# Have you heard of the (UK) Daily Mail, what's your opinion about it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 23, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527 "2011-10-23T12:19:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/1 "2011-10-23T12:19:41Z")
The Daily Mail seems to have quite the reputation on some boards, so I’m curious if the non-British here read or know-of it. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/2 "2011-10-23T12:21:16Z")
It’s basically the UK tabloid equivalent of FOX News. Complete trash, with virtually no redeeming features. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/3 "2011-10-23T12:54:06Z")
I’m not really in a position to comment on the OP, being British, but the Daily Mail is an interesting phenomenon. Because of the terms of the OP I will spoiler my opinions: [spoiler]It has been, for decades, the tabloid of the unthinking right. By that I mean people who were quite well off, xenophobic and conservative (small c), or in other words relatively wealthy (in US terms not wealthy, but in 1970s UK terms they had a mortgage) but undereducated. My parents used to have a subscription when I was growing up in the 1970s. It was racist and had little merit, and a relatively limited popularity - hovering at maybe #6 or #7 in a crowded market in the UK with low distribution numbers compared to the population. However in the last few years things have _really_ changed: 1. It has become self-parody: a) regarding UK house prices b) regarding what will or will not cause cancer (constantly jumping on peer-reviewed scientific publications and exaggerating or misrepresenting them) c) Gypsies and immigrants are the cause of all ills d) Homosexuality (and associated PC) is the downfall of society 1. It has become an enormously successful online gossip rag The latter is an astonishing strategic coup by whoever is in charge of the online part of the publication. And here’s the freaky bit: the majority of its pageviews are from the US. According to Alexa, it’s site #93 in the whole of the United States - TMZ is only #362. That is absolutely astonishing. Pity it’s a piece of shit.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/4 "2011-10-23T13:18:59Z")
Ah, The Daily Fail. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/5 "2011-10-23T13:39:34Z")
Ah the Daily Wails. I have always enjoyed reading it. It can light up an otherwise boring day. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/6 "2011-10-23T13:43:43Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Ah, The Daily Fail. +1. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/7 "2011-10-23T13:54:12Z")
Yeah, I’ve always heard that it is not considered a reputable paper, more like the National Enquirer than a real paper. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/8 "2011-10-23T14:43:43Z")
Obligatory [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI) link. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/9 "2011-10-23T15:02:14Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Ah, The Daily Fail. Or, my personal favourite, the Daily Heil! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/10 "2011-10-23T16:09:27Z")
They also have a bit of a reputation for plagiarism. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/11 "2011-10-23T16:14:07Z")
I’m in Canada, and it’s a guilty pleasure site to read celebrity gossip. Or look at pictures of famous people. Or see pictures of hedgehogs. I take all words with a large dose of salt–the website for the Daily Mail has frequent errors in its text, such as missing words, repeated words, misspellings and so on. It’s trash, agreed. But I look at it. I have also heard the assertions more than once that the Daily Mail’s online version steals content. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/12 "2011-10-23T16:37:51Z")
Another Englishman, so I’ll box my opinion, but While most of it is xenophobic, house-price-fall-gives-you-cancer and sawn-roasting-romanian-paedophiles-steal-your-jobs, it’s also one of the better papers in terms of actual journalism. According to Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies of the Guardian who is notoriously left-wing and in no way a fan of the Mail, it spends more on journalism than any of the other papers, which it can because it has a larger circulation that any serious paper. They also, he points out, often make stories up entirely from fiction and spin stories in a wholly dishonest way, but they do good work too, and in the opinion pages theres a Gilligan, Murray or Jennings for every Littlejohn. They just tend to bury the good stuff under bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/13 "2011-10-23T16:42:35Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > Obligatory [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI) link. I prefer [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M). 🙂 > [@Savannah](#): > > I have also heard the assertions more than once that the Daily Mail’s online version steals content. Would you believe that we’ve discussed the Mail’s penchant for plagiarism [before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=466269)? ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/14 "2011-10-23T17:28:57Z")
> [@George\_Kaplin](#): > > Or, my personal favourite, the Daily Heil! I prefer the Daily Fascist ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/15 "2011-10-23T17:31:34Z")
I’m in Canada. I have come across it on-line – a junk website for gossip and right wing nuttiness. I follow news feeds from Reuters, AP, BBC, CBC and a few others. Daily Mail is not on my list, simply because whatever it is, it is not news; it just pretends to be news. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/16 "2011-10-23T17:42:50Z")
[Obligatory link.](http://youtu.be/IoglB5NRxTo) (Yes, it’s related, but you have to watch to the end to see the connection.) ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/17 "2011-10-23T18:02:32Z")
blindboyard, when they spend more on journalism, is it by way of legitimate journalists working on meaningful stories, or is it chequebook journalism by way of handing over large cheques to individuals who give inside insights into sensationalist items? ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/18 "2011-10-23T19:17:29Z")
I read it all the time, but it often makes me think of the National Enquirer. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/19 "2011-10-23T19:37:03Z")
‘_Daily Mail_ reader’ is British shorthand for ‘petit bourgeois, rentier, socially conservative, xenophobic to some degree, anti-European Union’, the type Orwell called ‘little fascists’, just as ‘_Guardian_ reader’ is shorthand for ‘left-wing, brown-bread-and-sandals, beard-wearing, socially liberal, might have voted Liberal Democrat last time but now thinks they have betrayed liberalism by jumping into the Coalition, probably works for the government in some form, likely in social work or education, socialist who has voted Labour but thinks Blair and Brown are sell-outs to capitalism and US imperialism’. The _Daily Mail_ is actually one of the more serious papers here - if you want _National Inquirer_ equivalent, look at the _Sun_ or the _Daily Star_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527/20 "2011-10-23T19:59:40Z")
I knew that it was one of the major UK papers, and I know that there’s a running joke about classifying Brits by which of the dozen or so newspapers they read, but until this thread, I couldn’t have told you which was which. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-heard-of-the-uk-daily-mail-whats-your-opinion-about-it/600527.md?page=2)