Paul Dacre:
Born: Paul Michael Dacre
14 November 1948 (1948-11-14) (age 59)
Nationality: British
Occupation: Journalist and newspaper editor
Employer: Daily Mail and General Trust
Known for: Editor of the Daily Mail
Paul Michael Dacre is a British journalist and current editor of the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail. He is also editor and chief of the Mail group titles, which also includes the London Evening Standard and The mail on Sunday. He is also a director of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc and was a member of the Press Complaints Commission from 1999 to 2008. He left in order to become chairman of the PCC's Editors’ Code of Practice Committee from April 2008. For the academic and journalist John Lloyd, Dacre is presently the only "British newspaper editor who stamps himself on his newspaper every morning" reflecting "his unique blend of libertarian-authoritarian Conservatism". His brother Nigel Dacre was editor of ITV’s news programmes from 1995 to 2002.
Dacre's father, Peter Dacre, was a prominent journalist on the Sunday Express; while Paul Dacre was educated at University College School, a private fee-paying school in Hampstead, on a state scholarship, and grew up in the London (Arnos Grove in Enfield). In his school holidays, Dacre worked as a messenger at the Sunday Express, and during his pre-university gap year as a trainee in the Daily Express. From 1967 he read English at Leeds University. Whilst at university, he became involved with the Leeds Student newspaper, rising to the position of editor. At this time he identified with the political left on issues including gay rights and drug use. "If you don’t have a left-wing period when you go to university, you should be shot", he says. On graduation in 1971 he joined the Daily Express in Manchester for a six month trial; subsequent to this he was given a full time job on the Express. He once commented that "there was never any desire to do anything other than journalism". So he was heavily influenced by his dad as his dad was a journalist himself, so he followed his fathers footsteps but also went one step further by owing and being editor for 6 other leading tabloid newspapers.
Career History:
At the Express, Dacre worked as a correspondent in a variety of locations before being sent to Washington in 1976 to cover that year's American presidential election and later moved to New York. It was at this time that his politics shifted to the right:
“I don’t see how anybody can go to America, work there for six years and not be enthralled by the energy of the free market. America taught me the power of the free market, as opposed to the State, to improve the lives of the vast majority of ordinary people.”
After spending several years at the Express bureau, Dacre was tracked down by David English to be Bureau chief for the Mail in 1980, but was brought back to the UK in 1982 after fifteen months to be deputy news editor. The following period saw Dacre work in most of the newspaper's departments as assistant editor.
He became editor of the Evening Standard in March 1991 and replaced Sir David English the following year as editor of the Daily Mail, after turning down an offer from Rupert Murdoch to edit The Times. Dacre believed "that he would not accept my desire to edit with freedom". It was his approach to the job of editor "hard-working, disciplined, and confrontational" which had led Murdoch to attempt to hire him. For the Mail Dacre was considered important enough for English to become editor and chief, a job title often seen as a means of sidelining someone considered irreplaceable. After David English's death in March 1998, Dacre himself became the Mail Group's editor-in-chief the following July, in addition to remaining as editor of the Daily Mail.
“I don’t see how anybody can go to America, work there for six years and not be enthralled by the energy of the free market. America taught me the power of the free market, as opposed to the State, to improve the lives of the vast majority of ordinary people.”
After spending several years at the Express bureau, Dacre was tracked down by David English to be Bureau chief for the Mail in 1980, but was brought back to the UK in 1982 after fifteen months to be deputy news editor. The following period saw Dacre work in most of the newspaper's departments as assistant editor.
He became editor of the Evening Standard in March 1991 and replaced Sir David English the following year as editor of the Daily Mail, after turning down an offer from Rupert Murdoch to edit The Times. Dacre believed "that he would not accept my desire to edit with freedom". It was his approach to the job of editor "hard-working, disciplined, and confrontational" which had led Murdoch to attempt to hire him. For the Mail Dacre was considered important enough for English to become editor and chief, a job title often seen as a means of sidelining someone considered irreplaceable. After David English's death in March 1998, Dacre himself became the Mail Group's editor-in-chief the following July, in addition to remaining as editor of the Daily Mail.
Dacre's salary is frequently cited in the British media. For the financial year ending on 1st October 2006, he was paid in total £1.23million, according to the annual report of the parent company, Daily Mail & General Trust, published on 11 January 2007. Dacre is the highest paid of the twenty national newspaper editors in the United Kingdom. For Kelvin Mackenzie, the former Editor of The Sun, he is "comfortably Britain’s finest editor" who arrives at work "determined to crush the life out of his rivals". Publicist Max Clifford has commented that "Paul Dacre is virtually a law to himself". A MORI poll in 2005 asked 30 editors from the national and regional press and from the broadcasting industry for the name of the editor they most admired. Dacre won the poll.
No comments:
Post a Comment