View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Archive content
September 22, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 4:54pm

Mail and Express break truce

By Press Gazette

Porn Wars have
started between the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, with the latter
crying foul over the Mail’s mention of Express chairman Richard Desmond
in connection with his porn TV channels, writes Jean Morgan.

Furious
with the Mail’s piece on Thursday of last week, when its media editor
Matt Born described Britain as the porn capital of Europe and Desmond’s
six sex channels as dominating the UK porn market, the Express ran a
revenge blockbuster.

It carried a picture of Associated chairman
Lord Rothermere and his wife Claudia on the front page of Friday’s
paper with the headline “Lord Porn – how Daily Mail’s proprietor makes
a fortune from ads selling filth.”

Inside, under the mysterious
byline Fred Jung, the Express listed sex adverts carried in Loot, the
magazine Lord Rothermere also owns.

Both sides have now well and
truly broken the truce engineered by former Associated managing
director Murdoch MacLennon with Desmond in 2001, when the Mail promised
not to call Desmond a pornographer in exchange for the Express not
mentioning Lord Rothermere’s illegitimate son. Last week saw both
insults back in print.

But the Express was indignant; it believed
the arrangement was working well. “We honoured the truce. It was the
Daily Mail that broke it. They hit out at us so we hit back, simple as
that.

We will not just sit back and be sniped at. If we are
attacked, we will retaliate,” said group managing editor Alex
Bannister.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

The Mail would not comment.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network