Daily Star (United Kingdom)

Daily Star

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	Richard Desmond
Publisher	Northern and Shell Media
Editor	Dawn Neesom
Founded	2 November 1978
Political alignment	Populist, Right-wing
Headquarters	10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN
Circulation	706,757 (July 2011)[1]
Official website	http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ Daily Star on Twitter Daily Star on facebook

The Daily Star is a popular daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom. It first published on 2 November 1978, and was the first new national paper to be launched since the Daily Worker in 1930 (now Morning Star). For many years it published Monday to Saturday but on 15 September 2002 a sister Sunday edition, the Daily Star Sunday, was launched with a separate staff. On 31 October 2009 the paper published its 10,000th issue.

The paper was launched from Manchester and initially circulated only in the North and Midlands. It was conceived by the then-owners of Express Newspapers, Trafalgar House, to take on the strength of the Daily Mirror and Sun in the north. It was also intended to utilise the under-capacity of the Great Ancoats Street presses in Manchester as the Daily Express was losing circulation. The Daily Star sold out its first night print of 1,400,000. Its cover price has decreased over the years in order to compete with its rival The Sun.^[2]

The Daily Star is published by Express Newspapers, which also publishes the Daily Express and Sunday Express. The group is now owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell company. The paper predominately focuses on stories largely revolving around celebrities, sport, and news and gossip about popular television programmes, such as soap operas and reality TV shows.

Its editor is Dawn Neesom. She was promoted to the post in December 2003 after the previous editor, Peter Hill, moved to become editor of the Daily Express. Previously she had been an executive on the paper in charge of the features department.

Regular features

The newspaper features a photograph of a topless model on weekdays (in a similar vein to The Sun's Page 3 feature) and has discovered some well known models, most notably Rachel Ter Horst in 1993, and Lucy Pinder on a Bournemouth beach in Summer 2003. Such models as Cherry Dee and Michelle Marsh have also appeared on their page 3. These women are known in the paper as "Star Babes". The paper's glamour photographer is Jeany Savage.

Other regular features in the Daily Star include Goss a daily gossip column edited by Jessica Brown see The Goss Girls, "Playlist", a daily music news column edited by Kim Dawson, "Star TV", a television news column edited by Peter Dyke and Katie Begley, Mike Ward's weekly TV review page and "Forum", a daily page devoted to readers' text messages, which are apparently printed verbatim. Opinion columns by Dominik Diamond and Vanessa Feltz were discontinued in 2008. The chief football writer is Brian Woolnough, lured from The Sun in 2001 for a £200,000 pay packet.^[3]

The paper's leader column, entitled "The Daily Star Says", appears most days on Page 6.

Beau Peep is the daily strip cartoon.

Controversy

Jeffrey Archer

In 1987, the newspaper lost a high profile libel action brought by Jeffrey Archer, leading to an award of £500,000 in damages, over allegations of Archer's involvement with Monica Coghlan. The editor of the Daily Star, Lloyd Turner, was sacked six weeks after the trial. However the newspaper always stood by its story, and on 19 July 2001 Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial and was sentenced to a total of four years' imprisonment. The paper later launched a bid to reclaim £2.2m – the original payout plus interest and damages.^[4]

Hillsborough disaster

On 18 April 1989, three days after the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool F.C. fans were fatally injured at an FA Cup semi-final game, the Daily Star ran the front page headline Dead Fans Robbed By Drunk Thugs, alleging that Liverpool fans had stolen from fans injured or killed in the tragedy. These allegations, along with claims that fans had also attacked police officers aiding the injured, were published in several other newspapers, though it was the content of a front page article by The Sun on 19 April which caused the most controversy.^[5]

Madeleine McCann

Both the Daily Star and its Sunday equivalent, as well as its stablemates the Daily Express and Sunday Express, featured heavy coverage of the missing toddler Madeleine McCann following her disappearance in May 2007. In 2008 the McCann family sued the Star and Express for libel following the newspapers' coverage of the case. The action concerned more than 100 stories across the Daily Express, Daily Star and their Sunday equivalents, which accused the McCanns of involvement in their daughter's disappearance. The newspapers' coverage was regarded by the McCanns as grossly defamatory. In a settlement at the High Court of Justice, the newspapers agreed to run a front-page apology to the McCanns on 19 March 2008, publish another apology on the front pages of the Sunday editions on 23 March and make a statement of apology at the High Court. They also agreed to pay costs and substantial damages, which the McCanns plan to use to aid their search for their daughter.^[6] In its apology, the Daily Star apologised for printing "stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be responsible for, the death of their daughter Madeleine and for covering it up" and stated that "We now recognise that such a suggestion is absolutely untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance."^[7]

Volcanic ash front page

On 21 April 2010, in the aftermath of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the Star splashed a computer-generated image on its front page of 1982's British Airways Flight 9, which encountered volcanic ash and suffered the temporary loss of all engines. The image, taken from a documentary, was accompanied by a headline "Terror as plane hits ash cloud", without any indication on the front page that the image and event was a historical one.^[8] The splash, on the first day that flights restarted after a six-day closure of UK airspace due to volcanic ash, led to the removal of the paper from newsagents at some UK airports.^[9]

Grand Theft Auto Rothbury

On 21 July 2010, the paper ran a story^[10] by Jerry Lawton claiming that Rockstar Games was planning an instalment of their Grand Theft Auto series of video games based around the then-recent shootings carried out by Raoul Moat. Amid outcry at the blatant inaccuracy of the story, an apology was published by the paper on 24 July^[11] for making no attempt to verify the truth of any of their own claims, publishing what they claimed to be the cover, criticising Rockstar for their alleged plans without questioning the likelihood, making no attempt to contact Rockstar before publishing, and obtaining statements from a grieving relative of one of Moat's victims. The paper claimed to have paid "substantial" damages to Rockstar as a result, which Rockstar donated to charity.

Prior to the paper's apology, Lawton defended his story on his Facebook page, claiming to be "baffled by the fury of adult gamers,", describing them as "grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another". He then added "Think I'll challenge them to a virtual reality duel....stab....I win!!!"^[12]

Christine Bleakley & Frank Lampard

On Saturday 7 August 2010, the paper said that Christine Bleakley and Frank Lampard had been away to Las Vegas to look for wedding venues, on 9 August, the paper apologised as a spokesperson for the couple said that the pair didn't visit Vegas and there are no plans for them to marry.

Editors

1978: Derek Jameson

1980: Lloyd Turner

1987: Mike Gabbert. He was brought in to take the paper downmarket, which he did, briefly including content from the Sunday Sport under the name Daily Star Sport (this was before the Daily Sport launched). He had a very short tenure as circulation dropped dramatically. He was the journalist who had exposed the Sheffield Wednesday trio of Swan, Layne and Kay for match fixing in the 1960s.

1987: Brian Hitchen

1994: Phil Walker

1998: Peter Hill

2003: Dawn Neesom

Political allegiance

Unlike most national newspapers, the Daily Star has limited articles on politics and has rarely shown clear support for any specific party or leader; although in the run-up to the 2010 general election the newspaper printed several articles which hinted that it wanted to see Labour and Gordon Brown voted out of power, while at the same time it seldom sang the praises of the Conservatives or their leader David Cameron – who ultimately won the election but was forced to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats after failing to gain an overall majority.^[13]

See also

• Beau Peep

References

1. ^ "ABCs". The Guardian (UK). 12 August 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2011/aug/12/abcs-national-newspapers. Retrieved 24 September 2011.  (July 2011)
2. ^ "Red-top papers prepare for marketing war". http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23842174-red-top-papers-prepare-for-marketing-war.do. Retrieved 7 June 2010. 
3. ^ David Lister (16 January 2001). "Desmond gets his chequebook out for the lads". The Independent (UK). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/desmond-gets-his-chequebook-out-for-the-lads-702635.html. Retrieved 14 July 2010. 
4. ^ Raphael, Adam (1989). My Learned Friends: an Insider's View of the Jeffrey Archer Case and Other Notorious Actions. ISBN 9781852270940. 
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ "Damages due over McCann stories". BBC News. 18 March 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7303801.stm. 
7. ^ "Kate & Gerry McCann: Sorry". Daily Star. 19 March 2008. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/32577/Kate-Gerry-McCann-Sorry/. 
8. ^ The lead stated: "Exclusive: This is the moment a British Airways jumbo jet hit a cloud of volcanic ash at 37,000ft. Yet last night all UK airports finally reopened, in spite of the ash cloud." The full story was published on page six. See: "Wall, Emma (21 April 2010). "Drama as airlines fly again". Daily Star: p. 6. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/131706/PLANE-HITS-ASH-CLOUD/. Retrieved 13 May 2010. 
9. ^ Plunkett, John (21 April 2010). "Daily Star pulled from airports over volcano ash splash". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/21/airports-pull-daily-star. Retrieved 13 May 2010. 
10. ^ http://www.mcvuk.com/static/images/assets/565/1055_DailyStar_GTARothbury.jpg
11. ^ "Rockstar Games – Grand Theft Auto – An apology". Daily Star. 26 July 2010. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/145880/Rockstar-Games-Grand-Theft-Auto-An-apology. Retrieved 22 October 2010. 
12. ^ "Journalist defends GTA: Raoul Moat story | Games Industry | MCV". Mcvuk.com. http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40124/Journalist-defends-GTA-Raoul-Moat-story. Retrieved 22 October 2010. 
13. ^ "Which political parties do the newspapers support? – Business & Money". Supanet.com. http://www.supanet.com/business--money/which-political-parties-do-the-newspapers-support--25923p1.html. Retrieved 22 October 2010. 

External links

• Official website
• Online e:edition
• Daily Star reporter quits in protest at tabloid's 'anti-Muslim' coverage, The Guardian, 5 March 2011