titanic, which had sunk the previous evening. However, Northcliffe felt that it would be more respectful to have a well written-news story, but Swaffer had his way and every page of The Mirror had pictures of the ship, apart from the back page. This strained relationship is similar to the relationship of Charles Foster Kane and Jebediah Leland in Citizen Kane, which is ironically based on the life of William Randolph Hurst.
After another scandal Swaffer “sacked himself”, but throughout the rest of his life he portrayed himself as “The Pope of Fleet Street” as he claimed he was “The Journalist with 20 million readers.” He will still be seen as the person who invented and established photojournalism.
Lord Northcliffe finally cut his ties from The Daily Mirror in 1910, but it was not until late 1914 on the eve of World War One where he sold his remaining shares to his Brother Lord Rothermere for £100,000. Northcliffe was to try his hand at politics, much like his American namesake Hurst, but much like Hurst his attempted failed and he was to be greatly affected by mental problems throughout the rest of his life until his death on August 14 1922.
Unlike his brother Lord Rothermere did not care for Journalism and was only interested in making money out of his latest business acquisition. World War One would turn out to be his benefactor as sales of the paper grew from 1.2 to 1.7 million copies daily and thanks to Hannen Swaffer’s apprentice, Guy Bartholomew the pictures in The Daily Mirror painted the true picture of the war for the eyes of the British People.
After the war, The Daily Mirror suffered under the cost-cutting measure of Rothermere and was neglected, lost it’s northern premises and was again seen as the forgot member of Rothermere Media Empire.
The Free Gift War in 1922 damaged The Daily Mirror as their rival The Daily Herald try to obtain readers by any means necessary and this included giving free gifts to draw readers in at any cost. This tactic would be copied by all of the other national newspapers in The United Kingdom and for Rothermere this meant protecting his key investment, The Daily Mail and left The Daily Mirror neglected.
Rothermere started to invest his money in paper mills across the Atlantic in Canada, but in 1929 The Wall Street Crash demolished all of his profits and William Randolph Hurst was forced to close many of his newspapers. Rothermere was also affected and realised he had to keep his money direct towards The Daily Mail.
The reputation of The Daily Mirror was changed in 1931 when Lord Rothermere started to broadcast his fascist views in his newspapers and formed the United Empire political party. He had been influenced by several trips to Germany where he attended the rallies of Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, who he also befriend. Rothermere would reflect these views to his political propaganda, which he foliated in The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail.
It was not until 1934 when The Daily Mirror was given a true burst of life when Harry Guy Bartholomew created the “Bartland”, which was a system that allowed photos to be sent through radio wires and established links between Britain and America. This was the groundwork for what would be the restoration of The Daily Mirror in the vision of “Bart.”
Lord Northcliffe, Lord Rothermere, William Randolph Hearst and Charles Foster Kane were all men who were at one time or another was a leader of mass media empires. They all strived to be the voice of the people and too have their political vision made reality. However, all of them even though one is fictional would realise that this dream was simply just that and that all they wanted was to be respected by everyone. What they have all done thought in film and reality is establishing the Tabloid newspaper that we read today.
No comments:
Post a Comment