Daily Express
The Daily Express is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608.
The Express was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918. Under the ownership of Lord Beaverbrook, it rose to become the newspaper with the largest circulation in the world, going from 2 million in the 1930s to 4 million in the 1940s. It was acquired by Richard Desmond's company Northern & Shell in 2000. Hugh Whittow person In February 2018 Trinity Mirror acquired the Daily Express, and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell, in a deal worth £126.7 million. To coincide with the purchase the Trinity Mirror group changed the name of the company to Reach. Hugh Whittow resigned as editor and Gary Jones took over as editor-in-chief soon after the purchase.
The paper's editorial stances have often been seen as aligned to Euroscepticism and supportive of the UK Independence Party, and other right-wing factions including the European Research Group of the Conservative Party.
History
The Daily Express was founded in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson, with the first issue appearing on 24 April 1900. Pearson lost his sight to glaucoma in 1913, and sold the title to the future Lord Beaverbrook in 1916.The Express was one of the first papers to place news instead of advertisements on its front page, and carried gossip, sport, and women's features. It was also the first in Britain to have a crossword puzzle.
It began printing in Manchester in 1927. In 1931 it moved its London headquarters to 120 Fleet Street, a specially commissioned Art Deco building. Under Beaverbrook, the paper set newspaper sales records several times throughout the 1930s. Its success was partly due to aggressive marketing campaign and a circulation war with other populist newspapers. Arthur Christiansen became editor in October 1933. Under his direction sales climbed from two million in 1936 to four million in 1949. He retired in 1957. The paper also featured Alfred Bestall's Rupert Bear cartoon and satirical cartoons by Carl Giles which it began publishing in the 1940s. On 24 March 1933, a front-page headline, "Judea Declares War on Germany", was published.
During the late 1930s, the paper advocated the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain's National Government, due to the influence of Lord Beaverbrook. On 7 August 1939, the front-page headline was "NO WAR THIS YEAR". Less than a month later, Britain and France were at war with Nazi Germany following its invasion of Poland. The front page, floating in dirty water, later featured in In Which We Serve.
The ruralist and fascist author Henry Williamson wrote for the paper on many occasions over a span of half a century. He also wrote for the Sunday Express at the beginning of his career.
In 1938, the publication moved to the Daily Express Building, Manchester, designed by Owen Williams on the same site in Great Ancoats Street. It opened a similar building in Glasgow in 1936 in Albion Street. Glasgow printing ended in 1974 and Manchester in 1989 on the company's own presses. Johnston Press has a five-year deal, begun in March 2015, to print the northern editions of the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express and the Daily Star Sunday at its Dinnington site in Sheffield. The Scottish edition is printed by facsimile in Glasgow by contract printers, the London editions at Westferry Printers.
In March 1962, Beaverbrook was attacked in the House of Commons for running "a sustained vendetta" against the British royal family in the Express titles. In the same month, the Duke of Edinburgh described the Express as "a bloody awful newspaper. It is full of lies, scandal and imagination. It is a vicious paper." At the height of Beaverbrook's control, in 1948, he told a Royal Commission on the press that he ran his papers "purely for the purpose of making propaganda". The arrival of television, and the public's changing interests, took their toll on circulation, and following Beaverbrook's death in 1964, the paper's circulation declined for several years. During this period, the Express, practically alone among mainstream newspapers, was vehemently opposed to entry into what became the European Economic Community.
Partially as a result of the rejuvenation of the Daily Mail under David English and the emergence of The Sun under Rupert Murdoch and editorship of Larry Lamb, average daily sales of the Express dropped below four million in 1967, below three million in 1975, and below two million in 1984. The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977, and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers. In 1982, Trafalgar House spun off its publishing interests to a new company, Fleet Holdings, under Lord Matthews, but this succumbed to a hostile takeover by United Newspapers in 1985. Under United, the Express titles moved from Fleet Street to Blackfriars Road in 1989.
Express Newspapers was sold to publisher Richard Desmond in 2000, and the names of the newspapers reverted to Daily Express and Sunday Express. In 2004, the newspaper moved to Lower Thames Street in the City of London. In February 2018, it moved into 1 Canada Square in Canary Wharf.
On 31 October 2005, UK Media Group Entertainment Rights secured majority interest from the Daily Express for Rupert Bear. They paid £6 million for a 66.6% control of the character. The Express retains minority interest of one-third plus the right to publish Rupert Bear stories in certain Express publications.
Richard Desmond era
In 2000, Express Newspapers was bought by Richard Desmond, publisher of celebrity magazine OK!, for £125 million. Controversy surrounded the deal since Desmond also owned softcore pornography magazines. As a result, many staff left, including editor Rosie Boycott and columnist Peter Hitchens. Hitchens moved to The Mail on Sunday, saying working for the new owner was a moral conflict of interest since he had always attacked the pornographic magazines that Desmond published. Despite their divergent politics, Desmond respected Hitchens.In 2007, Express Newspapers left the National Publishers Association due to unpaid fees. Since payments to the NPA fund the Press Complaints Commission, it is possible that the Express and its sister papers could cease being regulated by the PCC. The chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance, which manages PCC funds, described Express Newspapers as a "rogue publisher".
The Express group lost prominent libel cases in 2008–2009; it paid damages to people involved in the Madeleine McCann case, a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, footballer Marco Materazzi, and sports agent Willie McKay. The losses led the media commentator Roy Greenslade to conclude that Express Newspapers paid more in libel damages over that period than any other newspaper group. Although most of the individual amounts paid were not disclosed, the total damages were recorded at £1,570,000. Greenslade characterised Desmond as a "rogue proprietor".
In late 2008, Express Newspapers began cutting 80 jobs to reduce costs by £2.5 million; however, too few staff were willing to take voluntary redundancy. In early 2008, a previous cost-cutting exercise triggered the first 24-hour national press strike in the UK for 18 years. In late August 2009 came plans for a further 70 redundancies, affecting journalists across Express Newspapers.
In August 2009, the Advertising Standards Authority criticised the company for advertorials as features alongside adverts for the same products. The ASA noted that the pieces were "always and uniquely favourable to the product featured in the ads and contained claims that have been or were likely to be prohibited in advertisements".
In January 2010, the Daily Express was censured by the Advertising Standards Authority over a front-page promotion for "free" fireworks. This led to comment that the Express has become "the Ryanair of Fleet Street", in that it is a "frequent offender" which pays little heed to the ASA's criticisms.
In May 2010, Desmond announced a commitment of £100 million over five years to buy new equipment for the printing plants, beginning with the immediate purchase of four new presses, amid industry rumours that he was going to establish a printing plant at Luton.
On 31 December 2010, the Express, with all the media titles in Desmond's Northern & Shell group, were excluded from the Press Complaints Commission after withholding payment. Lord Black, chairman of PressBof, the PCC's parent organisation, called this "a deeply regrettable decision". According to Press Gazette, in December 2016 circulation figures showed gross sales of the Daily Mail were 1,491,264 compared to 391,626 for the Daily Express.
The full run of the Daily Express has been digitised and is available at UK Press Online.
In September 2017, Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror announced its interest in buying all of Express Newspapers from Desmond. The Financial Times called it potentially the biggest change in the British newspaper industry for a decade.
Reach era
In February 2018, Trinity Mirror acquired the Daily Express, and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell, in a deal worth £126.7 million. To coincide with the purchase the Trinity Mirror group changed its name to Reach. Hugh Whittow resigned as editor and Gary Jones took over as editor-in-chief soon after the purchase.The Daily Express endorsed Liz Truss in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.
In 2023, Reach launched a US version of the Express, called the-express.com. It is based in New York City.
In November 2025, the Express offered compensation to two freelancers after they were accused of plagiarizing their work.