Editing Daily Mail (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Daily Mail Zeppelin Fund WWI.jpg|thumb|right|Advertisement by the ''Daily Mail'' for insurance against [[Zeppelin]] attacks during the [[First World War]]]]
The ''Daily Mail'', devised by [[Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe|Alfred Harmsworth]] (later Viscount Northcliffe) and his brother [[Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere|Harold]] (later Viscount Rothermere), was first published on 4 May 1896. It was an immediate success.<ref name="Temple-2008" />{{rp|28}} It cost a halfpenny at a time when other London dailies cost one penny, and was more populist in tone and more concise in its coverage than its rivals. The planned issue was 100,000 copies, but the print run on the first day was 397,215, and additional printing facilities had to be acquired to sustain a circulation that rose to 500,000 in 1899. [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]], 19th-century [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]], dismissed the ''Daily Mail'' as "a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys."<ref>{{cite book|last = Wilson|first = A. N.|author-link = A. N. Wilson|title = The Victorians|publisher = W. W. Norton|year = 2003|location = New York|page = [https://archive.org/details/victorians00wils/page/590 590]|url = https://archive.org/details/victorians00wils/page/590|isbn = 978-0-393-04974-9}}</ref>{{rp|590–591}} By 1902, at the end of the [[Boer War]]s, the circulation was over a million, making it the largest in the world.<ref>{{cite book|title=Fleet Street: Five Hundred Years of the Press|first=Dennis |last=Griffiths|publisher=The British Library |pages=132–133|isbn=0-7123-0697-8|year=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=News and News Sources|page=83|author=Paul Manning|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yddZAAAAMAAJ|isbn=978-0-7619-5796-6|year=2001|publisher=Sage Publications|access-date=10 November 2020|archive-date=17 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217075159/https://books.google.com/books?id=yddZAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

With Harold running the business side of the operation and Alfred as editor, the ''Mail'' from the start adopted an [[Imperialism|imperialist]] political stance, taking a patriotic line in the [[Second Boer War]], leading to claims that it was not reporting the issues of the day objectively.<ref>Gardiner, The Times, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1917 p. 113</ref> The ''Mail'' also set out to entertain its readers with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions.<ref name="Mackenzie-1921">{{Cite book|last=Mackenzie|first=Frederick Arthur|url=http://archive.org/details/mysteryofdailyma00mackrich|title=The Mystery of the Daily Mail: 1896–1921|year=1921|location=London|publisher=Associated Newspapers, Ltd.|others=University of California Libraries|oclc=270061|accessdate=2024-08-07}}</ref>{{rp|5}} It was the first newspaper to recognise the potential market of the female reader with a women's interest section<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bingham|first=Adrian|date=2013|title='The Woman's Realm': ''The Daily Mail'' and Female Readers|url=https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/intl-gps/intl-gps-essays/full-ghn-contextual-essays/ghn_essay_dmha_bingham2_website.pdf|access-date=9 September 2020|website=Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896–2016|publisher=Gale: Cengage Learning|archive-date=3 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303210155/https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/intl-gps/intl-gps-essays/full-ghn-contextual-essays/ghn_essay_dmha_bingham2_website.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Mackenzie-1921" />{{rp|16}} and hired one of the first female war correspondents [[Sarah Wilson (war correspondent)|Sarah Wilson]] who reported during the Second Boer War.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ignota|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VvMRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22sarah+wilson%22+war+correspondent&pg=PA68|title=The Harmsworth Magazine|chapter=Ladies at the Front: The Woman's Side of the War|location=London|publisher=Harmsworth Bros. Limited|date=February–July 1900|page=68|edition=1st|volume=4|lccn=86645585|access-date=10 November 2020|archive-date=17 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217075127/https://books.google.com/books?id=VvMRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22sarah+wilson%22+war+correspondent&pg=PA68|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Mackenzie-1921" />{{rp|27}}

In 1900, the ''Daily Mail'' began printing simultaneously in both Manchester and London, the first national newspaper to do so (in 1899, the ''Daily Mail'' had organised special trains to bring the London-printed papers north). The same production method was adopted in 1909 by the ''[[Daily Sketch]]'', in 1927 by the ''[[Daily Express]]'' and eventually by virtually all the other national newspapers. Printing of the ''Scottish Daily Mail'' was switched from Edinburgh to the Deansgate plant in Manchester in 1968 and, for a while, ''[[The Sunday People|The People]]'' was also printed on the ''Mail'' presses in Deansgate. In 1987, printing at Deansgate ended, and the northern editions were thereafter printed at other [[Associated Newspapers]] plants.

For a time in the early 20th century, the paper championed vigorously against the "[[Yellow Peril]]", warning of the alleged dangers said to be posted by Chinese immigration to the United Kingdom.{{sfn|Braber|2020|p=75}} The "Yellow Peril" theme came to be abandoned because the Anglo-German naval race led to a more plausible threat to the British empire to be presented.{{sfn|Braber|2020|p=75}} In common with other Conservative papers, the ''Daily Mail'' used the Anglo-German naval race as a way of criticising the Liberal governments that were in power from 1906 onward, claiming that the Liberals were too pusillanimous in their response to the Tirpitz plan.

In 1906, the paper offered £10,000 for the first flight from London to [[Manchester]], followed by a £1,000 prize for the first flight across the [[English Channel]].<ref name="Temple-2008" />{{rp|29}} ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' magazine thought the idea preposterous and offered £10,000 for the first flight to [[Mars]], but by 1910 both the ''Mail''{{-'}}s prizes had been won. The paper continued to award [[Daily Mail aviation prizes|prizes for aviation]] sporadically until 1930.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McFarland |first1=Morag |title=Chronology of Key Events in the History of the Daily Mail |url=http://find.galegroup.com/dmha/html/ChronologyofNotableEvents.pdf |website=Daily Mail Historical Archive |publisher=Gale |access-date=13 August 2018 |archive-date=14 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814035904/http://find.galegroup.com/dmha/html/ChronologyofNotableEvents.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> Virginia Woolf criticised the ''Daily Mail'' as an unreliable newspaper, citing the statement published in the ''Daily Mail'' in July 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion that "every one of the Europeans was put to the sword in a most atrocious manner" as the ''Daily Mail'' maintained that the entire European community in Beijing had been massacred.{{sfn|Woolf|2020|p=636}} A month later in August 1900 the ''Daily Mail'' published a story about the relief of the western Legations in Beijing, where the westerners in Beijing together with the thousands of Chinese Christians had been under siege by the Boxers.{{sfn|Woolf|2020|p=636}}

Before the outbreak of the [[First World War]], the paper was accused of warmongering when it reported that Germany was planning to crush the [[British Empire]].<ref name="Temple-2008" />{{rp|29}} When war began, Northcliffe's call for [[conscription]] was seen by some as controversial, although he was vindicated when conscription was introduced in 1916.<ref>''The New York Times'' Current History 1917, New York Times Company, 1917 p. 211</ref> On 21 May 1915, Northcliffe criticised [[Horatio Kitchener|Lord Kitchener]], the [[Secretary of State for War]], regarding weapons and munitions. Kitchener was considered by some to be a national hero. The paper's circulation dropped from 1,386,000 to 238,000. Fifteen hundred members of the [[London Stock Exchange]] burned unsold copies and called for a boycott of the Harmsworth Press. Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]] accused the paper of being disloyal to the country.

When Kitchener died, the ''Mail'' reported it as a great stroke of luck for the British Empire.<ref name="Temple-2008">{{cite book |last=Temple |first=Mick |title=The British Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0SlqZYaWNuQC |url-status=live |publisher=McGraw-Hill Education (UK) |date=2008 |access-date=4 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217075128/https://books.google.com/books?id=0SlqZYaWNuQC |archive-date=17 February 2022 |isbn=978-0-335-22297-1}}</ref>{{rp|32}} The paper was critical of Asquith's conduct of the war, and he resigned on 5 December 1916.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hunt |first=Jocelyn |title=Britain, 1846–1919 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dr_JtG9-4DMC |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2003 |page=368 |isbn=978-0-415-25707-7}}</ref> His successor [[David Lloyd George]] asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him from criticising the government. Northcliffe declined.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bHlnAAAAMAAJ |last=Clarke |first=Tom |title=Northcliffe in History: An Intimate Study of Press Power |publisher=[[Hutchinson Heinemann|Hutchinson]] |location=London |edition=2nd |year=1950 |page=112 |lccn=50033825 |access-date=2024-08-07}}</ref>

According to [[Piers Brendon]]:
:Northcliffe's methods made the ''Mail'' the most successful newspaper hitherto seen in the history of journalism. But by confusing gewgaws with pearls, by selecting the paltry at the expense of the significant, by confirming atavistic prejudices, by oversimplifying the complex, by dramatizing the humdrum, by presenting stories as entertainment and by blurring the difference between news and views, Northcliffe titillated, if he did not debouch, the public mind; he polluted, if he did not poison, the wells of knowledge.<ref>Piers Brendon, ''Eminent Edwardians: Four figures who defined their age: Northcliffe, Balfour, Pankhurst, Baden-Powell'' (1979), pp 25–26</ref>