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The Daily Telegraph
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- For "The Daily Telegraph" in Australia, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia). For other uses of "The Telegraph", see The Telegraph (disambiguation).
The Daily Telegraph (previously named, and often still referred to as, The Telegraph) is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in 1855. Excepting the Financial Times and The Herald (Glasgow), it is the only remaining national daily newspaper printed on traditional newsprint in the broadsheet format in the United Kingdom, as most other broadsheet publications have converted to the smaller tabloid/compact or Berliner formats.
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Encyclopedia
- For "The Daily Telegraph" in Australia, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia). For other uses of "The Telegraph", see The Telegraph (disambiguation).
The Daily Telegraph (previously named, and often still referred to as, The Telegraph) is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in 1855. Excepting the Financial Times and The Herald (Glasgow), it is the only remaining national daily newspaper printed on traditional newsprint in the broadsheet format in the United Kingdom, as most other broadsheet publications have converted to the smaller tabloid/compact or Berliner formats. Its sister paper, The Sunday Telegraph, was founded in 1961.
In January 2009, the Telegraph was the highest selling British 'quality' paper, with a certified average daily circulation of 842,912. This compared with a circulation of 617,483 for The Times, 358,844 for The Guardian, and 215,504 for The Independent. According to a MORI survey conducted in 2005, 64% of Telegraph readers intended to support the Conservative Party in the coming elections.
Founding history
The Daily Telegraph was established on 29 June 1855 by Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh who used it as a platform to campaign against the Duke of Cambridge becoming commander-in-chief of the British army. He controlled it only briefly before selling it to his printer, Joseph Moses Levy, father of the first Baron Burnham. Levy appointed his sons as editors and relaunched the paper on 17 September. He soon reduced the price of the paper to a penny. Within twelve months the new paper was outselling The Times.
In 1908, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany gave a controversial to The Daily Telegraph that severely damaged Anglo-German relations and added to international tensions which eventually culminated in 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 Sunday Telegraph
The Daily Telegraphs sister Sunday paper was founded in 1961. The writer 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. In 2005 the paper was revamped, a glossy fashion magazine being added to the more traditional review section. It costs £1.90 and includes separate Money, Home and Living, Sport, Travel and Business supplements.
Recent history
The Daily Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers. Until January 2004, the newspaper group was controlled by Canadian businessman Conrad Black. Black, through his holding company Ravelston Corporation, owned Hollinger Inc. which in turn owns 30% of Hollinger International and, under a deal masterminded by Andrew Knight through which Black bought the newspaper group in 1986, owns 78% of the voting rights. Hollinger Inc. also owns the liberal Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, and conservative publications such as The Spectator.
On 18 January 2004, Black was dismissed 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 7 March, 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 17 June.
Eventually, the Barclay brothers purchased Hollinger, and with it the Telegraph, for around £665m in late June 2004.
Amidst the unraveling of the takeover Sir David Barclay suggested that The Daily Telegraph might in the future no longer be the "house newspaper" of the Conservatives. In an interview with The Guardian he said, "Where the government are right we will support them."
The editorial board endorsed the Conservative party in the 2005 general election.
15 November 2004 saw the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Telegraph's website Electronic Telegraph. Now re-launched as , the website was the UK's first national newspaper online. Monday 8 May 2006 saw the first stage of a major redesign of the Telegraphs website, based on a wider page layout and greater prominence for audio, video and journalist blogs.
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 and is a regular contributor to the news podcast.
November, 2005 - launches the first regular podcast service by a newspaper in the UK.
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. The new office features a 'hub and spoke' layout for the newsroom, which will produce content for print and online editions.
In October 2006, with its relocation to Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, the Telegraph rebranded itself the Telegraph Media Group, repositioning itself as a multimedia company.
On 2 September 2008 the Daily Telegraph was printed with colour on each page for the first time.
Website
telegraph.co.uk is the online version of the newspaper. It includes the articles from the print additions of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph as well as web-only content such as breaking news, features, picture galleries and blogs. It was named UK Consumer Website of the Year 2007 by the Association of Online Publishers .
The site is overseen by Edward Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, and Marcus Warren as editor. Other staff include Shane Richmond, communities editor, Ian Douglas, head of digital production and Chei Amlani, online sport editor.
The site, which has been the focus of the group's recent efforts to create an integrated news operation producing content for print and online from the same newsroom, completed a relaunch during 2008 involving the use of the Escenic content management system, popular among northern European and Scandinavian newspaper groups.
Telegraph TV is an Online Video on Demand Television service run by The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph. It is hosted on The Telegraphs official website, telegraph.co.uk.
History
The website was launched, under the name electronic telegraph at midday on 15 November 1994 at the headquarters of The Daily Telegraph at Canary Wharf in London Docklands. It was Europe's first daily web-based newspaper.
Initially the site published only the top stories from the print edition of the newspaper but it gradually increased its coverage until virtually all of the newspaper was carried online and the website was also publishing original material.
The website, hosted on a Sun Microsystems Sparc 20 server and connected via a 64 kbit/s leased line from Demon Internet, was edited by Ben Rooney. Key personnel behind the launch of the site were the then marketing manager of The Daily Telegraph, Hugo Drayton, and the webmaster Fiona Carter. Drayton later became managing director of the newspaper.
An early coup for the site was the publication of articles by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Bill Clinton and the Whitewater controversy. The availability of the articles online brought a large American audience to the site. In 1997, the Clinton administration issued a 331-page report that accused Evans-Pritchard of peddling "right-wing inventions". Derek Bishton, who by then had succeeded Rooney as editor, later wrote: "In the days before ET it would have been highly unlikely that anyone in the US would have been aware of Evans-Pritchard's work - and certainly not to the extent that the White House would be forced to issue such a lengthy rebuttal."
Bishton, who is now consulting editor for Telegraph Media Group, was followed as editor by Richard Burton, who was made redundant in August 2006. Edward Roussel replaced Burton.
The site is now the most popular UK newspaper website with 18.6 million unique users per month, narrowly beating guardian.co.uk which is read by 18.5 million people monthly.
My Telegraph
telegraph.co.uk offers a platform for readers where they can have their own blog, save articles and network with other readers. Launched in May 2007, My Telegraph won a Cross Media Award from international newspaper organisation Ifra in October 2007 . One of the judges, Robert Cauthorn, described the project as "the best deployment of blogging yet seen in any newspaper anywhere in the world".
Posts on user blogs are not moderated by the newspaper, and registered users can leave comments on their own and other blogs (including Telegraph journalist blogs) without waiting for approval. Comments on stories on the main website must be approved by the website's moderators before appearing on the page.
Political stance
The Daily Telegraph has been politically conservative in modern times. The personal links between the paper's editors and the leadership of the Conservative Party, also known by the term Tories, along with the paper's influence over Conservative activists, has resulted in the paper commonly being referred to, especially in Private Eye, as the Torygraph. However, in its early years it was associated with Gladstone and the Liberal party, coining the nickname "the people's William".
Notable mistakes
The Daily Telegraph has erroneously published at least four premature obituaries:
- Cockie Hoogterp, the second wife of Baron Blixen, in 1938 after the Baron's third wife died in a car accident. Mrs. Hoogterp sent all her bills back marked "Deceased" and survived her premature obituary by over 50 years.
- 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."
- Dorothy Southworth Ritter, the widow of Tex Ritter and mother of John Ritter, in August 2001. She eventually died in 2003, two months after her son's death.
- Ballet dancer Katharine Sergava in 2003, which also caused
The New York Times to print an erroneous obituary based on The Telegraphs.
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".
On Saturday, 26 August 2006, content from Claire Zulkey of MediaBistro Toolbox appeared on Melissa Whitworth's blog, leading to accusations of plagiarism. Whitworth stated that it had been published in error after she had forwarded the piece to her editor.
Editors
- 1855: Thornton Leigh Hunt
- 1873: Edwin Arnold
- 1888: John le Sage
- 1923: Fred Miller
- 1924: Arthur Watson
- 1950: Colin Coote
- 1964: Maurice Green
- 1974: Bill Deedes
- 1986: Max Hastings
- 1995: Charles Moore
- 2003: Martin Newland
- 2005: John Bryant
- 2007: Will Lewis
See also
Further reading
- The House The Berrys Built by Duff Hart-Davis. Concerns the history of The Daily Telegraph from its inception to 1986. Illustrated with references and illustrations of William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose (later called Lord Camrose).
- William Camrose: Giant of Fleet Street by his son Lord Hartwell. Illustrated biography with black and white photographic plates and includes an index. Concerns his links with The Daily Telegraph.
External links
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- – from BBC News Online
- – from BBC News 7 March 2004
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