The Daily Telegraph
This article concerns the British newspaper. See The Daily Telegraph (Australia) for the Australian publication and The Telegraph for the Indian publication.The Daily Telegraph was founded in
1855, and is one of only two remaining daily
British broadsheet newspapers, along with the
Financial Times. Its sister paper,
The Sunday Telegraph, was founded in
1961. In November 2005, the
Telegraph was the highest selling British broadsheet, with a certified average
daily circulation of 904,955. This compared with a circulation of 692,581 for
The Times, 261,193 for
The Independent, and 378,618 for
The Guardian.
[From the Audit Bureau of Circulations Ltd. These figures do not take into account the varying numbers of free copies of each paper given away at hotels, railway stations, and in aeroplanes.] According to a
MORI survey conducted in 2004, 61% of
Telegraph readers were
Conservative Party supporters compared with 31% of the general population.
[MORI poll of 21,727 British adults, July-December 2004 - http://www.mori.com/polls/2004/voting-by-readership.shtml ]Editors in recent years have been
*
Kingsley Wright*
W. F. Deedes (1974-1986)
*
Sir Max Hastings (1986-1995)
*
Charles Moore (1995-2003)
*: On October 1 2003, the newspaper announced that Moore was stepping down as the editor of the paper to spend his time working on a biography of
Margaret Thatcher*
Martin Newland (2003-2005)
*
John Bryant, (Editor-in-chief) (2005 to date)
The
Telegraph is "traditionally
right wing".
[BBC News, "Telegraph buy-out is 'done deal'", 20 January, 2004 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3412517.stm] The combination of personal links between the paper's editorial team and the leadership of the
Conservative Party, along with the paper's influence over Conservative activists, results in the paper often being jokingly referred to, especially in
Private Eye, as the
Torygraph.
The
Daily Telegraph was established on
June 29,
1855 by
Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh. He controlled it only briefly before selling it to his printer,
Joseph Moses Levy, father of the 1st
Baron Burnham. Levy appointed his sons as editors and relaunched the paper on
September 17. His most significant and successful move was reducing the price of the paper to a penny, the first of the
penny press. Within twelve months the new paper was outselling
The Times.
In 1908,
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany gave a controversial
interview to
The Daily Telegraph which severely damaged Anglo-German relations and added to international tension leading to
World War I.
In 1928 the son of the 1st
Baron Burnham sold it to the 1st
Viscount Camrose, in partnership with his brother
Viscount Kemsley and the 1st
Baron Iliffe. Both the Camrose (Berry) and Burnham (Levy-Lawson) families remained involved in management until
Conrad Black took control in 1986.
In 1937 the newspaper absorbed
The Morning Post which traditionally espoused a
Conservative position and sold predominantly amongst the retired officer class. Originally
William Ewart Berry, 1st
Viscount Camrose bought
The Morning Post with the intention of publishing it alongside the
Daily Telegraph, but poor sales of the former led him to merge the two. For some years the paper was retitled
The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post before it reverted to just
The Daily Telegraph.
The Telegraph's sister Sunday paper was founded in 1961. The conservative polemicist Sir
Peregrine Worsthorne is probably the best known journalist associated with the title (1961-97), eventually being editor for three years from 1986. In 1989 the Sunday title was briefly merged in to a seven-day operation under
Max Hastings' overall control.
Editors
Its editors have included:
*
Nigel Lawson*
Roger Fowler Wright *
J.M.W.Thompson*
Sir Peregrine Worsthorne (1986-1989)
*
Trevor Grove (1989-1992),
*
Charles Moore (1992-1995),
*
Dominic Lawson (1995-2005),
*
Sarah Sands (2005-2006)
*
Patience Wheatcroft (2006-present)
The Daily Telegraph is owned by the
Barclay brothers. Until January 2004 the newspaper group was controlled by
Canadian businessman,
Conrad, Lord Black. Black, through his holding company
Ravelston Corporation, owned
Hollinger Inc. which in turn owns 30% of
Hollinger International and, under a deal struck by
Andrew Knight through which Black bought the newspaper group in 1986, owns 78% of the voting rights. Hollinger Inc. also owns the
Chicago Sun-Times, the
Jerusalem Post, and other right-leaning publications such as
The Spectator.
On
January 18 2004, Black was sacked as
chairman of the Hollinger International
board over allegations of financial wrongdoing. Black was also sued by the company. Later that day it was reported that the
Barclay brothers had agreed to purchase Hollinger Inc. from Black, giving them the controlling interest in the newspaper group. They then launched a
takeover bid for the rest of the group,
valuing the company at
£200m. However, a suit has been filed by the Hollinger International board with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to try to block Black selling
shares in the company until an investigation into his dealings have been completed. Black filed a counter-suit but eventually United States judge Leo Strine sided with the Hollinger International board and blocked Black from selling his Hollinger Inc. shares and interests to the twins. On Sunday
March 7, the twins announced they were launching another takeover bid, this time just for the
Daily Telegraph and its Sunday sister paper rather than the whole stable. Current owner of the
Daily Express, Richard Desmond, was also interested in purchasing the paper, selling his interest in several pornographic magazines to finance the initiative. Desmond withdrew in March 2004 when the price climbed above £600m, as did
Daily Mail and General Trust plc on
June 17.
Eventually, the Barclay brothers purchased Hollinger, and with it the
Telegraph, for around £665m in late June 2004.
Amidst the unravelling of the takeover Sir David Barclay suggested that
The Daily Telegraph might in future no longer be the "house newspaper" of the Conservative Party. In an interview with
The Guardian he said, "Where the government are right we will support them." The editorial board endorsed the Conservatives in the 2005 general election.
November 15 2004 saw the tenth anniversay of the launch of the
Telegraph's website
Electronic Telegraph. Now rebranded to
telegraph.co.uk the website was the UK's first national newspaper online.
There has been much speculation about the launch of a
compact edition of
The Daily Telegraph to counter the change in size of
The Times to a
tabloid. However, the
Telegraph has denied these claims and tried to attract disgruntled
Times readers who want to read a more upmarket
broadsheet. One of its latest advertising slogans was
Impact, Not Compact.
On
10 October 2005, the
Daily Telegraph relaunched to incorporate a tabloid sports section and a new standalone business section. The
Daily Mail's star columnist and political analyst
Simon Heffer left that paper in October 2005 to rejoin the
Daily Telegraph, where he has become associate editor. Heffer, known for his combative style and wit, has written two columns a week for the
Telegraph since late October 2005.
In
Henry Winter they have a top-drawer columnist who is regarded as the best football writer of this era.
Alan Hansen is another who, in 1995, famously wrote "You'll never win anything with kids", after Manchester United lost their opening game of the season to Aston Villa with youngsters like Scholes replacing Ince, Beckham in for Kanchelskis and the departure of 128-goalscoring legend
Mark Hughes to Chelsea. United won the double that year, but that article fired up
Sir Alex Ferguson and his fledglings. Sport is now also a big business and to understand the finer details of any sporting deals there is no one better than Mihir Bose to unravel the intricacies of the deal.
The
Daily Telegraph, still smarting after losing its star sports writer
Paul Hayward to the
Mail - a fact the paper trumpeted in a TV advert during the Ashes - regards the luring of Heffer back to the broadsheet after a decade as a great coup. Martin Newland, the ex-editor of the
Daily Telegraph, said Heffer was returning to his "natural journalistic home" - "He writes with wit, candour and intelligence and has enormous depth of knowledge. His new columns will be required reading." The poaching of Heffer followed the news that the BBC's business editor Jeff Randall had quit his job, joining the paper to write two business columns a week.
Just before Christmas 2005, it was announced that the
Telegraph titles will be moving from Canada Place in Canary Wharf, to Victoria Plaza, near Victoria Station in central London. [
1]
Monday 8th May 2006 saw the first stage of a major redesign of
the Telegraph's website, based on a wider page layout and greater prominence for audio, video and journalist blogs.
In addition to the 'Daily Torygraph' (see above), Private Eye have also dubbed the Daily Telegraph as 'The Daily Hurleygraph' and 'The Daily Tottygraph' for their perceived obssesion with printing pictures of
Liz Hurley and other notable attractive women, or 'totty' as well as the 'Daily Mailograph' for when the newspaper starts focusing on issues traditionally seen as the preserve of the less respected
Daily Mail such as house prices and immigration.
On at least two occasions
The Daily Telegraph has erroneously published
premature obituaries:
*
Dave Swarbrick in 1999, prompting much embarrassing publicity for the newspaper, and Swarbrick's remark "It's not the first time I have died in Coventry."
*Ballet dancer
Katharine Sergava in 2003, which also caused
The New York Times to print an erroneous obituary based on
The Telegraph's.
The Telegraph is nonetheless noted for the humour and quality of writing of many of its obituaries.
On Wednesday
24 February,
1988,
the Daily Telegraph was printed with the wrong date: Thursday
25 February was printed by mistake. This caused complaints from confused readers, but also inspired the first
front page cartoon by
Matt, who now has a cartoon on the front page of the Telegraph almost every day. The cartoon had the caption: "I hope I have a better Thursday than I did yesterday".
*
Peter Simple, the pseudonym of Michael Wharton, who wrote a
humorous column in the paper from 1957 to 2006.
*
Auberon Waugh, a previous columnist
*
Anthony Loyd, one-time war correspondent
*
J. H. B. Peel, columnist
*
Mark Steyn, former columnist
*
telegraph.co.uk*
The Guardian: The plight of Hollinger*
BBC: Telegraph empire in tycoons' grip – 18 Jan 2004*
'Daily Telegraph "may back Blair"' – from BBC News Online
*
The continuing takeover saga – from BBC News
7 March 2004
