Illiterate women and imperial men: the message of the Mirror

The focal point about Chris Horrie's study of the UK's tabloid journalism is the Daily Mirror, the most prominent left-wing daily to be found in circulation at present. Exploring in-depth the nature of this partisan publication, Tabloid Nation reveals the superficiality and substance that contributed to the initial development of the Mirror - scandal, a markedly superficial aspect, features popularly in the study.

The Daily Mirror began life in November 1903. It's creator was Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, who had climbed the ladder of entrepreneurship and established his own old media empire, consolidated primarily by his most trusted asset, the Daily Mail. Following on from the success of this sturdy populist venture, particularly its sections on female topics like fashion, Northcliffe decided to branch out and take a risk by formulating a paper specifically aimed at a female audience.

This, ironically enough, was a generous pitch that almost instantly turned sour. Northcliffe soon learnt how the Mirror was not just reflective of the marginalised position of women in contemporary society, but also identified just how unaccustomed women were generally to the content that had traditionally filled the hot players in the media market - not surprisingly it was common for the Mirror [for women] to contain little more than information on what shops were open and where the royals were known to convene for their daily rituals. Northcliffe was actually quoted saying: "women can't write and don't want to read". So much for gender equality (they didn't even have the vote yet).

Soon after the first load of editions were printed, proving to be little more than mundane titillation for docile housewives, Northcliffe brought in new blood and set about stripping the Mirror of its shoddy feminine interests in preparation for its rejuvenation as a photographic milestone for the British press.

What happened next was a welcome change from stale misogyny (the mediocrity of the woman's Mirror comes closer to this than it does complementary coverage of worldly events and news). After incorporating Hamilton Fyfe as the editor of the reformed paper, renamed The Daily Illustrated Mirror, a transformation from insipid banter-mag to dynamic pictorial occurred and paved a popular path for the relatively neglected publication.

What the Mirror specialised in was technical innovation for the early 20th Century, spurred on by the slowly growing inclusion of photographic material into old media, which had previously relied on original illustrations almost exclusively alongside the predominant prose. Like the advancing effect of the internet, which overtook television as the new media mainstay, photojournalism had been waiting in the wings but was surely making its presence known - the Mirror was its first major promoter.

The Mirror quickly increased in circulation - 466,000 in the years before its triumphant peak at around 5m readers - and was becoming the ambassador for many of the world's most lucrative subjects and issues, including the British monarchy, which it embraced like a wealthy long-lost relative, squeezing it dry of all its worth. One significant instance of this marriage between the Mirror and the monarchy was the event of Edward VII's death. Graphic pictures displaying the king on his deathbed were put straight to print following some crafty journalism; the result was a massive boost to circulation for that particular issue.

Later on, after Northcliffe detached himself from the stresses of excess business (that which didn't require his prolonged attention in order to keep from falling by the wayside financially), Harold Harmsworth, later Lord Rothermere, took the reins of his brother's press business. Rothermere ushered in a period of political controversy for the Mirror, which was determined by his affiliations with Oswold Mosley and the British Union of Fascists (BUF). This connection to the blackshirts of fascist Italy and the burgeoning Nazi party in Germany was a blight on the face of Rothermere's press company, until it was abandoned prudently.

What is most interesting about the Daily Mirror is not the paper itself, but the lives of the men behind its populist pages. The Harmsworth brothers were seemingly alive with the cut and thrust of political influence evident in this phase of old media, but were also prone to megalomania, which isn't surprising given the empire they developed. It is intriguing that Northcliffe referred to the Mirror as his "bastard offspring", despite the success it would later accrue - he may not have been fully aware of its true potential as pride of the British public. I wonder how he would feel if he was told just how well his bastard offspring fared in its glory years?