What difference can a newspaper Editor make? Britain’s tabloids have often been credited — either by themselves or others — with having an extraordinary sway over public opinion. The Sun ’s claim that it had swung the 1992 general election towards a surprise victory for the Conservatives continues to be held up as an example of the political power wielded by individual press institutions.
The role of the tabloids was also seen as influential in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Among the ‘Leave’ campaign’s most vociferous advocates was the Daily Mail , Britain’s second most popular newspaper after The Sun with a print readership of around 1.2 million.
“We’re Out!” exclaimed the newspaper on June 24, 2016, following the shock result, with a beaming image of Nigel Farage. “After 43 years, U.K. freed from shackles of EU.”
In the months that followed, the newspaper angrily pursued those it saw as standing in the way of what it and other tabloids began referring to as the “will of the people” — the “hardest” version of Brexit. In a particularly controversial piece, the paper labelled three judges — who ruled that the government would need Parliament’s consent prior to triggering Article 50 — as ‘Enemies of the People’.
It is perhaps, therefore, not surprising that the appointment of a ‘pro-Remain’ Editor is being seen as an important turning point. In June, it was announced that Geordie Greig, the editor of the ‘pro-Remain’ Mail on Sunday, would be taking over as the 18th Editor of the Daily Mail from ardent Brexiteer Paul Dacre. Ahead of the referendum, the Mail on Sunday ran an editorial lambasting the ‘Leave’ campaign for its “nebulous” promises.
“Whisper it, but is Geordie Greig about to change the tone of Brexit Britain?” asked The Independent newspaper after his surprise appointment was announced in June, while The Guardian ’s former political editor Michael White dubbed the appointment a blow to “Brexit’s Project Fear”. At a private dinner reported by the Financial Times , former Prime Minister John Major — a supporter of the ‘Remain’ campaign — suggested that Mr. Greig had the “power and the potential to change the political discourse of our country”.
Change of tone?
The concern was strong enough for Mr. Dacre himself to write in the right-wing magazine The Spectator that support for Brexit was “in the DNA of both the Daily Mail and, more pertinently, its readers”. He warned that “any move to reverse this would be editorial and commercial suicide”.
Mr. Greig’s role is seen as particularly challenging: perhaps allowing for a change of tone but not alienating the newspaper’s traditional readership, including its firmly ‘pro-Leave’ base. Around two-thirds of its readers voted to leave the EU, survey data have shown. In his first speech to colleagues after taking over — a recording of which was leaked to The Guardian — Mr. Greig said the paper would be a friend of the people, “Middle Britain” and its loyal readers, and do what it could to “support and report an outstandingly positive Britain that is united, confident and successful”.
Already, a number of stories since his advent have been seen as breaking the mould of a typical Daily Mail story. Last week, the front page carried a story on a centre-left think tank’s call for fundamental changes to the U.K. economy and wealth distribution. Whether and how fast change will come to the newspaper’s position on Brexit — as the debate over a second referendum nationally continues to rage — remains to be seen.
Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London.
