View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. News
October 14, 2019updated 30 Sep 2022 8:27am

Paul Dacre issues stinging retort to Daily Mail successor Geordie Greig in FT letter

By Charlotte Tobitt

Paul Dacre has issued a stinging retort to his Daily Mail successor Geordie Greig’s first big interview since taking over as the title’s editor last year.

Speaking to the Financial Times earlier this month, Greig said 256 advertisers had returned to the paper in his first year as editor.

In a letter to the FT, Dacre said the former Mail on Sunday editor was “as economic with the actualité as your paper is in reporting matters Brexit”.

Dacre stepped down as editor of the Daily Mail in August last year, aged 70, to take the role of editor-in-chief and chairman at Mail publisher Associated Newspapers.

Under his editorship the Mail was fervently pro-Brexit and had been boycotted by some companies over its stance on immigration. But Dacre was also praised for his ability to resonate with the paper’s readers.

He wrote of Greig’s claim that advertisers had returned to the Mail that “in fact, far more than that number left during the same period”.

Dacre claimed the way the FT portrayed the Mail in Henry Mance’s Lunch with the FT interview with Greig was a “ludicrous caricature”.

Content from our partners
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it
Impress: Regulation, arbitration and complaints resolution

Writing of the awards won by the paper under his editorship, Dacre also took a shot at Greig directly.

He wrote: “As for Mr Greig, I congratulate him for making a solid start as editor and continuing so many of those campaigns but I’m sure he’ll forgive me for suggesting that he (or his PR) defers his next lunch with the FT until he has notched up a small fraction of those journalists’ achievements.”

Picture: Murray Sanders/Associated Newspapers

Topics in this article : , ,

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