Jay Rayner, one of The Observer’s most prominent writers, is leaving the newsbrand as controversy surrounds its proposed sale to Tortoise Media.

The news was announced on the same day that Paul Webster, who was editor of The Observer until earlier this month, wrote a lengthy denunciation of the proposed sale, which he said was based on “two false premises”: that the newspaper’s operation poses a financial risk to The Guardian and that Tortoise Media could sustain the brand in print.

A Guardian and Observer staff strike over the proposed sale is set for early next month.

Rayner, who has reviewed restaurants for The Observer for 25 years, said last month that he had been shortlisted for columnist of the year in the BSME Awards “in the same month that The Guardian has told me they will terminate all our contracts if they can sell The Observer to Tortoise”.

Tortoise and Guardian News and Media have previously assured Observer staff that their jobs will be safe if the sale goes ahead.

A spokesperson for Tortoise told Press Gazette contract arrangements like Rayner’s would also be honoured in any deal.

Rayner was previously a vocal campaigner against an unsuccessful bid to merge The Observer into The Guardian in 2008.

A spokesperson for Guardian News and Media said: “Jay Rayner has entertained readers for many years with his writing and we wish him all the best with his new role.”

On Thursday, Webster, who edited The Observer for six years and was its deputy editor for 22 years, spoke out about the proposed Tortoise deal for the first time.

He wrote on Twitter: “Here’s why I think the proposed sale of the Observer to Tortoise would severely damage the reputation of the Scott Trust and threaten the future of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, which I edited until last weekend.

“This planned sale, if ratified by the Trust, would be a discreditable conclusion to a damaging episode in the company’s history.

“It is based on two false premises. One, that the Observer represents a serious threat to the security and future of the Guardian because of its financial position.

“This is preposterous. As editor for the past 6 years, I was provided with  revenue and expenditure data.

“They showed that despite the well-documented decline of print sales, The Observer has continued to make a net contribution of several millions of pounds to the company’s finances.

“Even once added expenses are included, as they have been in the company’s recent shameful attempt to bundle the paper out of the door as quickly as possible, and account is taken of shared resources we use, the losses are miniscule set against the company’s  £1.3bn cash pile.

“And they fail to take any account of mitigating strategies we might have discussed, but which the Trust entirely failed to consider during my tenure, or of the considerable contribution Observer journalism makes to the Guardian website’s breadth of coverage and income.

“The second false premise is that Tortoise Media, a small historically loss making start up, is able to sustain the Observer as a serious competitor on Sunday newstands.

“Based on the little information Observer journalists have been provided with it does not have the resources to shoulder the cost of sustaining a standalone Sunday paper with a comprehensive news, foreign, sports, business and cultural coverage able to compete with our rivals.

“Nor are its projections of subscription sales realistic, and uncertainty clouds the scale and future of its funding.

“The Scott Trust boasts a proud record of defending liberal journalism, as represented by both the Guardian AND the Observer. It appears as if it’s about to betray that record by essentially gifting the Observer to a small, historically loss-making start-up.

“If its losses are severe enough to warrant abandoning the Observer then it is doubtful that Tortoise has the means to sustain the title. If they are not, then the Trust, with a £1.3bn endowment, is a far better home for the Observer.

“The Guardian persistently boasts that it’s not owned by a proprietor. But – by excluding its own journalists from the process of the sale – it has behaved as if it is.

“As a senior journalist on the Guardian and Observer for 35  years, I believe the Scott Trust should reject this deal and embark on a proper review of the Observer’s future if it is to uphold its clearly enunciated role as a defender of liberal journalism at home and abroad.”

Financial Times to expand weekend food and drink coverage

The Financial Times poached Rayner amid an expansion of its weekend food and drink coverage.

The business paper has also hired former Sunday Times restaurant critic and current Noble Rot contributing editor Marina O’Loughlin for a monthly FT Magazine column about the global restaurant scene and food culture.

The FT’s current restaurant critic, Tim Hayward, moves to a new role as a food writer, “contributing deep-dives on home cooking projects and other culinary fixations”.

Rayner said: “I have been both an avid fan and devoted reader of the paper for many years and it’s an honour to become part of a team I have admired from afar for so long.

“I can’t wait to play my part alongside the huge talents that are Jancis Robinson, Tim Hayward and Marina O’Loughlin, in providing the most entertaining and authoritative food and drink coverage in the business.”

Hayward said: “Twelve years is a long time to be critical about restaurants. I’m looking forward to being able to write fully about the thing I love, enthusing about food, in breadth and depth.”

And O’Loughlin said that, “after leaving the Sunday Times, I’ve made a hobby of saying ‘no’ to offers.

“So it’s with enormous pleasure that I’m now saying ‘yes’ to my favourite of all the major newspapers, with the best food and drink section in the business.”

Janine Gibson, editor of FT Weekend, said: “The FT Magazine’s food and drink coverage under its brilliant editor Harriet Fitch Little has gone from strength to strength.

“We have ambitious and exciting plans for the next year and assembling this stellar lineup of the greatest authorities in their field is the first step.

“FT Weekend readers look to us for expertise and exceptional writing on every aspect of culture, and this food and drink team will be unparalleled in their ability to deliver on every front.”

The post Jay Rayner leaves Observer as departing editor slams planned sale appeared first on Press Gazette.

Former Express online editorial director Tom Hunt is now editor-in-chief of the brand.

In recent months Gary Jones has left the Express after six years as editor-in-chief and subsequently Sunday Express editor David Wooding also departed.

Jones was the second editor-in-chief of a Reach national newspaper to leave their post this year after six years: Alison Phillips stepped down from the Mirror at the end of January and was succeeded by Caroline Waterston.

Also this year London free business newspaper City AM, which is expanding its remit nationally, has appointed its former editor Christian May to return to the role.

Press Gazette has put together a round-up of the UK’s national newspaper editors as they stand (in no particular order). We will keep this list updated.

UK national newspaper editors

The Times

Tony Gallagher was appointed editor of The Times on 28 September 2022 following the resignation of John Witherow the day before.

Gallagher was promoted from deputy editor, and had already been acting as caretaker editor for several months while Witherow was on medical leave.

Gallagher joined The Times in February 2020 from fellow News UK title The Sun where he was editor for five years. He has also previously edited The Daily Telegraph between 2009 and 2014.

The Sunday Times

Ben Taylor was named editor of The Sunday Times on 19 January 2023, stepping up from deputy editor after news Emma Tucker would be leaving to lead The Wall Street Journal from 1 February.

Taylor was previously executive editor of the Daily Mail, where he worked for 22 years, before joining The Sunday Times as deputy editor in 2020.

Daily Mail

Ted Verity has edited the Daily Mail since November 2021, having previously been at the helm of the Mail on Sunday since 2018 and deputy at the daily paper before that.

He is editor-in-chief of Mail Newspapers, meaning he has overall responsibility for the Mail brands in a seven-day operation.

Mail on Sunday

Following Verity’s promotion, David Dillon was appointed to be Mail on Sunday editor in December 2021. He was previously Verity’s deputy.

Dillon first joined the Mail on Sunday from the Daily Express in 2001, working as news editor for a number of years before being promoted to executive editor.

The Sun and The Sun on Sunday

Victoria Newton has been editor-in-chief of The Sun since February 2020. She had been editor at The Sun on Sunday since 2013 but took over from Gallagher when he left The Sun for The Times.

Newton has maintained responsibility for the Sunday title in her editor-in-chief role.

Daily Mirror

Caroline Waterston, previously editor-in-chief of Reach magazines and supplements, has edited the Daily Mirror since the start of February 2024 – initially on an interim basis before she was made permanent on 30 April.

Waterston first joined Reach (then Trinity Mirror) in the mid-1990s and her roles have included deputy news editor and features editor of The People, features editor of the Sunday Mirror, head of features and deputy editor on the Sunday titles, deputy editor-in-chief across the Express and Star titles after their acquisition by Reach, and editor-in-chief of the national magazines including OK! magazine.

Waterston took over from Alison Phillips, who had edited the Daily Mirror since March 2018 and was editor-in-chief of that title plus the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People from February 2020 with the move to a seven-day operation.

The Daily Telegraph

Chris Evans has been editor of The Telegraph since January 2014 after the sacking of Tony Gallagher. He has been with The Telegraph since 2007, with previous roles including news editor and head of news, after joining from the Daily Mail where he spent 11 years.

The Sunday Telegraph

Although Evans has ultimate editorial responsibility at The Telegraph, Allister Heath has edited The Sunday Telegraph since 2017, having previously been Telegraph deputy editor.

Daily Express and Sunday Express

Tom Hunt, formerly Express online editorial director, was named editor-in-chief of the brand on 20 September.

At the Daily Express he succeeded Gary Jones who stepped down after six years in the role, which he used to detoxify the brand. Sunday Express editor David Wooding departed his own role about two months later as the Express becomes a seven-day operation without a dedicated Sunday Express team.

Before that Hunt had been with the Express for more than eight years, including as video news editor, leading its first team dedicated to video, and head of news.

Hunt said: “There is a huge opportunity here which I’m excited to take further, both digitally and in print, particularly as we cover Labour’s first months in office and see out a Conservative leadership contest.”

The Guardian

Katharine Viner has been editor-in-chief at The Guardian since 2015, when she was voted by staff to take over from Alan Rusbridger. She was previously editor-in-chief at The Guardian’s US edition.

The Observer

Under Viner’s leadership, Paul Webster edits The Observer. Viner appointed him to the role in 2018, after 20 years as deputy at the Sunday paper.

i

Oly Duff has been editor-in-chief of the i since June 2013, when he became the UK’s youngest national newspaper editor aged 29 – a title he maintains today.

Financial Times

Roula Khalaf has edited The Financial Times since January 2020, when she succeeded Lionel Barber who spent 14 years as editor.

Khalaf had been Barber’s deputy since 2016 and her previous roles at the FT included foreign editor and Middle East editor. She first joined the business newspaper in 1995.

Daily Star

Jon Clark has been seven-day editor-in-chief at the Daily Star since March 2018 after the paper was bought by Reach (then Trinity Mirror). He was previously associate editor at the Daily Mirror from 2013.

Daily Star on Sunday

Under Clark’s leadership, Denis Mann edits the Daily Star on Sunday and is a deputy on the daily. He has similarly held the role since March 2018.

The Independent

Geordie Greig was appointed as editor-in-chief of the digital-only The Independent in January 2023, just over a year after being ousted from editing the Daily Mail. He has previously edited the Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and Tatler.

He took over at The Independent from David Marley, who had been acting editor since October 2020 when Christian Broughton was promoted to managing director.

Free newspaper editors

Metro

Deborah Arthurs is editor-in-chief of Metro in print and online, having taken the lead on a new combined operation in March 2023.

She had been editor of Metro.co.uk from 2014 and a “gentle refresh” of the brand aligning print and online marked the beginning of her tenure as overall editor.

Arthurs has taken over from Ted Young, who had been editing the print newspaper for eight years.

Evening Standard

Former GQ editor of 22 years Dylan Jones was appointed editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard following a brief period as editorial consultant.

Jones began in the role on Monday 5 June 2023, becoming the news outlet’s first permanent editor in more than 18 months.

Before him, Jack Lefley was acting editor from July 2022 and Charlotte Ross had previously been acting editor from October 2021.

The last full-time editors were Emily Sheffield, who left in October 2021 after 15 months, and former chancellor George Osborne, who was in post between May 2017 and July 2020.

City AM

Former City AM editor Christian May is returning to the free business title after almost four years away at the end of August 2024.

He succeeds Andy Silvester, May’s former deputy who took on the role himself, whose last day was Thursday 18 July.

May described his previous five-year stint as editor as “the happiest and most rewarding years of my life”, adding: “I couldn’t be more excited to rejoin the team at City AM as it gears up for an ambitious era of growth and innovation.”

The post Who are the UK’s national newspaper editors? appeared first on Press Gazette.

Reach-owned Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail was the only paid-for title to see any minor circulation growth in October, according to the latest public ABC figures.

The Sunday Mail’s average weekly circulation was up 0.5% month-on-month in October to 44,382.

However it still saw year-on-year decline of 16%, joining the rest of the Reach-owned national newspapers which all saw annual decline of 15-20%.

Of the rest of the publicly audited national newspapers, the Mail on Sunday saw the smallest month-on-month decline of -0.1% to 568,734 and the biggest was at Scottish title the Daily Record, down 1.6% to 46,128.

DMGT-owned newspapers Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the i all kept their annual print circulation declines in single digits in October, as did the Financial Times.

The Daily Mail, with an average daily print circulation of 667,662 in October, and the Mail on Sunday both saw year-on-year drops of 8%.

The i was down 4% to 123,155 while the Financial Times saw a drop of 3% to 108,964 (of which 29% were bulk copies distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels).

National newspaper circulations in October 2024 (ABC) with monthly and yearly changes – this page will be updated monthly:

Read more: Widening gulf between weekday and Saturday UK newspaper sales revealed

The column for bulks refers to copies which are circulated for free at venues such as airports and hotels.

The above figures do not include the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep their ABC circulations private since the start of 2020. The Guardian and Observer joined them in September 2021.

The last ABC figures we have for these titles are as follows:

• The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)
• The Sun on Sunday: 1,013,777 (March 2020)
• The Sunday Times: 647,622 (March 2020)
• The Times: 365,880 (March 2020)
• Daily Telegraph: 317,817 (December 2019)
• Sunday Telegraph: 248,288 (December 2019)
• The Observer: 136,656 (July 2021)
• The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)

If these titles have fallen in line with rest of the industry their current circulations as of February 2024 would be as follows:

• The Sun: 700,000
• The Sun on Sunday: 600,000
• The Sunday Times: 322,000
• The Times: 180,000
• Daily Telegraph: 190,000
• Sunday Telegraph: 125,000
• The Observer: 80,000
• The Guardian: 60,000

2022 in focus

These charts show UK national newspaper circulation over the 12 months to March 2023.

2000-present

We have also charted the longer-term change in ABC circulation over the past 20 years across the UK press.

These charts show the extent of the print decline from The Sun reaching 3.76m in 2000 and the Sun on Sunday's launch in February 2012 with a short-lived 3.21m before dropping to just above 2m.

Meanwhile, though the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail once were competitive in print reach at around 2.3m-2.4m in 2000, the Mail now has a circulation three times the size of its former rival.

The Sunday tabloids all saw a spike in 2011 after the closure of the News of the World but few retained the readers – the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror did best at doing so, but largely lost them when the Sun on Sunday launched.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the UK's most popular newspapers:

September 2024

The circulation of the Financial Times was up 5% between August and September, the latest ABC figures show.

The FT had a circulation of 109,966, marking a drop of 2% compared to September 2023 - the smallest annual decline among the publicly audited national newspapers.

However the FT has the largest proportion of bulks (copies given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) which were on 31,491 or 29% of its total circulation, and non-UK copies which made up 52% of its ABC total (57,358 copies).

The next smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 4% to 124,075 of which 3% were bulk copies.

The biggest annual decline was at Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 20% to an average of 50,394 weekly copies sold. The Daily Star Sunday (64,645) and Scottish title Sunday Mail (44,144) were both down 18%.

On a monthly basis, the FT was the only title to see growth although free papers Metro (951,154) and City AM (68,144) both stayed steady.

The biggest monthly drops were at the Daily Mirror (212,300), Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail, all down 4%.

August 2024

The Daily Star Sunday now has a smaller circulation than the free City AM for the first time since the business newspaper launched 19 years ago.

The average Daily Star Sunday weekly circulation fell by 2% month-on-month and 16% year-on-year in August to 66,994.

London-only title City AM stayed steady compared to July on 68,144 and grew by 5% compared to August last year, with an average of 68,144 on Mondays to Thursdays.

The majority of the paid-for newspapers in our monthly ABC circulation round-up saw a double-digit year-on-year drop in August, led by fellow Reach tabloid the Sunday People which was down 20% to 51,961.

The only paid-for newspaper not to fall on an annual basis was the Financial Times, which stayed steady on 104,826. Of these 31,324 are bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels).

Compared to July, the Daily Record was narrowly the only paid-for title not to see a drop, staying steady on 48,472.

The Evening Standard began its transition away from being a daily newspaper at the end of July when it dropped its Monday and Friday editions. Nonetheless it dropped its distribution by only 1%, albeit 10% year-on-year, to 273,631.

July 2024

The Sunday People suffered the biggest decline in print circulation among the UK's national newspapers in July.

The weekly Reach tabloid's ABC circulation was down by 20% year-on-year and 2% month-on-month to 52,350.

The only national newspaper to see year-on-year growth in July was the Financial Times, which was up 2% to 108,070 despite seeing the joint biggest month-on-month decline of 2%.

Compared to last July, the FT's newsstand sales were down but paid subscriptions, bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) and non-UK copies were up.

Among the rest, the smallest annual decline was at the i, which was down 3% to 127,526. The i also had the biggest month-on-month growth, of 2%.

July marked the Evening Standard's final month printing five days a week as it phases out its daily edition ahead of going weekly. It dropped its Monday and Friday editions at the end of the month.

Across the month the Standard had an average print distribution of 276,885 - up 1% month-on-month but down 9% year-on-year.

June 2024

The average daily print circulation of the i is now higher than the Daily Star's for the first time in its history.

The change comes two months after the i's circulation was also higher than the Sunday Express for the first time as the DMGT-owned title's print readership has stayed relatively steady for several months.

In June the i reported an ABC print circulation of 125,545 - narrowly edging above the Daily Star on 125,525.

The i, which launched in October 2010, saw growth compared to May of 1% and and annual decline of 14%.

Meanwhile the Daily Star reported a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year fall of 15%.

Pre-Covid, in the first half of March 2020, the Daily Star had an average circulation of 276,453 - at the time 28% higher than the i on 215,640.

The biggest circulation drops in June were at the Sunday People (20% down to 53,501), Daily Star Sunday (18% down to 68,003) and Sunday Mail (18% down to 46,794).

As well as the i, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation, up 2% month-on-month and steady year-on-year at 110,736. Although the FT's paid newsstand sales were up marginally (to 12,534) its subscription copies were down 1% (to 9,069).

Free London daily City AM upped its distribution year-on-year by 1% to 68,112 and stayed steady compared to May.

May 2024

The Evening Standard dropped its distribution by 12% in May compared to the previous year as it announced plans to end its daily publication and go weekly in print.

This was a 12% year-on-year drop for the second month running although its distribution stayed steady between April and May.

The Standard distributed an average of 275,683 copies per day in May, according to the latest ABC figures.

As recently as October 2022 the Standard was distributing more than 400,000 copies a day. It has been below 300,000 since October 2023.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic it was distributing around 800,000 copies per day.

Meanwhile, every paid-for national newspaper saw their print circulation decline in May - although it should be noted that the year-on-year comparison is affected by the boost several Sunday newspapers saw last year from the King's coronation.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People saw the biggest drop compared to May 2023, with its average circulation down by 24% to 54,150.

Also dropping by more than a fifth year-on-year were fellow Reach weeklies the Sunday Express (down 22% to 124,581) and Daily Star Sunday (down 21% to 69,200).

The only paid-for newspapers to fall by less than 10% year-on-year were the i (down 5% to 124,904) and Financial Times (down 1% to 108,824).

On a month-by-month basis, the Sunday Mail in Scotland was the only title to see growth compared to April, as its circulation was up 1% to 48,292.

The biggest month-on-month decline was of 4% at the Daily Mirror (to 225,983), Daily Record (to 49,673) and Sunday Post (to 34,581).

Free newspaper Metro kept its distribution steady both month-on-month and year-on-year while London free business newspaper City AM grew marginally year-on-year and stayed steady from April into May.

April 2024

The i's print circulation is now higher than the Sunday Express for the first time in its history, according to the latest ABC data.

In April the circulation of the i, which launched in 2010, stayed steady compared to the previous month and fell by 5% year-on-year to 126,266.

The Sunday Express fell by 2% month-on-month and 17% year-on-year to 125,990, resulting in it falling one place down our monthly table.

The biggest year-on-year print circulation decline was again at the Sunday People, down 21% to 55,526. The largest month-on-month drop was of 4% at the Daily Star Sunday, to 69,766.

The Financial Times was, as in March, the only paid-for newspaper not to see annual decline, staying steady compared to April last year. Its average circulation was 109,868 made up of 12,068 newsstand copies, 9,365 subscriptions, 31,155 bulk copies (distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels) and 57,280 copies in other countries.

Of the rest of the paid-for newspapers, the i was the only one to see single-digit decline. Its DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday each declined by 10% year-on-year to 699,240 and 586,187 respectively.

March 2024

The Mail on Sunday's average print circulation fell below 600,000 in March, according to ABC.

The Sunday newspaper's circulation fell by 1% compared to February and 10% versus March 2023, reaching 594,414.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation is now about half of where it was in October 2017 - six and a half years ago.

However, in that time there has been a notable shift in its circulation mix with subscriptions making up a greater slice of the pie: newsstand sales are down 5% to 524,545 but paid subscriptions are up 404% to 69,869.

Meanwhile in Scotland the Sunday Mail, owned by Reach, fell below a circulation of 50,000 - reaching 48,597 following a month-on-month decline of 3%. This is more than half of its pre-Covid circulation of 104,608.

Also in March, the Daily Star grew its average circulation by 3% month-on-month to 134,924 while the Daily Mirror (237,233) and Financial Times (109,181) were up 1%. Others were steady or down by up to 3%.

The ABC figures are average per issue, meaning they should not be skewed by the fact March was a longer month than February, with one extra weekend.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the Sunday People, down 21% to 57,163, followed by the Sunday Mail and Sunday Post (35,848) each down 17%. The only paid-for title not to see decline was the Financial Times, which stayed steady compared to March last year.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday's digital editions stayed steady month-on-month, with active views per issue of 88,176 and 89,639 respectively.

February 2024

The Financial Times saw the biggest month-on-month drop in print circulation among the publicly audited national newspapers in February.

The FT had an average circulation of 108,125 in February according to ABC, down 6% compared to January - although it lost just 0.4% compared to a year earlier.

Subscriptions (9,255) were down 12% month-on-month to 9,255 while newsstand sales (12,227) were down 7% to 12,227 and global circulation (55,781) was down 8% to 55,781. But bulks (free copies distributed at locations like airports and hotels) were steady on 30,862.

The FT also had a digital edition circulation of 16,403, up 5% month-on-month.

The Daily Mail digital edition had average actively-viewed copies of 88,346 in February, up 1% month-on-month and 3% year-on-year.

The Mail on Sunday’s digital edition was on 90,062, up 1% and 2% respectively.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are top of the table among the paid-for newspapers that have their ABC circulations published, with circulations of 705,311 and 600,311 respectively.

Their next rival in the public table, the Daily Mirror, is several hundred thousand behind on 234,492.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People again reported the biggest annual decline, down 22% to 57,670 - the only drop in this set of figures of more than a fifth. It was followed by sister title Daily Star Sunday, down 18% to 72,363.

Free London title City AM was the only newspaper to grow its distribution year-on-year in February, upping its print run by 1% to 68,009. Month-on-month it was up by the same percentage and was joined by fellow free title the Evening Standard, which had a circulation of 277,238. The Standard, however, was down 11% compared to the year before.

January 2024

The Sunday People was the only national newspaper to see a print circulation decline of more than a fifth in January 2024.

The Reach tabloid had an average weekly circulation of 58,831 in January - down 22% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month.

Sister Reach titles the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star, Sunday Mail, Daily Record and Sunday Express all saw their circulations down by 15 to 17% year-on-year, as did DC Thomson's Sunday Post.

The only paid-for newspaper to stay steady year-on-year was the Financial Times, on 115,118. Its newsstand sales were down 14% but subscriptions were up 3%, bulk copies (those distributed in locations like hotels and airports) were up 1% and non-UK readership was up 4%.

The FT's actively purchased sales in the UK and Ireland averaged 24,000 with the rest of the circulation in Europe, Asia and the US.

The free Metro (953,856) and City AM (67,215) papers also kept their circulations about the same as in January 2023.

Month-on-month, the Daily Star Sunday saw the biggest decline of 8% to 73,103. The FT was up 1% as was free London paper the Evening Standard (277,238).

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail’s digital edition had an average circulation of 87,571 in January, up 1% month-on-month and 2% year-on-year. The Mail on Sunday's digital edition was up 2% month-on-month and 1% year-on-year to 89,326.

The FT published a digital edition figure of 15,594, down 6% year-on-year but up 12% month-on-month. This figure includes FT Premium and FT e-paper subscribers and customers through distributors Barnes and Noble, Media Carrier and Gold Key Media.

December 2023

December was a reasonable month for print circulation among the UK's national newspapers, with some experiencing monthly growth.

Scottish weekly the Sunday Mail saw the biggest growth compared to November, up 5% to 52,842, followed by the Financial Times (up 4% to 114,338), Daily Star Sunday (up 3% to 79,218) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 733,577).

The Sunday Post and Daily Express also grew by up to 1% while the Daily Mirror and the i fell by less than 1%.

Decline continued across the board when compared to December 2022, however, but it was lower than usual at some titles.

Often several newspapers see their circulation fall by about a fifth year-on-year but in December the only newspaper down that much was the Sunday People (a fall of 19% to 60,470).

Behind that, the Daily Star (136,909) and Daily Record (54,379) were both down by 14%.

The smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 7% to 128,110.

The Telegraph, which no longer publishes its total circulation (see below), has revealed it had an average weekly subscription number of 1,035,710 in December, made up of 117,586 in print, 688,012 in digital, and 230,112 across Telegraph Wine Cellar, Telegraph Puzzles and Chelsea Magazine Company.

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail's digital edition had an average circulation of 86,744 in December (up 2% month-on-month and 5% year-on-year) while the Mail on Sunday was on 87,910 (up 1% and 3% respectively).

November 2023

The i was the only UK national newspaper to avoid month-on-month print circulation decline in November.

The DMGT-owned newspaper stayed steady, growing 0.1% compared to October to an average circulation of 128,566.

The i also saw the second-smallest year-on-year drop of 7.4%, behind only the Financial Times which fell by just 0.3% to 110,220.

[Read more: As digital subs overtake print at i, editor Oliver Duff explains why future is bright for title]

The FT's newsstand sales (12,822) and paid subscriptions (9,373) were both down but the newspaper increased its bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels (32,001) and global distribution (56,024).

Free London newspaper City AM also stayed steady both month-on-month and year-on-year, with an average distribution of 67,940.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Sunday Post (down 2.7% to 38,160), the Sunday Mirror (down 1.9% to 182,978), the Sunday Mail (down 1.9% to 52,104) and the FT (down 1.7%).

The biggest annual drops were at the Sunday People (down 20.3% to 61,570), the Sunday Post (down 18.1%) and Daily Star Sunday (down 17.4% to 76,868).

October 2023

The Financial Times saw the smallest change in its print circulation in October, according to the latest monthly analysis of UK national newspapers.

The business newspaper grew by 0.4% month-on-month and declined by 0.3% in October to an average daily circulation of 112,139.

This included a slight increase (2% month-on-month and 6% year-on-year) in bulk copies distributed for free at locations like airports and hotels. These made up 29% of the FT's circulation in October.

The i, where bulks make up 1% of its circulation, had the next smallest annual decline in October of 8% to 128,494.

No other paid-for UK national newspapers that continue to publicly report their circulation figures still distribute bulk newspapers.

The biggest year-on-year circulation declines among paid-for titles were at Reach tabloids with a 22% drop at the Sunday People to 62,143 and a 19% fall at the Daily Star Sunday to 78,051.

Free title the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop overall, with its distribution down 27% compared to October 2022 to 293,663. This is the first time its distribution has gone below 300,000 since October 2009 when it became a free newspaper.

September 2023

Many UK national newspapers reported steeper-than-usual annual print circulation declines in September due to comparisons with the previous year when the death of The Queen appeared to lead to an uptick in sales.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday both saw their circulation fall by 17% year-on-year in September - up from an average decline of mostly somewhere between 10% and 13% each month in the year so far.

The biggest year-on-year decline among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People (down 24% to 62,712) followed by sister Reach title Daily Star Sunday (down 22% to 79,198).

Meanwhile the i, also owned by Mail publisher DMG Media, saw its average circulation fall below 130,000 in September to 129,133. Its earliest available ABC figures for January 2011, three months after its launch, show it was then on 133,472.

The Financial Times was the only newspaper to avoid a month-on-month circulation decline, growing by 7% to 111,738. It also reported the smallest drop compared to September last year, down 2%.

August 2023

Annual declines in print national newspaper circulations across the board continued in August.

The biggest year-on-year drops were at the Daily Star Sunday (down 22.4% to 80,124) and the Sunday People (down 21.8% to 64,605).

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, down 1% to 104,423 – of which 30,616 were bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels.

London business newspaper City AM did increase its free distribution by three-quarters compared to last summer, with an average of 64,729 copies distributed each Monday to Thursday in its first month of ownership by online retailer THG. It fell by 4% month-on-month.

The Daily Record was marginally the only paid-for title not to see a month-on-month drop in circulation. All others fell by up to 2% compared to July.

July 2023

Every national newspaper saw a year-on-year print circulation decline in July, according to the latest ABC figures.

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, which fell by 1% to 106,038. The biggest drop was at the Sunday People, with the Reach tabloid falling by 22% to 65,460, followed by sister title the Daily Star Sunday down 20% to 80,847.

Free London newspaper the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop to its distribution overall, down 24% to 302,602. Fellow free London title, City AM, did see growth, increasing its distribution by 81%, compared to a dip last summer, to 67,600.

The FT did, however, have the biggest month-on-month decline of 4%. Three titles grew their circulations by a fraction of a percent compared to June: the Mail on Sunday, the i and City AM.

June 2023

The Sunday Mirror's print newspaper circulation fell below 200,000 for the first time in June.

In January 2000, the earliest data available on the ABC website, the Sunday Mirror had a print circulation of two million. By January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began, the paper was on 367,244.

Also in June, the Sunday People, sister title to the Sunday Mirror, saw its sales move below the free distribution of London business newspaper City AM.

City AM fell by 15% year-on-year to 67,602, staying steady month-on-month compared to May, while the Sunday People fell by 21% and 6% respectively to 66,950.

The smallest year-on-year declines were at the i and the Financial Times, which both saw their circulations fall by 5% to 130,945 and 111,014 respectively.

The biggest declines were of the Evening Standard's free distribution (down 29% year-on-year to 308,874) and the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, the FT's circulation was up 1% compared to May while Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady. The biggest drops were at the Sunday Express and Mail on Sunday, both down 9% to 145,543 and 637,437 respectively.

May 2023

The Sunday Express rose above the Daily Star's print circulation in May as several Sunday newspapers saw a month-on-month boost, likely as a result of souvenir coverage of King Charles III's coronation.

Charles and Camilla officially became King and Queen on Saturday 6 May, with many Sunday titles producing souvenir editions with extra pages and wraparound front covers on the following day.

The Queen's death and funeral in September similarly led to a boost in audience both in print and online.

In May, the Mail on Sunday grew by 7% month-on-month, the Sunday Express was up 6%, the Sunday Mirror by 3%, the Sunday People by 2%, and the Daily Star Sunday by 1%. All continued to fall on a year-on-year basis, however, although by a lower percentage rate than the monthly reports frequently show.

At the Mail on Sunday, paid single copies grew by 7% to 622,360 and subscriptions rose by 8% to 75,585. However at the Sunday Express the boost primarily came from newsstand sales, which were up by 6% to 150,909, whereas subscriptions, on which the title relies less, were up by only 1% to 9,182.

The boost at the Sunday Express took it above the Daily Star's circulation for the first time since January 2021 and May 2020, both anomalous months. Before May 2020, the daily title had been higher in our ranking since December 2011.

April 2023

Print circulation decline continued across the board at the UK's national newspapers in April.

The biggest drop among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People, down 22% to 69,990. London's free Evening Standard, however, saw a greater fall of 31% to 311,216.

The smallest decline was at the FT, which dropped 2% year-on-year to an average monthly circulation of 109,637. It is the only ABC-audited newspaper to distribute a significant number of bulk free copies at locations such as airports and hotels as part of its circulation, but these fell by 9% so the smaller decline cannot be attributed to that portion of its circulation.

The only newspapers to grow by 1% between March and April were the Daily Mirror and the free City AM. The biggest month-on-month drop was of 3% at the Sunday People.

March 2023

The i reported the smallest annual print circulation decline among the UK’s national newspapers in March, according to the latest ABC figures.

The i’s circulation was down 7% in March compared to a year before, reaching 131,825. It was the only annual decrease under 10%.

The biggest decline was at the Evening Standard, where its free distribution was down by 31% year-on-year to 310,236.

The biggest paid-for drop was at the Sunday People, down by 21% to 72,091 – the only newspaper with an annual decline of more than a fifth in March.

Every newspaper publicly audited by ABC saw their circulation between February and March change by a narrow margin of between -2% (Daily Star Sunday, Sunday People, Sunday Post) and 1% (Financial Times, Daily Star).

The highest circulation paid-for print newspaper remains the Daily Mail, on 777,586 (down 11% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month). Metro, distributed for free in 50 UK cities, was on 952,424 (down 11% and 0.4% respectively).

February 2023

The Evening Standard has dropped its distribution by almost a third in a year.

The newspaper reported an average distribution of 311,485 for February, meaning it is nearing its circulation from before it went free – its final ABC report as a paid-for newspaper was 256,229 in September 2009.

December was the only month since then that it has been lower, on 310,933, than February’s total. Pre-Covid in February 2020 it was distributing an average of 787,447 copies per day.

The biggest print circulation decline of the UK’s paid-for national newspapers in February was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, which fell by 23% to 73,875. Reach told staff in January the People would begin to share most content with the Sunday Mirror, which itself was down 18% to sales of 209,197.

Fellow Reach title the Daily Express was the only other title aside from the People to fall by more than a fifth, going down by 21% to 173,372.

The smallest annual declines were at the i, which was down 8% to 132,222, and the Financial Times, down 9% to 108,562.

However the FT reported the biggest month-on-month drop of 5%.

Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady compared to January, and while the Daily Star Sunday was the only paid-for newspaper to see no month-on-month decline the Daily Star and Sunday Mail each fell by less than 1%.

January 2023

The Daily Mail's print circulation fell below 800,000 for the first time in January, according to the latest ABC data.

The newspaper reported an average circulation of 797,704, a dip of 12% year-on-year or 2% month-on-month. The Sun, traditionally its rival for the top of the table, is among the newspapers that no longer make their print circulations public.

In March 2020, the last time it published its ABC total, The Sun was on a circulation of 1,210,915 versus 1,132,908 for the Mail. The Mail then overtook The Sun for the first time in 42 years in May that year with a circulation of 980,000 and continues to be the UK's best selling daily.

The only newspaper to report growth in January compared to the same month last year was the Financial Times, up by 1% to 114,685, although it also saw the biggest month-on-month decline of 11% due to a decrease in non-UK circulation, bulk copies distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, and newsstand sales.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the free Evening Standard, which reduced its distribution by 30% to 314,285, followed by the paid-for Reach tabloid Sunday People, down 23% to 75,521.

The Daily Star Sunday, Daily Express, Sunday Post, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Mail and Sunday Express all saw their circulations decline year-on-year by 20%. However all except the Daily Star Sunday and Daily Express stayed steady or grew month-on-month. All are owned by Reach, except the Sunday Post which is owned by DC Thomson.

The biggest month-on-month growth was at City AM, which stopped putting out newspapers on Fridays in January due to low commuter numbers on that day. Editor Andy Silvester said at the time that distribution on Mondays to Thursdays had almost reached pre-pandemic levels.

December 2022

Free newspapers Evening Standard and City AM suffered the biggest drops in their print distribution in December compared to the previous year.

The titles appeared to be distributing fewer copies as publishers suffer rising paper and energy costs amid continued changes to working patterns that see fewer commuters on Mondays and Fridays in particular. Subsequent to these figures, in January City AM has dropped its Friday print edition - but its editor Andy Silvester said the paper was "thriving" on the other four days of the working week.

The Evening Standard's distribution in December was down by 30% year-on-year to 310,933 - its lowest since before it went free in October 2009.

Meanwhile City AM was down 25% to 58,664 and also saw the biggest month-on-month decline, down 14% from November.

Fellow free newspaper Metro also dropped its print distribution, but by a much lesser margin: in December it was down 6% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month to 965,960.

Among the paid-for newspapers whose circulations are published by ABC, several Sunday titles published by Reach all lost more than a fifth of their circulations year-on-year: the Sunday People was down 24% to 74,601, the Daily Star Sunday was down 23% to 88,434, the Sunday Mirror was down 21% to 208,794 and the Sunday Express was also down 21% to 153,377. DC Thomson's Sunday Post in Scotland was also down 22% to 44,038.

These five titles, plus the Sunday Mail in Scotland, also posted the largest paid-for circulation declines month-on-month ranging between 6% and 3% down from November.

The smallest annual decline was at the i (down 5% to 137,039) followed by the Financial Times (down 8% to 128,794).

Two newspapers posted month-on-month growth: the Financial Times (up 17%) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 812,106 - stopping it from dropping below 800,000 for the first time).

November 2022

Print decline across the board continued among the UK's national newspapers in November.

The smallest drop was at the i, which saw its print circulation decline by 3% year-on-year to 138,782.

The biggest was at the free Evening Standard, which dropped its distribution by 27% to 319,485. Among paid newspapers, it was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down to to 77,300 - a 23% drop compared to November 2021.

The only newspaper not to report decline month-on-month was the Sunday Post in Scotland, which grew by 88 copies, or 0.2%, on average.

The Daily Mail remains the biggest paid-for print newspaper of those that publicly release their ABC circulations, staying just above 800,000. The free title Metro had an average distribution of 977,077 in November.

October 2022

No UK national newspapers saw print circulation growth, whether year-on-year or month-on-month, in October.

The latest ABC figures show the smallest declines among paid-for newspapers were at the i (down 3% year-on-year to 140,196 – the only single-figure annual decline) and the Financial Times (down 1% month-on-month to 112,478).

Many national newspapers saw month-on-month growth in September, likely down to appetite for souvenir editions following the death of the Queen.

The biggest drops between September and October, possibly indicating the newspapers with the biggest boost from the national mourning period, were at the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Daily Express, which all fell by 8% month-on-month.

The biggest annual declines were at DC Thomson’s Sunday Post in Scotland and Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 22% and 21% respectively.

The Daily Express, FT, Sunday Mail and Daily Star Sunday all saw year-on-year falls of 19%.

September 2022

A strong appetite for print newspapers and souvenir editions following the death of the Queen appears to have led to month-on-month circulation growth almost across the board at the UK's national newspapers.

But the uplift was not high enough for most to report annual growth.

Of the eight publicly audited paid-for titles that saw month-on-month growth - the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, i and Financial Times - there was an average uplift of 4%. This growth was the same when factoring in the free distributions of Metro and the Evening Standard.

Including every newspaper in our ABC table, excluding City AM which appears to be an anomaly with its free distribution boosted by 37% following a severe slump, there was average month-on-month change of 2%.

The biggest month-on-month change was at the Financial Times, up by 8% to 113,992, followed by the Mail on Sunday (749,960) and i (147,609) which both grew by 5%.

However, annual decline continued at every newspaper except the Financial Times and the i. Although both are the only newspapers that still put bulk copies into locations like airports and hotels, making up 27% of the FT's circulation and 4% at the i, more of their annual growth was down to newsstand sales than this strategy.

The i was in fact at its highest level since December 2020, when it had a circulation of 148,927.

The biggest annual declines were at the Sunday People (down 20% to 82,275) and Sunday Post (down 19% to 48,938).

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years.

August 2022

The Financial Times saw marginal year-on-year growth in circulation in August, with every other newspaper continuing to decline.

The FT had a circulation of 105,748 in August compared to 105,213 the year before. Its newsstand sales and non-UK circulation grew although paid subscriptions and bulks (copies distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) were down.

Month-on-month, the only newspapers to see growth were the Daily Star Sunday, up 2% to 103,200 and the Scottish title Daily Record which was up by 1% to 69,316. Both are owned by Reach.

The Evening Standard also upped its free distribution, although by less than 1%. Its print readership in July was its lowest since before it went free in October 2009, with August the second lowest. Its year-on-year decline of 19% was one of the biggest in our table.

Fellow London free title City AM is also at its lowest distribution (36,640) since its 2005 launch. Its print edition was paused for 18 months during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Reach-owned Sunday People's circulation was down the most, by 22% to 82,597, with DC Thomson's Sunday Post down by 20% to 48,943.

July 2022

Every publicly audited UK national newspaper recorded a year-on-year decline in circulation in July.

Even the Financial Times, which has seen year-on-year growth every month since July 2021, was down by a few hundred copies compared to the year before. This was the smallest annual decline among the audited newspapers.

The Metro distributed less than one million copies for the first time since May 2021, when it trumpeted making it back over that milestone following the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The biggest year-on-year decline was a drop of 22% at the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, however, there was growth of 2% at the i largely down to an increase in paid subscriptions.

The biggest decline from June to July was at City AM, where free distribution more than halved to 37,369.

June 2022

Every publicly ABC audited UK national newspaper saw circulation decline from May to June with the exception of the i which saw growth of 0.2%.

Compared to June 2021, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to report growth, of 8% to 116,498.

Since the Covid-19 lockdowns ended the FT's circulation increases have largely been put down to the return of the distribution of free bulk copies at locations like airports and hotels. But in June a 17% year-on-year increase in bulk copies to 35,094 was also accompanied by 9% growth in paid newsstand sales to 15,612 (alongside a 4% decline in subscriptions to 9,076).

The smallest (4%) annual decline was at the i, which had a circulation of 137,964 and is the only other paid-for newspaper to still be shored up with free bulk copies - although they only account for 4% of its current total.

The biggest month-on-month decline was at the Sunday Mail in Scotland (down 5% to 66,469) while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People (down 23% to 85,212). Both are owned by Reach.

The free Metro was the only national newspaper other than the FT to grow year-on-year (by 3%) as it has upped its distribution this year compared to the Covid-hit 2020 and 2021.

May 2022

The Metro and Financial Times were the only national newspapers to grow their print readerships from last May to this year.

Metro had an average free distribution of 1,074,594 in May, staying steady month-on-month but growing by 17% since last year due to putting out more copies as people have returned to offices and public transport since the final Covid-19 lockdown.

The only paid-for newspapers to grow their circulations month-on-month in May were the Financial Times, up 4% to 116,747 as growth in subscriptions, non-UK sales and bulk copies distributed in locations like airports and hotels offset a drop in newsstand sales, and the Sunday Mail in Scotland, up 0.2% to 69,923. The Sunday Mail did, however, fall by 17% year-on-year.

The FT was the only paid-for paper to grow its circulation compared to May 2021, in large part because it has increased its distribution of bulk copies post-Covid from 25,361 last year to 34,661.

London's free business newspaper City AM has also continued its post-Covid growth, reaching its highest distribution level since returning in September from an 18-month hiatus.

Editor Andy Silvester told Press Gazette's Future of Media Explained podcast this month that the paper's return to pre-pandemic levels "probably proves a lot of sceptics wrong". In May City AM's average free distribution was 82,455, down 4% on February 2020 but up 1% month-on-month.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Daily Mirror and Daily Star, both down 4%, while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People, down 24%. All three are Reach titles.

April 2022

The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror both marginally grew their print circulations in April compared to March, bucking the industry's usual downward trend.

The Daily Mail was up 1% month-on-month to 879,102 while the Daily Mirror also grew by 1% to 327,341.

However both fell by 11% compared to April 2021 and both figures were still their second-lowest respectively since ABC auditing began.

The Daily Mail's digital edition had a readership of 76,315 in April.

Free newspapers Metro, Evening Standard and City AM all also saw month-on-month growth, increasing their print distributions.

After an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus, free business newspaper City AM returned to print in September and has now upped its distribution for three months in a row. It is now at 81,713, its highest since February 2020 when it was on 85,738.

Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,074,889 copies for free in April.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles no longer publish their ABC print circulations, having opted to take them private and focus on other metrics - for example, online subscriptions for The Telegraph and Times.

The Financial Times saw an 8% decline month-on-month to 112,344 but grew by 12% on April last year, making it the only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year. This is largely because it is putting out more bulks - free copies in locations such as airports and hotels - than it did for much of the Covid-19 pandemic (now 33,849 compared to 22,487 last year) while it has also roughly tripled subscriptions in a year (to 9,776).

March 2022

The Mail on Sunday under editor David Dillon had a circulation of 748,965 in March.

Similar to its competitors, the newspaper's circulation has been in steady decline over several years. In March, it fell by 14% year-on-year and 2% compared to the month before. It is down a fifth from 952,914 two years earlier in March 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The Mail on Sunday is currently in the centre of a sexism row around a story reporting that Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner had been accused of crossing and uncrossing in the House of Commons to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dillon refused to meet Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, saying journalists should “not take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be”.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation remains behind the Daily Mail on 875,125 but a long way ahead of its next ABC-audited paid competitor, the Daily Mirror on 325,271.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles all no longer publish their ABC-audited circulations.

The Financial Times was once again the only paid-for newspaper to see year-on-year growth, due to putting out more bulk copies in locations like airports and hotels than in March 2021. It was up 21% on the same time last year, to 121,490 - of which a third (40,958) were bulks.

However its circulation was higher in October to December last year, and its last pre-pandemic figure was 146,373 in March 2020. At that time about a fifth were bulk copies.

City AM's free distribution rose above 80,000 for the first time since it resumed printing in September after an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus. It distributed an average of 80,440 copies in March compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

The Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,073,993 copies for free in March.

February 2022

The Daily Mail's print circulation has fallen below 900,000 for the first time in more than 100 years.

In February the newspaper sold an average of 896,455 copies each day - or 767,021 on weekdays and 1,449,049 on Saturdays - following a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year decline of 7%.

The Daily Mail launched in 1896 with sales of 397,215. Within its first few years it surpassed one million and, despite a brief drop in 1915 in a row with the Government over troops' munition supplies, remained above that mark until the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sister title Mail on Sunday had an average circulation of 767,756 in February, down 2% month-on-month and 10% year-on-year.

The Sun, for many years the Daily Mail's closest ABC rival, no longer publishes its circulation - but the Mail overtook the red-top for the first time in 42 years in 2020.

The most-circulated national newspaper remains the free Metro, with a distribution of 1,066,327 that was up compared to both the month and year prior.

By contrast, fellow free newspaper the Evening Standard was down 9% year-on-year to 448,043.

The biggest annual declines were at Reach's Sunday People (95,637, down 20%) and Daily Star Sunday (107,478, down 19%).

January 2022

The Daily Mail was the only paid-for national newspaper to grow its circulation from December to January.

It reported 1% growth month-on-month, while its year-on-year decline of 5% to 909,201 was the smallest among the paid-for newspapers that don't use bulk copies.

The Financial Times grew by 17% year-on-year to 113,817 while the i grew by 1% to 142,598. Excluding bulk copies given away for free at locations such as airports and hotels, the FT grew by 3% to 79,446 and the i stayed steady on 137,483.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at Reach's Daily Star Sunday, which fell by 19% to 110,133. Month-on-month, the biggest decline was at the FT, which dropped by 18%.

Metro stayed steady between December and January but reported a 72% year-on-year jump. It built back its free distribution, which was massively scaled back in the early pandemic, and crossed the 1m mark once again in May last year.

December 2021

The Daily Star’s circulation has fallen below 200,000 for the first time in its 43-year history.

The tabloid had an average daily readership of 197,998 in December, according to the latest ABC figures, following a 2% month-on-month drop and a 14% decline since a year earlier.

The figures show continuing print readership decline as the lowest the Star’s circulation had gone during the first Covid-19 lockdown was 219,275 in April 2020.

It follows Reach stablemate Sunday People’s circulation falling below 100,000 in November.

In December the Daily Star Sunday and Sunday People saw the biggest annual circulation drops of 20% and 19% respectively.

The only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year was the Financial Times, which has upped the number of bulk copies given away for free since last year. However it still fell 2% month-on-month with bulk copies, newsstand sales and subscriptions all down in December.

The only newspaper to see month-on-month growth was City AM, which returned to print in September and in December was distributing an average of 78,418 copies each day compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

November 2021

The first ABC figures for London freesheet City AM since it returned to print in September show distribution is down 9% since February 2020.

Meanwhile, in November the Sunday People's circulation dropped by 21% to 99,915 - the first time since ABC records began in 2000 that its average circulation was below 100,000, even during the earlier Covid-19 lockdowns.

City AM distributed an average of 77,959 copies each weekday between 8 and 28 November, compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

Chief executive Jens Torpe told Press Gazette in September he hoped to reach pre-pandemic levels of distribution within about a month of relaunching.

According to the newspaper's ABC certificate it has hugely boosted its number of distribution points from 913 in February 2020 to 3,632. The business paper struck a deal to be found in all WeWork’s London locations and new offices, and went further out into the commuter belt to compensate for changing travel patterns as many City workers stuck with flexible working.

Average pagination has gone from 28 in February 2020 to 26, with editorial content up from 70% to 72%.

Nationally-published free newspaper Metro, which continued distributing throughout the pandemic for groups like key workers who kept travelling, remains 25% down on its February 2020 distribution level with 1.05m. It re-crossed the 1m mark in May and is the most-read newspaper in the UK.

The Evening Standard, which like City AM is only distributed in London, is 44% down on its February 2020 level with a distribution of 439,445 - but chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this was a "comfortable number that’s working well". It also kept publishing throughout the pandemic, but experimented with free home delivery for the first time.

The only newspapers to record year-on-year growth in November were Metro and the Financial Times, which both grew by 37%. The FT's newsstand sales were down by a quarter but subscriptions and bulk copies distributed for free were both up.

October 2021

The FT has grown its circulation by a third in the past year, and by a quarter between September and October, largely by putting out more free bulk copies.

The newspaper reported a circulation of 138,446 in October, which includes 55,222 bulk copies distributed for free in places like airports and hotels which have more than doubled since October 2020.

The FT's newsstand sales have decreased by 29% from 20,357 to 14,490 in a year although paid subscriptions grew 191% from 3,697 to 10,764. The FT also reports sales in other countries of 57,970 within its total.

It is the FT's highest circulation since the first three weeks of March 2020, when it was on 146,373, while the trend at most paid-for newspapers has been decline throughout 2021. (The i, which is up since January, is the only other national to put out bulks).

Meanwhile Metro has settled its free distribution on 1.05m which is up 35% compared to October 2020 when some workers had begun to return to work but at a slower pace than expected.

Its free rival in London, the Evening Standard, is down 10% compared to last year on 457,542.

The Saturday edition of the Daily Mail remains the most-read newspaper with a weekly circulation of 1.47m. The weekday edition sells 784,439. Both the daily and Sunday editions saw a 9% year-on-year decline.

The biggest year-on-year decline was once again at The Sunday People, which fell by 19% to 101,597. The Daily Star Sunday was down 18% to 118,260.

September 2021

Reach's Sunday People and Sunday Post newspapers recorded the biggest year-on-year declines in circulation in September of the publicly-audited national newspapers.

Both saw their circulations decline by 19% while the Sunday Mirror, Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail all fell by 14%. All are owned by Reach.

The Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation year-on-year, by 7% to a total of 111,898. However its free bulk copies, distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, increased by 41% to 32,351. Although paid subscriptions grew by 130% to 9,102, newsstand copies were down by a quarter to 15,154. Some 55,291 copies are sold in other countries.

Aside from the free Metro and the FT, every other newspaper remained steady between August and September changing by between 0% and -2%.

August 2021

The i was the only national newspaper to grow its paid circulation from July to August as subscriptions growth offset declining newsstand sales.

The i's print subscriptions grew from 23,199 in July to 25,223 in August. At the same time it put out more paid multiple copies, known as bulks, in locations such as airports and hotels (rising from 4,006 to 4,620).

Its average circulation therefore grew from 143,486 to 144,570. However this was still 5% down on last August.

The August ABC figures are the first in which the Guardian and Observer are absent, having chosen to keep their circulations private as News UK and the Telegraph did last year.

The Guardian's departure from the grid comes after its circulation was overtaken by the Financial Times in June for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Previously the audited circulation of the FT had been above that of the Guardian since 2000, the earliest available online ABC records.

The FT was again the only paid-for title to have grown year-on-year as it distributes bulk copies that were missing during the pandemic. It grew 12% year-on-year to 105,213 in August but fell by 2% from July.

The free Metro more than doubled its August 2020 figure following the end of the winter lockdown and the ramping up of its distribution to reach people increasingly venturing out again. It has now distributed an average of more than 1m copies per day for three months in a row.

July 2021

Putting on bulk copies has helped the FT to grow its circulation by nearly a quarter (24%) year-on-year while sales of The i paper have fallen by just 1% over the same period, new ABC figures for July show.

The FT sells more than 107,000 copies, of which more than 32,000 are bulks. The i, which is now part of the Daily Mail group, has a circulation of more than 143,000 copies, with some 4,000 bulks.

The free Metro's distribution was in excess of 1m in July 2021, nearly tripling its print output during the height of the pandemic.

All other newspapers audited by ABC reported a fall in year-on-year circulation. The Telegraph, Sun and Times titles are not included.

The Daily Mail has the largest paid-for circulation among the titles audited by ABC at more than 933,000. Its sister title the Mail on Sunday is behind on a little over 813,000 copies.

June 2021

Reach’s national Sunday titles continued to experienced the biggest year-on-year circulation drops in the industry in June.

The Sunday Post dropped by 16%, Daily Star Sunday was down 15%, Scottish tabloid Sunday Mail was down 14%, the Sunday People was down 13% and the Sunday Mirror by 11%. The Sunday Express was Reach’s best faring Sunday title, falling by 7%.

The best performance among paid-for newspapers was at the Financial Times which grew by 38% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month to 108,014.

As lockdown restrictions have eased the FT has put the number of bulk copies which go to locations like airports and hotels back up by 751% - from 3,534 to 30,093 – putting it on a similar level to June 2019 when 31, 057 bulk copies were distributed. The number of copies it sold in other countries was also up, although this was half 2019 levels.

No other paid-for newspapers grew month-on-month, and the i was the only other to grow year-on-year, although this could mainly be attributed to an increase in bulk distribution similar to the FT.

However the i's bulks remain, by contrast, far below 2019 levels - 50,250 in June 2019 versus 3,699 this year.

The Metro has continued putting its free distribution back up as lockdown restrictions continued to ease. It went up by 10% between May and June and 224% compared to last June, topping 1m on average.

By comparison its rival in London, the free Evening Standard, has decided to maintain its distribution at Covid levels and concentrate on online growth. It was distributing 492,406 copies on average in June.

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years – with a spotlight on how Covid-19 affected circulations in the past year.

May 2021

The Financial Times and the i were the only paid UK national newspapers to grow their circulations in May compared to last year – despite the first Covid-19 lockdown's severe impact on spring 2020 newsstand sales.

Both newspapers reported growth even when their bulk copies (those distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) are taken into account.

The i grew its circulation by 3% year-on-year excluding bulks to 140,721 or by 5% to 144,192 when bulks are included.

Meanwhile the FT grew by 2% to 77,218, excluding bulks, in May. Including bulks it was up 30% to 102,579.

Every other national newspaper saw an annual decline, with the smallest at the Daily Express, owned by Reach, which fell by 1% to 239,024.

May continued the trend of Reach’s Sunday titles experiencing the biggest year-on-year drops, however (scroll down or click here to see April's report).

Scotland’s Sunday Post and Sunday Mail were down 14% and 11% respectively. Nationally the Daily Star Sunday was down 12% and the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were both down 7%.

In May last year most national newspapers began to recover after their circulations had been hit hard by the first five weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Month-on-month, the FT (2%), i (1%) and the Guardian (0%) were the only paid-for titles not to see a dip. The biggest decline from April was at the Mail on Sunday (5%).

The ABC figures also demonstrated the impact of loosening Covid-19 restrictions on free newspapers as Metro and the Evening Standard increased their distributions by 190% and 9% respectively compared to May last year.

April 2021

Reach’s four Sunday titles – the Daily Star Sunday, Sunday Express, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – were the only national titles to have a lower circulation in April than they did during the UK’s strictest Covid-19 lockdown one year earlier.

The rest of the UK’s national newspapers are back above the circulations of their worst Covid slump, which took place amid uncertainties about the future for the industry as the UK was told to stay at home at the start of the pandemic.

Despite its 7% annual decline, the Daily Star Sunday had the biggest month-on-month growth of 3%. Most paid-for titles were able to keep their April circulations similar to March, with a drop of -1% the largest nationally and of -2% at the Sunday Mail the biggest overall.

The Scottish title, which is also owned by Reach, was down year-on-year by 6% to 85,450.

Despite the declines at Reach's Sunday titles, its national dailies the Mirror and Express were up by 2% and 3% respectively compared to April last year.

The Financial Times grew by 13% year-on-year to 100,215 in April. However it has upped its number of free copies distributed at locations such as airports and hotels from 7,042 last April to 22,487 – excluding these, its circulation has decreased 5% to 77,728.

By contrast the i, the only other paper to include bulk free copies in its ABC audited circulation, was up by 7% if they are included (143,380) and 9% if they are not (140,013).

This equals the Observer, which was also up 9% compared to last April to reach 140,894 copies each week.

The i’s DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were also both up by 4% and 5% respectively on last year. DMGT’s free title Metro has been “building back” its distribution, as editor Ted Young told Press Gazette last week, to reach an average of 805,471 per day in April. It then topped 1m on 17 May as lockdown restrictions eased.

The Evening Standard also increased its free distribution compared to last April, by 16% to 492,575. Chief executive Charles Yardley has told Press Gazette he is planning to keep numbers at around half a million going forward.

March 2021

Paid-for national newspaper circulations have fallen by almost a fifth (18%) on average since just before the first Covid-19 lockdown.

The final year-on-year comparison with pre-Covid ABC newspaper circulations shows the biggest declines have been at the i and Financial Times, which are both down by about a third to 143,204 and 100,781 respectively.

They are the only two paid-for ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports. Excluding bulks, the FT’s circulation fell by 35% year-on-year and the i’s fell by 18%.

The smallest, and only single-digit, declines were at the Mail on Sunday and Observer which both saw their circulation fall by 9% in the past year to 867,077 and 142,277 respectively in March 2021.

ABC’s March 2020 report spanned 2 to 22 March, stopping before the first lockdown came into place – although many people began working from home and curtailing social gatherings from about a week earlier.

The Evening Standard’s free circulation is down by 29% to 494,364 compared to March last year. The newspaper’s chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this month he remains committed to print but will not raise the distribution back to pre-pandemic levels.

Free rival Metro has dropped its distribution by half to 695,444. It initially dropped by 70% in April last year and rose to a

The biggest-selling issue of a UK national newspaper remains the Daily Mail’s Saturday issue, which sold an average 1,588,164 copies each week last month compared to 1,699,891 in March last year.

February 2021

The Observer reported the smallest drop in print circulation among UK national newspapers in February – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

The Observer, which had an average circulation of 140,920, was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit drop. The next smallest decline was the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 12% to 848,526.

Sister title the Daily Mail was the only publication to see month-on-month growth from January, up 1% to 964,825. It was 15% behind the 1,134,184 it had in February 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK.

However, the Daily Mail’s digital edition grew its average circulation by 4% from 94,171 in January to 98,107.

[Read more: See latest online audience data published by Pamco here]

In February free titles Metro and Evening Standard distributed 58% and 38% fewer copies respectively compared to the year before. Both are continuing to publish for key worker commuters although most people remain under a “stay at home” order, with the Standard also delivering to doorsteps in certain parts of London.

The biggest paid-for circulation drops in February were at the Financial Times (down 36%) and i (35%), the only two ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports.

Excluding bulks, the FT was down 40% and the i was down 18% - taking it below the Daily Star’s 20% decline.

January 2021

The UK’s current coronavirus lockdown has not hit national newspaper circulations as hard as last year’s strict April restrictions did, according to new figures from ABC.

However, most titles are now again below the circulation levels to which they had begun to recover in May last year.

The Daily Mail’s print circulation has fallen to its lowest since the peak of the Covid-19 crisis in April.

The UK’s top-selling newspaper sold an average of 960,019 copies each day in January, an 18% drop year-on-year. In April it reported a circulation of 944,981, which grew to 979,836 in May.

The Mail overtook The Sun in May 2020 and Press Gazette understands it has since consolidated its lead.

Digital edition sales add a further 77,736 to the Mail's daily circulation figure, according to ABC - keeping it above 1m.

In March last year, before the first UK lockdown, the Mail was selling in excess of 1.1m copies per day.

Also below their May 2020 circulations were the Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express, Daily Star on Sunday, Sunday People, and the Guardian.

Only the Observer, i and Financial Times were above their May figures from last year in January.

Several national newspapers saw bigger year-on-year drops in January than the Mail: the FT’s circulation fell by 39%, the i by 35%, the Sunday Post by 22%, the Daily Star by 21%, the Daily Express by 19% and the Daily Mirror by 19%.

The smallest year-on-year drop was at the Observer, which saw a decline of 8% to a circulation of 143,764.

The biggest month-on-month fall from December was also at the FT (down by 8% to 97,067) followed by the Daily Star Sunday, i and Guardian which were all down by 5%.

The only title to report any growth was Scottish tabloid the Sunday Mail, which was up 1% month-on-month to 88,819.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were down 58% and 39% respectively year on year in January.

December 2020

The Mail on Sunday reported the smallest drop in print circulation in December – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

It had an average circulation of 954,497 in December 2019, down to 865,439 last month. It was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit year-on-year decline, with the Observer the second smallest drop (by 10% to 147,296).

The Financial Times saw its print circulation fall by more than a third (35%) year-on-year to 105,358 – the biggest fall among the UK’s paid-for national newspapers.

However, the FT did grow by 1% month-on-month as it continues to recover from the initial Covid-19 lockdown slump common to each of the titles.

The Guardian saw the biggest month-on-month growth of 2% in December.

The biggest fall from November 2020 was at the Sunday People, down 5% to 120,429.

Wales went into lockdown on 20 December while Scotland and Northern Ireland were placed under tight restrictions from Boxing Day and much of London and the south east of England entered strict Tier 4 restrictions days before Christmas.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 38% down respectively on the previous year’s print readership.

November 2020

Several national newsbrands managed a month on month increase in print circulation in November, with The Observer seeing the biggest rise at 4%.

The Observer's print circulation rose from 145,680 to 152,129 having remained steady in the previous month.

The Sunday Express, the Sunday People and the Guardian also saw print sales rise 1%, after seeing declines between September and October

The Observer saw the smallest year-on-year decline at 5%. It was the only title not to report a double-digit year-on-year fall.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (36% to 104,024) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 46% and 40% down on the previous year's print readership.

October 2020

The Observer was the only national print newspaper brand not to see a year on year print circulation decline in October.

The Observer's print readership remained steady on 145,680 as every other title except the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 9%, reported a double-digit year-on-year decline.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (39% to 105,592) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 39% down on the previous year's print readership - although Metro managed to add a fifth back onto its output in October.

Press Gazette is hosting the Future of Media Technology Conference. For more information, visit NSMG.live

The post Newspaper ABCs: Sunday Mail in Scotland manages to hold off monthly decline in October appeared first on Press Gazette.

All of the UK’s biggest political stories, both print and broadcast, have been approved by the outlets’ political editors. They are the minds behind every news story and coverage involving politics, and these names climbed the journalism ladder thanks to their innovative and critical thinking.

Political editors are some of the best-known names in the industry, bringing in scoops from their overflowing books as well as typically juggling a team of political correspondents and reporters.

These are the country’s main political editors across traditional newspaper outlets and broadcasters, from the BBC to The Sunday Times and GB News to the Daily Mail.

Who are the UK national newspaper political editors?

The Guardian – Pippa Crerar (2022 – present)

Pippa Crerar, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, attended Newcastle University, obtaining a degree in English. She later took a postgraduate course at City, University of London in newspaper journalism.

Crerar began her journalistic career in 1999 when she received the Scott Trust bursary, which paid for her training and provides work experience at The Guardian for people from under-represented groups in journalism.

During her residency at The Daily Mirror, where she was political editor, Crerar won scoop of the year at the British Journalism Awards along with Guardian journalist Matthew Weaver for their revelation that government advisor Dominic Cummings had broken lockdown rules.

In recent times, the journalist focused on other stories about lockdown-breaking events in Downing Street.

She recently took over from Heather Stewart as political editor at The Guardian. “I know that we’ll do great journalism together, holding politicians and power to account and shining a light on how their decisions impact all of us,” she said.

The Observer – Toby Helm (2022 – present)

Toby Helm worked for the Sunday Telegraph between 1991 and 1996, when he began serving as the Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, later moving to become Berlin correspondent.

He stayed there until 2002, when he was appointed chief political correspondent on his return to the UK – before moving over to The Observer in 2008 as Whitehall editor. He is now The Observer’s political editor.

The Sun – Harry Cole (2020 – present)

Harry Cole is The Sun’s political editor. His career has been enriched by working for publications such as The Spectator and The Mail on Sunday.

After reading politics at the University of Edinburgh, he obtained a Master’s degree at the same university in anthropology and economic history. After graduating in 2009, Cole started his journalistic career.

Starting as a blogger for Guido Fawkes’s Blog from 2009 until 2015, Cole covered the role of contributing editor for The Spectator at the same time, from 2012 until 2015. He joined The Sun on Sunday in 2013 as a diarist and moved to The Sun in 2015 as the Westminster correspondent.

After his first encounter with The Sun’s editorial team, Cole turned to the Mail on Sunday to work as deputy political editor from 2018 until 2020, when he left and went back to The Sun as political editor, which he still is today.

Cole won the publication the Scoop of the Year prize at the British Journalism Awards in 2021, thanks to his revelation of former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s affair with Gina Coladangelo during the pandemic.

However, as the political editor revealed, The Sun experienced threats from government officials and even heard of imminent action from Chinese and Russian spies. This is after the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the houses of two suspected whistleblowers who may have leaked CCTV footage of Hancock’s affair. As the journalist explained, these threats came also from the proposed reform to the Official Secrets Act which could see journalists treated like spies.

Cole said: “Everyone in this room, whether they read The Sun or not, should know that this has a chilling effect on the freedom of the press and we are really glad that public interest journalism is recognised in this way.”

The Sun on Sunday – Kate Ferguson (2022 – present)

Kate Ferguson joined The Sun on Sunday as political editor in 2022 after being deputy political editor at The Sun since 2019.

Ferguson started her journalism journey as a cub reporter on the Willesden & Brent Times and then the Ham & High. She developed her skills by working as a crime reporter for the Press Association.

“I am hugely excited to be the new Sun on Sunday political editor – it is a dream job for me. With the economy in crisis, the war in Europe and rebellions in Parliament, our political coverage has never been more important,” the journalist stated when she took the role.

The Times – Steven Swinford (2021 – present)

Steven Swinford is The Times’ political editor and has been since 2021. Prior to this, he was deputy political editor under Francis Elliott.

Swinford’s career also involved being deputy political editor at The Daily Telegraph and a reporter at The Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times – Caroline Wheeler (2021 – present)

The Sunday Times’ political editor is Caroline Wheeler, who took up the role in 2021.

The journalist graduated in political science and government from the University of York in 1999, and then undertook a Master’s degree in newspaper journalism at the University of Wales, Cardiff.

Right after the end of her studies, Wheeler became a trainee reporter for Trinity Mirror Group PLC, where she remained for four years. In 2004, she covered the role of parliamentary correspondent for Local World Media from 2004 until 2014, before embarking on another journey as political editor for Sunday Express, where Wheeler worked for three years.

Wheeler took up a role at The Sunday Times in 2017 as deputy political editor until 2021, at which point she stepped up to be the political editor.

Throughout her career, Wheeler has broken multiple agenda-setting stories about the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the 2017 general election.

The acclaimed journalist was included in Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ journalist blacklist. “The British journalists included in the list are involved in the deliberate dissemination of false and one-sided information about Russia and the events in Ukraine and Donbas. With their biased assessments, they also contribute to fueling Russophobia in British society,” the Ministry declared in June 2022.

The Independent – Andrew Woodcock (2019 – present)

Andrew Woodcock has covered the role of political editor at The Independent since 2019.

Before starting his career, Woodcock graduated from the University of Cambridge in French and German in 1989.

Six years later he joined Press Association, where he worked from 1995 until 2011 as chief political correspondent and from 2011 until 2019 as political editor. After almost 24 years at the same company, Woodcock switched over to The Independent, where he still works today.

Throughout his career, The Independent’s political editor has reported on four prime ministers and five general elections. Woodcock has also filed dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia, as well as flying on Air Force One with former US President Barack Obama.

The i – Hugo Gye (2021 – present)

Hugo Gye’s career started in 2011 when he joined MailOnline as a reporter. The journalist covered that position until 2016 when he was promoted to associate news editor.

After his experience at MailOnline, Gye moved to The Sun as a digital political editor until 2019.

The journalist joined The i Paper in 2019, first as deputy political editor and then as political editor in 2021.

The Daily Mail – Jason Groves (2021 – present)

Jason Groves was appointed as political editor of the Daily Mail in 2021.

He has also worked for publications such as the Daily Express, MSN and USA Today, according to his Muck Rack profile.

[See also: Editor Danny Groom on why ‘market leader’ Mail Online is expanding royal coverage]

The Mail on Sunday – Glen Owen (2018 – present)

Glen Owen, a Cambridge graduate, is The Mail On Sunday’s political editor.

Owen was promoted to the role of deputy political editor in 2018, replacing Simon Walters.

Owen became embroiled in a scandal in April 2022 when he reported that some anonymous members of the Conservative Party had accused Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner of “crossing and uncrossing her legs” to distract Boris Johnson while comparing her to Sharon Stone in the movie Basic Instinct (1992).

Daily Mirror – John Stevens (2022 – 2024)

Update on 16 August 2024: John Stevens is leaving the Mirror to become a special adviser to senior Labour MP Pat McFadden. His successor has not yet been announced.

After graduating in economics and politics from the University of Exeter, John Stevens completed a Master’s in newspaper journalism at City, University of London. His Master’s was funded by a Scott Trust scholarship, which also allowed him to work at the Guardian and the Observer for two months.

With his involvement in the university’s student newspaper, Stevens continued his career by working as a parliamentary researcher for the UK House of Lords for less than a year, and then starting at the Daily Mail, where he stayed for around 12 years ending up as deputy political editor.

In 2022, Stevens switched over to the Daily Mirror, where he was appointed political editor, taking over from Pippa Crerar.

He was shortlisted in the Politics Journalism category at the British Journalism Awards in 2023 for revealing a Partygate tape showing inside a lockdown-breaking Westminster party.

While at the Mail he was shortlisted for the Politics Journalism prize for revealing that then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was on holiday and apparently “too busy” to help British troops’ Afghan translators during the fall of Kabul.

Daily Express – Martyn Brown (2024 – present)

Martyn Brown was promoted from deputy to political editor in November 2024, succeeding Sam Lister.

Brown first joined the Express as a news reporter in 2007, later becoming political correspondent. He took a three-year break to live and work in Myanmar from 2015 but returned to the Express as deputy political editor.

On his appointment, Express editor-in-chief Tom Hunt said Brown is “fully deserving of his promotion and will take the team on to the next level as we continue to hold the new Government to account”, referring to Labour after their July victory.

Prior to Brown, Sam Lister was Express political editor for just over two years but has now become an associate editor at the title.

Sunday Express – David Williamson (2022 – present)

David Williamson graduated from the University of Aberdeen and then started his journalism career.

He worked as a political editor at the Western Mail and Wales Online after serving as a trainee reporter and business correspondent.

Williamson is now covering the role of political editor at the Sunday Express, after being promoted from deputy.

Financial Times – George Parker (2007 – present)

George Parker has been the Financial Times’ political editor since 2007. The journalist was previously the FT’s bureau chief in Brussels, reporting on the EU and Westminster.

Parker has reported throughout his career on some of the most dramatic events in modern British history, such as the financial crash of 2008, the coalition government and Brexit.

FT’s political editor is also a regular speaker on Radio 4’s Week in Westminster and has also appeared on shows like BBC One’s (now-defunct) Andrew Marr show and Radio 4’s Today programme.

The Telegraph – Ben Riley-Smith (2021 – present)

Ben Riley-Smith graduated from Cambridge University with a BA in history and went on to obtain a Master’s degree in journalism at City, University of London in 2012.

Riley-Smith’s career has revolved around only one publication: The Telegraph. He started in 2012 as a trainee reporter, and the journalist quickly climbed the ladder. In 2014, Riley-Smith was promoted to Scottish political correspondent and then to political correspondent. Smith stayed in that role until 2016, when he became assistant political editor.

After one year of covering this role, Smith took on the job of US editor until 2021, when he was appointed as political editor.

The Sunday Telegraph – Camilla Turner (2024 – present)

Camilla Turner took over from Edward Malnick as political editor of The Sunday Telegraph in April 2024 when Malnick became head of live features for The Telegraph.

She had been The Telegraph’s chief political correspondent for two years and was education editor for five years before that.

She first joined The Telegraph in 2013 as an editorial trainee and has worked her way up from news reporter and investigations reporter.

According to Linkedin Turner studied history at the University of Oxford and then did City University’s MA Investigative Journalism course.

[See also: National press ABCs: i reports smallest annual decline in March]

Evening Standard – Nicholas Cecil (2021 – present)

Nicholas Cecil is the political editor at the Evening Standard.

He mostly covers Westminster stories, as well as foreign affairs and other major events affecting the UK and EU. Cecil reported on the Covid-19 pandemic, air pollution, and climate change as well as some sports stories.

Who are the UK broadcast political editors?

BBC News – Chris Mason (2022 – present)

Yorkshire native Chris Mason was born into a family of teachers and, since a young age, he thoroughly enjoyed listening to the radio and had the ambition of being a presenter one day.

Mason studied geography at Cambridge University but also achieved a postgraduate diploma from City, University of London in broadcast journalism, in 2002. Straight after finishing his master’s degree, Mason got a job at BBC Newcastle and then moved to the Westminster desk.

The new BBC political editor was a Europe correspondent at BBC News until 2006, before moving to BBC Radio 5 Live. He then became a political correspondent at BBC News in 2012. Five years later, Mason began presenting the Brexitcast podcast alongside Adam Fleming.

In 2022, Mason was offered the job as BBC News political editor, taking over from Laura Kuenssberg, who took over the BBC Sunday morning TV politics slot, replacing Andrew Marr.

ITV News – Robert Peston (2015 – present)

London-born Robert Peston is the son of Labour Peer Baron Maurice Peston.

After graduating in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, Peston moved to Bruxelles to obtain a master’s degree at the Universite libre de Bruxelles. A year later, in 1983, Peston started his journalistic career at Investors’ Chronicle, working his way up to the Independent, Financial Times and Sunday Telegraph.

From print, the acclaimed journalist switched over to TV, when he started working for the BBC in 2005 as a business editor. Peston became one of the most renowned and respected journalists of modern Britain thanks to one particular scoop. Northern Rock and the financial crisis, which won him the Royal Television Society’s Television Journalism Award for Scoop of the Year in 2008.

After becoming the economics editor for the BBC, he moved to ITV in 2016 to become the broadcaster’s political editor. However, his role has caused him stress, telling Press Gazette: “I’m never relaxed. Like many journalists, I’m terrified that if I don’t get the next story, I’ll be out of a job.”

Today, The Pest – as is his nickname – also hosts his own Wednesday programme, Peston.

Channel 4 News – Gary Gibbon (2005 – present)

English journalist Gary Gibbon has been Channel 4 News’ political editor since 2005.

Born in Harrow, where he also attended school, Gibbon then headed to Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in History. After leaving education, Gibbon started to climb the journalism ladder.

While at Channel 4, he covered four general elections and wrote impactful stories throughout the years. For instance, in 2001, the political journalist’s interview with Peter Mandelson motivated the Northern Ireland Secretary’s second resignation from the Cabinet.

Gibbon is an acclaimed journalist, having won the Royal Television Society Home News Award with Jon Snow thanks to their scoop on the attorney general’s legal advice on Iraq in 2006.

Sky News – Beth Rigby (2019 – present)

Born in Colchester, Beth Rigby graduated from Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge in social and political science and then achieved a Master’s Degree in economics at the University of London.

Rigby joined Sky News in 2016 as a senior political correspondent and became deputy political editor before getting the political editor job in 2019.

Previously she was chief political correspondent at the Financial Times and media editor at The Times.

5 News – Andy Bell (1999 – present)

From 1999 to the present day, Andy Bell has been covering the position of political editor at ITN’s Channel 5 News.

The Cambridge graduate, after obtaining his degree in history in 1984, moved to the US to attend a Master’s course in international relations and affairs at the University of Pennsylvania.

His career took him all over the world, starting in Paris, where Bell worked as a stand-in correspondent for The Guardian from 1990 until 1993. The journalist’s experience led him to obtain a long-lasting job at the BBC, where he worked for almost nine years, first as a foreign affairs correspondent at Today Programme and then as a BBC Paris correspondent, until 1996.

GB News – Christopher Hope (2023 – present)

Christopher Hope joined GB News as head of politics and political editor in 2023 after spending almost 20 years at The Telegraph.

He had been a member of The Telegraph’s parliamentary lobby team since 2006 and at the time of his departure hosted a weekly politics podcast, Chopper’s Politics.

Before moving into political journalism Hope was business correspondent for The Scotsman, the launch chief business writer for Business AM in 2000, City editor for The Herald and business correspondent for The Daily Telegraph when he first joined the newspaper in 2003.

Hope studied politics at Bristol University and then magazine journalism at Cardiff’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture. His first journalism jobs were on trade titles Print Week and Construction News.

[See also: Who are GB News’ presenters? Everything you need to know]

The post Who are the UK’s political editors? From broadcast to print appeared first on Press Gazette.

News organisations don’t have a “genuine choice” about whether to block Google from scraping their content for its AI services, one publisher has warned.

Matt Rogerson, director of global public policy and platform strategy at the FT and former Guardian Media Group director of public policy, argued that Google’s “social contract” with publishers – through which it provided value to the industry by sending traffic to their sites – has been broken.

This is because Google now publishes summaries of those publishers’ articles in AI Overviews at the top of many search results – and also sells data generated via its search crawler to third-party large language models (LLMs).

[Read more: Google AI Overviews breaks search giant’s grand bargain with publishers]

In September last year Google introduced Google-Extended, a control which allows website owners to block its AI chatbot Gemini (formerly Bard) and its AI development platform Vertex from scraping their content.

However Google-Extended does not stop sites from being accessed and used in Google’s AI Overviews summaries, meaning that to avoid this publishers would have to opt out of being scraped by Googlebot, which indexes for search.

Rogerson said the presence of Googlebot on “almost the vast majority of websites on the open web enables Google unparalleled access to IP published online” and added that this IP is “now being used to enable Google’s LLMs, and those of third party companies such as Meta, to respond accurately to user queries in real-time”.

In a letter to Baroness Stowell, chair of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, Rogerson said: “This leaves website owners with an unenviable choice.

“To opt-out of the Google Search crawler entirely, and become invisible to the 90%+ of the UK population that currently uses Google Search, or allow scraping to continue in ways that both extract value without compensation, and undermine nascent commercial licensing markets for the use of high quality IP to build and enable the AI models of the future.”

Rogerson’s letter was triggered by Media Minister Stephanie Peacock inaccurately stating in a Future of News inquiry hearing earlier in October that the FT “has an agreement with Google“.

Peacock said licensing approaches like these are “obviously welcome” but there is “no consistency to it. It is quite piecemeal, and there is definitely a question around making it more consistent.”

The FT has not done any deal with Google for the use of its content in LLMs and other AI products, although it has previously been a partner of the tech giant in other projects like the Google News Showcase aggregation service.

The FT has separately signed a licensing agreement with OpenAI and a “number of other agreements for innovative AI related partnerships” including a private beta test with Prorata.ai, a start-up developing technology for generative AI platforms to share revenue with publishers each time their content is used to generate an answer.

Rogerson said of the FT’s OpenAI and Prorata deals: “Both of these agreements begin to align the incentives of AI platforms and publishers in the interests of quality journalism, the reader and respect for IP.

“We strongly believe that sharing revenues between technology companies that use IP and the publishers that create it – can help develop a healthier and fairer information ecosystem that encourages accurate and authoritative journalism and rightly rewards those who produce it.”

He added that this goal of aligning incentives is “being undermined by the scraping practices of incumbent technology companies” including Google.

He said the scraping of publisher IP by Google, which uses it in its own LLMs and sells it to companies like Meta, is still agreed to because sites want to appear in the tech giant’s dominant search engine.

But he said this “means that those companies extract commercial value from the source material, without a user ever engaging with the source of that information.

“From Wikipedia to the Watford Observer, websites rely on engagement with users: engagement that is generated by the content invested in and generated by those sites. Without such engagement the ability to generate any of those revenue streams disappears. This was the social contract of the open web, that value would be shared between search and social gateways and the investors in intellectual property.”

A Google spokesperson said in response: “Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and we intend for this long-established value exchange with publishers to continue.

“With AI Overviews, people find Search more helpful and they’re coming back to search more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered. People are using AI Overviews to discover more of the web, and we’re continuing to improve the experience to make that even easier.

“We also provide web publishers with a range of controls to indicate how much of their content is eligible to display in Search.” This includes AI Overviews.

Google claims, although it has not yet shared data on this, that clicks from AI Overviews are higher quality as people are more likely to spend more time on the site.

It says Googlebot is used in AI Overviews because AI has long been built into search and is integral to how it functions.

And it tells publishers that don’t want their content to appear in AI Overviews to use the NOSNIPPET meta tag and the DATA-NOSNIPPET attribute to limit visibility of specific pages or parts of page – similar to how they could previously control whether they appeared as featured snippets at the top of results.

The post News organisations are forced to accept Google AI crawlers, says FT policy chief appeared first on Press Gazette.

News publishers are increasingly deciding to sign deals with AI companies over the use of their content despite early doubts and a high-profile legal case from The New York Times.

The deals commonly include the use of news publishers’ content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the AI tech to build their own products.

This page will be updated when new deals are struck or legal actions are launched relating to news publishers and AI companies (latest: Meta strikes an AI deal with Reuters while News Corp subsidiaries sue Perplexity).

OpenAI is reportedly offering news organisations between $1m and $5m per year to license their copyrighted content to train its models – although News Corp’s deal is reportedly worth more than $250m over five years.

Meanwhile Apple has reportedly been exploring AI deals with the likes of Conde Nast, NBC News and People and Daily Beast owner IAC to license their content archives, but nothing has yet been made public.

Scroll down or here are the quick links:

• Latest lawsuits: including eight Alden US dailies
• Latest deals: including Hearst, Conde Nast, The Atlantic, Vox Media, News Corp, Dotdash Meredith

Plenty of other news organisations are understood to be in negotiations with OpenAI while some, including the publisher of Mail Online, have suggested they are seriously considering their options legally.

But not all publishers want deals: Reach chief executive Jim Mullen told investors on 5 March that the UK’s largest commercial publisher is not in any “active discussions” with AI companies and suggested other publishers should hold off on deals to allow the industry to come at the issue with a position of solidarity.

He said: “We would prefer that we don’t get into a situation where we did with the referrers ten years ago and gave them access and we became hooked on this referral traffic and we would like it to be more structured. We produce content, which is really valuable, and we would like to license or agree how they use our base intelligence to actually inform the AI and the open markets. The challenge we have as an industry is that we need to be unified.

“I used to be the chairman of the NMA and if we stay together and work with it, then that’s a really strong position that we have, particularly with the Government to help us get to there. So I’m using this as a bit of a campaign, [it] only takes one publisher to break away and start doing deals and then it sort of disintegrates.”

Press Gazette analysis in February found that more than four in ten of the 100 biggest English-language news websites have decided not to block AI bots from the likes of OpenAI and Google.

If you feel there is something missing that should be included, or you want to alert us to a new development, please contact charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk.

Suing

News Corp (versus Perplexity)

The News Corp subsidiaries that publish the Wall Street Journal and New York Post have filed a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against AI upstart Perplexity, which they accuse of “massive freeriding”.

The publisher is seeking massive damages and the removal of its content from Perplexity’s web index and wants its case heard at a jury trial.

News Corp has separately signed a deal with OpenAI (see below for more information). It is the first to sue Perplexity though other publishers including The New York Times have sent the AI company cease and desist letters.

Read the full story here.

Mumsnet

UK parenting forum and publisher Mumsnet has launched legal action via an initial letter against OpenAI over the scraping of its site and its more than six billion words – “presumably” for the training of large language model ChatGPT.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told users: “Such scraping without permission is an explicit breach of our terms of use, which clearly state that no part of the site may be distributed, scraped or copied for any purpose without our express approval. So we approached Open AI and suggested they might like to licence our content.”

In particular, she said, Mumsnet’s content would be valuable because it could help to counter the misogyny “baked in” to many AI models.

But, she continued: “Their response was that they were more interested in datasets that are not easily accessible online.”

Roberts said what OpenAI differs from Google’s scraping of the web for search purposes because there is a “clear value exchange in allowing Google to access that data, namely the resulting search traffic… The LLMs are building models like ChatGPT to provide the answers to any and all prospective questions that will mean we’ll no longer need to go elsewhere for solutions. And they’re building those models with scraped content from the websites they are poised to replace.”

Roberts continued: “At Mumsnet we’re in a stronger position than most because much of our traffic comes to us direct and though it’s a piece of cake for an LLM to spit out a Mumsnet-style answer to a parenting question I doubt they’ll ever be as funny about parking wars or as honest about relationships and they’ll certainly never provide the emotional support that sees around a thousand women a year helped to leave abusive partners by other Mumsnet users.

“But if these trillion-dollar giants are simply allowed to pillage content from online publishers – and get away with it – they will destroy many of them.”

Roberts acknowledged it is “not an easy task” to go up against a big tech company like OpenAI but said “this is too important an issue to simply roll over”.

Responses from users on the forum contained a lot of “well done” and “good luck”.

The Center for Investigative Reporting

Non-profit news organisation The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Mother Jones (after a merger this year) and Reveal, is suing OpenAI and its largest shareholder Microsoft, it announced on 28 June.

It said the companies had used its content “without permission or offering compensation” and accused them of “exploitative practices” in a lawsuit filed in New York.

Chief executive Monika Bauerlein said: “OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material.

“This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”

She added: “For-profit corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft can’t simply treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers as free raw material for their products.

“If this practice isn’t stopped, the public’s access to truthful information will be limited to AI-generated summaries of a disappearing news landscape.”

Eight Alden Global Capital daily newspapers

Eight daily newspapers in the US owned by Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft, it was revealed on 30 April.

The newspapers involved in the lawsuit are: the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel in Florida, the Mercury News in San Jose, the Denver Post, the Orange County Register and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The lawsuit says the newspapers want recognition that they have a legal right over their content and compensation for the use of it in the training of AI tools so far.

Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing Newspapers, the Alden subsidiaries that own the newspapers concerned, said: “We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense.

“They pay their engineers and programmers, they pay for servers and processors, they pay for electricity, and they definitely get paid from their astronomical valuations, but they don’t want to pay for the content without which they would have no product at all. That’s not fair use, and it’s not fair. It needs to stop.

“The misappropriation of news content by OpenAI and Microsoft undermines the business model for news. These companies are building AI products clearly intended to supplant news publishers by repurposing purloined content and delivering it to their users.

“Even worse, when they’re not delivering the actual verbatim reporting of our hard-working journalists, they misattribute bogus information to our news publications, damaging our credibility. We employ professional journalists who adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness. They are real people who go out into the world to conduct first-hand interviews and engage in actual investigations to produce our journalism.

“Their work is vetted and checked by professional editors. The Mercury News has never recommended injecting disinfectants to treat COVID, and the Denver Post did not publish research that shows smoking cures asthma. These and other ChatGPT hallucinations are documented in our legal filings.”

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net

Three US progressive news and politics digital outlets filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Wednesday 28 February.

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net objected to the use of their articles to train ChatGPT. The Intercept also sued Microsoft, which has partnered with OpenAI to create a Bing chatbot.

Raw Story publisher Roxanne Cooper said: “Raw Story’s copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material.”

CEO and founder John Byrne added: “It is time that news organisations fight back against Big Tech’s continued attempts to monetise other people’s work.”

The New York Times

The most high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft from a news publisher so far, The New York Times made a surprise announcement in the days after Christmas that it would seek damages, restitution and costs as well as the destruction of all large language models (LLMs) trained on its content.

OpenAI and NYT had been in negotiations for nine months but the news organisation felt no resolution was forthcoming and decided instead to share its concerns over the use of its intellectual property publicly. The success of the lawsuit will depend on the US court’s interpretation of “fair use” in copyright law – assuming the companies don’t find their way to a settlement first.

OpenAI previously said a “high-value partnership around real-time display with attribution in ChatGPT” was on the cards with the NYT before the news organisation surprised it by launching the lawsuit.

The NYT said the two tech companies, which have a partnership centred around ChatGPT and Bing, have “reaped substantial savings by taking and using – at no cost” its content to create their models without paying for a licence. It added that the use of its content in chatbots “threatens to divert readers, including current and potential subscribers, away from The Times, thereby reducing the subscription, advertising, licensing, and affiliate revenues that fund The Times’s ability to continue producing its current level of groundbreaking journalism”.

In its response, filed on Monday 26 February, OpenAI argued: “In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product” to substitute for a NYT subscription. “Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.”

OpenAI accused the NYT of paying someone to hack its products and taking “tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results” in which verbatim paragraphs from articles were spat out by ChatGPT. “They were able to do so only by targeting and exploiting a bug (which OpenAI has committed to addressing) by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI’s terms of use,” it said.

“And even then, they had to feed the tool portions of the very articles they sought to elicit verbatim passages of, virtually all of which already appear on multiple public websites. Normal people do not use OpenAI’s products in this way.”

Getty Images

Getty Images began legal proceedings against Stability AI in the UK in January 2023, claiming that the AI image company “unlawfully copied and processed” millions of its copyrighted images without a licence through its text-to-image model Stable Diffusion.

In December, the High Court in London ruled that Getty’s case could go to trial after Stability AI failed to persuade a judge that two aspects of the claim – relating to training and development as well as copyright – should be struck out.

Mrs Justice Joanna Smith said Getty’s claim has a “real prospect of success” in relation to Stable Diffusion’s “image-to-image feature” which the photo agency claimed allows users to make “essentially identical copies of copyright works”.

Who’s signed news AI deals?

Reuters

Reuters, which has previously said it had struck a number of deals with unspecified AI companies and then signed up as a publisher partner for Microsoft’s new AI companion Copilot, has become the first news publisher to sign an AI deal with Meta.

The deal allows Meta’s AI chatbot to use real-time Reuters content to answer questions from users about news and current events, it announced on 25 October, although it will begin only in the US.

The chatbot, which appears with the search and messaging features on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger, will provide summaries and link out to Reuters which will be compensated when its work is used in this way.

Reuters already had a fact-checking partnership with the Facebook owner.

A Reuters spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Reuters has partnered with tech providers to license our trusted, fact-based news content to power their AI platforms. The terms of these deals remain confidential.”

A Meta spokesperson told Axios: “We’re always iterating and working to improve our products, and through Meta’s partnership with Reuters, Meta AI can respond to news-related questions with summaries and links to Reuters content.

“While most people use Meta AI for creative tasks, deep dives on new topics or how-to assistance, this partnership will help ensure a more useful experience for those seeking information on current events.”

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism

OpenAI and Microsoft are distributing $10m to The Lenfest Institute for Journalism to provide five US newsrooms with a grant to each hire a fellow to work on AI projects for two years.

The newsrooms benefiting from the initial round of funding are: Chicago Public Media, Newsday in Long Island, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Seattle Times. Three further news organisations will receive funding in a second round.

The projects from the fellows should “focus largely on improving business sustainability and implementing AI technologies within their organisations”, Lenfest said.

OpenAI and Microsoft will also allow the publications to use their tools to experiment and develop tools to help with their local news output.

Tom Rubin, chief of intellectual property and content at OpenAI, said: “While nothing will replace the central role of reporters, we believe that AI technology can help in the research, investigation, distribution, and monetisation of important journalism.

“We’re deeply invested in supporting smaller, independent publishers through initiatives like The Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship, ensuring they have access to the same cutting-edge tools and opportunities as larger organizations.”

Hearst

Newspaper and magazine giant Hearst has agreed a “content partnership” with OpenAI in the US, it announced on 8 October.

Hearst said OpenAI products including ChatGPT will incorporate content from its US brands including Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Runner’s World and Women’s Health – more than 20 magazine titles and 40 newspapers in total. It does not include Hearst’s content in other countries like the UK.

Hearst said its content will “feature appropriate citations and direct links, providing transparency and easy access to the original Hearst sources” from ChatGPT.

Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson said: “As generative AI matures, it’s critical that journalism created by professional journalists be at the heart of all AI products.

“This agreement allows the trustworthy and curated content created by Hearst Newspapers’ award-winning journalists to be part of OpenAI’s products like ChatGPT — creating more timely and relevant results.”

Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella added: “Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content. This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI’s products evolve.”

And OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the use of Hearst content “elevates our ability to provide engaging, reliable information to our users”.

FT, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Mags, USA Today Network

The FT, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Mags and USA Today Network were named as publisher partners for Microsoft’s new AI “companion”, Copilot, at the start of October.

Those announced were existing partners of Microsoft’s MSN news licensing service but Press Gazette understands these are new deals.

Microsoft said Copilot Daily can give a summary of the news and weather using an AI Copilot Voice.

“It’s an antidote for that familiar feeling of information overload. Clean, simple and easy to digest. Copilot Daily will only pull from authorised content sources. We are working with partners such as Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Magazines, USA Today Network and Financial Times, and plan to add more sources over time. We’ll also add additional personalisation and controls in Copilot Daily over time.”

Conde Nast

Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ publisher Conde Nast has become the latest publisher to sign a “multi-year partnership” relating to the display of its content in OpenAI products, it announced on 20 August.

Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has been outspoken about the risks generative AI poses to news businesses, telling US Congress “many” media companies could go out of business by the time any litigation passes through the courts and that “immediate action” should be taken through a clarification that content creators should be compensated for the use of their work in training.

In a memo to staff he has now said the OpenAI deal helps to make up for revenue being lost through declining search traffic.

He wrote: “It’s crucial that we meet audiences where they are and embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property. This is exactly what we have found with OpenAI.

“Over the last decade, news and digital media have faced steep challenges as many technology companies eroded publishers’ ability to monetize content, most recently with traditional search. Our partnership with OpenAI begins to make up for some of that revenue, allowing us to continue to protect and invest in our journalism and creative endeavours.”

The deal will allow OpenAI to display content from Conde Nast brands in its products, including ChatGPT and its SearchGPT AI-driven search engine prototype.

OpenAI explained what this means in a blog post: “With the introduction of our SearchGPT prototype, we’re testing new search features that make finding information and reliable content sources faster and more intuitive. We’re combining our conversational models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. SearchGPT offers direct links to news stories, enabling users to easily explore more in-depth content directly from the source.

“We plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future.

“We’re collaborating with our news partners to collect feedback and insights on the design and performance of SearchGPT, ensuring that these integrations enhance user experiences and inform future updates to ChatGPT.”

Lynch praised OpenAI for being “transparent and willing to productively work with publishers like us so that the public can receive reliable information and news through their platforms”.

He continued: “This partnership recognises that the exceptional content produced by Condé Nast and our many titles cannot be replaced, and is a step toward making sure our technology-enabled future is one that is created responsibly.

“It is just the beginning and we will continue what we started in Washington earlier this year – the fight for fair deals and partnerships across the industry until all entities developing and deploying artificial intelligence take seriously, as OpenAI has, the rights of publishers.”

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Fortune

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic and Fortune (as well as Universal Music Group) have agreed to license their content to generative AI start-up Prorata.ai.

Prorata says it has a proprietary algorithm that can work out how much of various publishers’ content is used in an answer and share revenue accordingly. When it launches its own chatbot this autumn, it says, it will share 50% of the revenue from subscriptions with content creators.

Read our full story about Prorata’s plan here.

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress owner Automattic

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress.com owner Automattic have become the first publishers to sign up to a revenue-sharing deal launched by AI search chatbot Perplexity.

When Perplexity introduces advertising via sponsored related questions within the next few months, signed-up publishers will be able to share the revenue generated by interactions where their content is referenced.

The programme also gives them access to analytics platform Scalepost.ai to see which of their articles show up frequently in Perplexity answers that get monetised, access to Perplexity tech to create their own custom answer engines for their websites, and one year of Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees for a year.

Read our full story about the revenue-sharing programme, and Perplexity’s view on its relationship with publishers, here.

Time

Time has signed a “multi-year content deal and strategic partnership” with OpenAI, it revealed on 27 June.

The deal will give the ChatGPT creator access to Time’s 101-year-old archive and its current reporting to give up-to-date answers to users (with a citation and a link back to the website).

Time will also have access to OpenAI tech to build its own products and provide feedback to the tech company on the delivery of journalism through its tools.

Time chief operating officer Mark Howard said: “Throughout our 101-year history, Time has embraced innovation to ensure that the delivery of our trusted journalism evolves alongside technology. This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing Time’s journalism to audiences globally.”

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the deal supports “reputable journalism by providing proper attribution to original sources.”

Vox Media

Vox Media has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI that means content – including archive journalism – from its brands including Vox, The Verge, Eater, New York Magazine, The Cut, Vulture and SB Nation will be surfaced on ChatGPT and also that it can use OpenAI’s tech to develop audience-facing and internal products.

The publisher said it will use OpenAI tech to create stronger creative optimisation and audience segment targeting on its first-party data platform Forte, which is used across all Vox Media sites and on its ad marketplace Concert.

It will also use OpenAI tools to match people with the right products on its search-based affiliate commerce tool The Strategist Gift Scout.

Vox Media co-founder, chair and chief executive Jim Bankoff said: “This agreement aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audiences and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators.”

The Atlantic

The Atlantic also announced on 29 May it has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI meaning its articles will be discoverable within ChatGPT and the AI giant’s other products, with these results providing attribution and links to its website.

The partnership also means The Atlantic “will help to shape how news is surfaced and presented in future real-time discovery products”.

The companies are also collaborating on product and tech, with The Atlantic’s product team given “privileged access” to OpenAI tech to give feedback and help shape the future of news in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products.

The Atlantic said it is currently developing an experimental microsite called Atlantic Labs “to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers”. It will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work.

Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, said: “We believe that people searching with AI models will be one of the fundamental ways that people navigate the web in the future.”

He added that the partnership will mean The Atlantic’s reporting is “more discoverable” to OpenAI’s millions of users and give the publisher “a voice in shaping how news is surfaced on their platforms”.

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said: “Enabling access to The Atlantic’s reporting in our products will allow users to more deeply interact with thought-provoking news. We are dedicated to supporting high-quality journalism and the publishing ecosystem.”

[Read more: What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subscribers]

WAN-IFRA

The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has announced a partnership with OpenAI for a programme, Newsroom AI Catalyst, designed to “help newsrooms fast-track their AI adoption and implementation to bring efficiencies and create quality content”.

The project will work with 128 newsrooms in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and South Asia providing expert guidance with funding and technical assistance from OpenAI.

Each team will receive three months of learning modules, hands-on workshops, a mini hackathon, and a showcase. They will go back to their newsrooms with a clear plan on how to roll out AI.

Vincent Peyregne, chief executive of WAN-IFRA, said: “News enterprises across the globe have come under pressure from declining advertising and print subscription revenues. The adversity confronting news leaves communities without access to a shared basis of facts and shared values and puts democracy itself at risk.

“AI technologies can positively influence news organisations’ sustainability as long as you quickly grasp the stakes and understand how to turn it to your advantage.”

He added that OpenAI’s support will “help the newsrooms through the adoption of AI technologies to provide high-quality journalism that is the cornerstone of the news business”.

OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content Tom Rubin said the programme is “designed to turbocharge the capabilities of 128 newsrooms” and he wants to help “cultivate a healthy, sustainable ecosystem that promotes quality journalism”.

News Corp

News Corp has signed a deal that includes the use of content from many of its major newsbrands in the UK, US and Australia in OpenAI’s large language models, it was announced on 22 May.

The partnership covers content from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, FN, and the New York Post in the US; The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun in the UK; and The Australian, news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Advertiser, and the Herald Sun in Australia.

The Wall Street Journal put a value on the deal of more than $250m over five years.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson described OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his team as “principled partners… who understand the commercial and social significance of journalists and journalism.

“This landmark accord is not an end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are jointly committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantaneously.”

Dotdash Meredith

Dotdash Meredith, which publishes more than 40 titles including People, Instyle and Investopedia, on 7 May signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI that will see its content and links surfaced in ChatGPT responses.

OpenAI will incorporate real-time information from Dotdash sites into ChatGPT’s responses to queries and will use the publisher’s content to train its large language models. Dotdash meanwhile will receive assistance from OpenAI in developing both consumer-facing AI products and its AI-powered contextual advertising tool, D/Cipher.

B2B giant Informa

Business information giant Informa announced a non-exclusive Partnership and Data Access Agreement with Microsoft (the main backer of OpenAI) in a trading update on 8 May. There has been an initial fee of $10m+ and then three more recurring annual payments.

Informa said the deal covers:

“Improved Productivity: Explore how AI can enable more effective ways of working at Informa, streamlining operations, utilising Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enable Colleagues to work more efficiently, and enhancing the capabilities of Informa’s existing AI and data platforms (IIRIS);

“Citation Engine: Collaborate to further develop automated citation referencing, using the latest technology to improve speed and accuracy;

“Specialist Expert Agent: Explore the development of specialised expert agents for customers such as authors and librarians to assist with research, understanding and new knowledge creation/sharing;

“Data Access: Provide non-exclusive access to Advanced Learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems.”

Informa said the deal “protects intellectual property rights, including limits on verbatim text extracts and alignment on the importance of detailed citation references”.

Axel Springer (again)

Following its deal with OpenAI (see below) Axel Springer has announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft covering AI, advertising, content and cloud computing.

On AI, they will partner to develop new AI-driven chat experiences to inform users using Axel Springer’s journalism.

They added: “In addition, Axel Springer will leverage Microsoft Advertising’s Chat Ads API for generative AI monetisation.”

Their existing adtech collaboration will be expanded from Europe into the US to encompass Politico, while users of Microsoft’s aggregator Start-MSN will have access to more premium content from Axel Springer’s brands. Finally the publisher will migrate its SAP solutions to Microsoft Azure.

Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Dopfner said: “In this new era of AI, partnerships are critical to preserving and promoting independent journalism while ensuring a thriving media landscape.

“We’re optimistic about the future of journalism and the opportunities we can unlock through this expanded partnership with Microsoft.”

Microsoft chairman and chief executive Satya Nadella added: “Our expanded partnership with Axel Springer brings together their leadership in digital publishing with the full power of the Microsoft Cloud — including our ad solutions — to build innovative AI-driven experiences and create new opportunity for advertisers and users.”

Financial Times

On 29 April the Financial Times became the first major UK newsbrand to announce a deal with OpenAI.

The partnership involves up-to-date news content and journalism from the FT archive, meaning it is likely to assist with both real-time queries on ChatGPT and its continued training.

FT Group chief executive John Ridding said: “This is an important agreement in a number of respects.

“It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI… Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material.”

Le Monde and Prisa Media

OpenAI announced on 13 March it had signed deals with French newsbrand Le Monde and Spanish publisher Prisa Media, which publishes El País, Cinco Días, As and El Huffpost.

The deals will mean ChatGPT users can surface recent content from both publishers through “select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles”, while their content will be allowed to contribute to training OpenAI’s models.

Le Monde chief executive Louis Dreyfus said: “At the moment we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of Le Monde, this partnership with OpenAI allows us to expand our reach and uphold our commitment to providing accurate, verified, balanced news stories at scale.

“Collaborating with OpenAI ensures that our authoritative content can be accessed and appreciated by a broader, more diverse audience… Our partnership with OpenAI is a strategic move to ensure the dissemination of reliable information to AI users, safeguarding our journalistic integrity and revenue streams in the process.”

Carlos Nuñez, chairman and chief executive of Prisa Media added: “Joining forces with OpenAI opens new avenues for us to engage with our audience. Leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities allows us to present our in-depth, quality journalism in novel ways, reaching individuals who seek credible and independent content.

“This is a definite step towards the future of news, where technology and human expertise merge to enrich the reader’s experience.”

Reuters

Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker told the Financial Times that the company had struck “a number” of deals with AI companies looking to use Reuters news content to train their models but he did not give any further details about who was involved in the deals or for how much.

He did say that “there appears to be a market price evolving”, adding: “These models need to be fed. And they may as well be fed by the highest-quality, independent fact-based content. We have done a number of those deals, and we’re exploring the potential there.”

However away from the Reuters news part of the business Thomson Reuters is suing Ross Intelligence for allegedly unlawfully copying content from its legal research platform Westlaw to train a rival AI-powered intelligence platform.

Unknown independent publishers

A handful of unnamed independent publishers are taking part in a private programme with Google, according to Adweek, which will see them paid a five-figure annual sum to take part in a trial of a new AI platform.

The publishers are reportedly expected to produce a certain number of stories for a year and provide analytics and feedback in exchange.

Reddit

Social media platform Reddit has signed a deal allowing its content to be used by Google in the training of its AI tools. Reuters reported that the deal is worth around $60m per year.

Although not a news organisation, the Reddit deal is still a content licensing deal. There is also likely to be news media content copied within Reddit posts from users on the platform which could therefore fall within the remit of the deal.

Semafor (sort of)

Ben Smith and Justin B Smith’s start-up Semafor has secured “substantial” Microsoft sponsorship for an AI-driven news feed, although this was not built by the tech giant but by the newsroom itself.

The deal, announced in February, will see Microsoft help Semafor refine the tool and makes the digital outlet one of the first newsrooms to heavily involve ChatGPT in their workflow.

Although not a content deal as such, the agreement indicates a level of co-operation rather than acrimony.

Axel Springer

In December Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer agreed a partnership with OpenAI that would see its content summarised within ChatGPT around the world, including otherwise paywalled content, with links and attribution. Axel Springer’s content is permitted to be used to train OpenAI products going forward.

Axel Springer can also use OpenAI technology to continue building its own AI products.

Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said: “We are excited to have shaped this global partnership between Axel Springer and OpenAI – the first of its kind. We want to explore the opportunities of AI empowered journalism – to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level.”

American Journalism Project

In July 2023 OpenAI committed $5m to the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organisation working to support and rebuild local news organisations, to support the expansion of its work. It also pledged up to $5m in OpenAI API credits to help participating organisations try out emerging AI technologies.

American Journalism Project chief executive Sarabeth Berman said: “To ensure local journalism remains an essential pillar of our democracy, we need to be smart about the potential powers and pitfalls of new technology. In these early days of generative AI, we have the opportunity to ensure that local news organisations, and their communities, are involved in shaping its implications. With this partnership, we aim to promote ways for AI to enhance—rather than imperil—journalism.”

Associated Press

OpenAI and Associated Press signed a deal in July 2023 that allows the AI company to license the news agency’s content archive going back to 1985 for training purposes.

The companies said they are also looking at “potential use cases for generative AI in news products and services” but did not share specifics.

Kristin Heitmann, AP senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said: “We are pleased that OpenAI recognises that fact-based, nonpartisan news content is essential to this evolving technology, and that they respect the value of our intellectual property. AP firmly supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.”

One professor told AP the deal could be particularly beneficial to OpenAI because it would mean they can still use a wealth of trusted content even if they lose other lawsuits and are forced to delete training data as a result, from The New York Times for example.

Shutterstock

In July 2023 Shutterstock expanded its partnership with OpenAI with a six-year agreement allowing access to a wealth of training data including images, videos, music and associated metadata.

For its part, Shutterstock gets “priority access” to new OpenAI technology and can offer DALL-E’s text-to-image capabilities directly within its platform.

The post Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette is honoured to announce the finalists for the British Journalism Awards 2024.

This year’s British Journalism Awards attracted 750 entries encompassing every major news organisation in the UK.

The finalists are announced today following a three-week process involving 80 independent judges and two days of jury-style meetings.

In order to make the shortlists work has to be revelatory, show journalistic skill and rigour and serve the public interest.

The winners will be announced on 12 December at a dinner in London hosted by Radio 2 presenter and journalist Jeremy Vine.

Details here about how to book tickets.

The shortlist for News Provider of the Year will be announced following a second round of judging. The winners of Journalist of the Year, the Marie Colvin Award and the Public Service prize will be announced on the night.

Chairman of judges and Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford said: “Without journalism, Boris Johnson would still be prime minister, wronged postmasters would not have a voice and victims of the infected blood scandal would not have a chance of compensation.

“The 2024 British Journalism Awards shortlists celebrate the stories which would not be told without journalists willing to shine a light on uncomfortable truths and publications brave enough to back them up.

“Congratulations to all our finalists and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the British Journalism Awards.

“In a media world which is increasingly controlled by a few parasitic technology platforms it is more important than ever to celebrate the publishers willing to invest in and support quality journalism that makes a difference for the better in our world.”

British Journalism Awards 2024 shortlist in full:

Social Affairs, Diversity & Inclusion Journalism

Natasha Cox, Ahmed El Shamy, Rosie Garthwaite — BBC Eye Investigations

• Perfume’s Dark Secret

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• Missing from mainstream: Excluded children with nowhere to go
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision
• Hospital schools: On the mental health crisis frontline

Sasha Baker, Valeria Rocca — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• The parents group at the centre of a rollback of trans rights
• ‘One day they may thank us for that “abuse”’: Inside the Bayswater Support Group

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans, Cate Brown, Ed McGown, Tom Stone, Ed Campbell, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Mariah Cooper, Reshma Rumsey — ITV News

• Nowhere to go: Britain’s homeless emergency

Louise Tickle — Tortoise Media

• Taking the stand: Grace’s story
• Taking the stand: Emma’s story

Abi Kay — Farmers Weekly

• Level the Field
• Is there a problem with young farmer culture?
• Editor’s view: Facing hard truths about young farmer culture

Joshua Nelken-Zitser, Ida Reihani, Kit Gillet — Business Insider

• Iran will pay for gender-transition surgery, but it comes at a cost — your dignity

Features Journalism

Sophie Elmhirst — 1843 magazine, The Economist and The Guardian

• The last stand of the call-centre worker
• Chortle chortle, scribble scribble: inside the Old Bailey with Britain’s last court reporters
• Last love: a romance in a care home

Jenny Kleeman — The Guardian

• America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’
• She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
• ‘I know someone who played noughts and crosses on one’: meet the top surgeon who burned his initials on a patient’s liver

Sirin Kale — The Guardian

• ‘My child was drowning’: life and death on an English maternity ward
• The life and tragic death of John Balson: how a true crime producer documented his own rising horror
• The Russell murders: is Michael Stone in prison for a brutal crime he didn’t commit?

Zoe Beaty — The Independent

• How Nigel Farage took over my hometown – and why Keir Starmer should be worried
• My battle to bring a predatory Met Police officer from the same unit as Wayne Couzens to justice
• ‘A court packed with those who know their way around already, and jails are too full to take them’

Inderdeep Bains — Daily Mail

• My doctors insist it’s time I died – but I will fight them: Extraordinary case of 19-year-old woman suffering from Charlie Gard condition battling medics’ attempts to ‘condemn her to death’
• Sudiksha: ‘Condemned to Die in Secret’ – The Shocking Story of the 19-year-old’s fight to live

David James Smith — The Independent

• How did so many miss the sinister warning signs about James Bulger’s killer for so long?
• Is Lucy Letby innocent? I’m a miscarriage of justice investigator – and here’s what I think…
• The wife of this Murdoch executive has been missing since the Sixties – will her body now be found?

Fiona Hamilton — The Times

• Nottingham attacks: ‘We have no faith in the police. We want justice’
• ‘A horrible way to die … and no doctors can help you’
• Realising Sarah Everard got into a sex offender’s car was horrific

Barbara McMahon — Daily Mail

• Ghislaine Maxwell ‘was tortured in prison – now she’s ready for a comeback’: Jeffrey Epstein’s socialite pimp runs half marathons at low-security Florida lock-up and is now ‘focused and motivated’ for her appeal next week, her brother reveals
• ‘I shook Epstein’s hand and asked him what my daughter would be doing’: Virginia Roberts’s father describes dropping her off at paedophile’s mansion, meeting ‘despicable’ Ghislaine… and blasts Prince Andrew for showing ‘no remorse’
• Black Widow who ‘relished killing and had no regard for human life, even for children’: Griselda Blanco shot a child in the head when she was 11 and rose to be Miami’s drug kingpin. As she’s immortalised on Netflix, her son recalls his ‘fearsome’ mother

Local Journalism

Abi Whistance, Joshi Herrmann, Kate Knowles, Mollie Simpson, Jothi Gupta — Mill Media

• Special investigation: The collapsing world of Liverpool’s charity kingpin
• Investigation: The spectacular rise and sudden fall of Gurpaal Judge
• Exclusive: How did a semi in Harpurhey sell for £1.8m?

Richard Newman, Jennifer O’Leary, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight

• Katie: Coerced and Killed

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Lough Neagh has become a scene of Biblical disaster, and Stormont was central to its destruction
• Killing Edgar podcast

Chris Burn — The Yorkshire Post

• Building societies scandal: Yorkshire victims reveal shocking stories – and plead for action to be taken
• Philips Trust: FCA got ‘Ponzi scheme’ warning on firm at heart of £138m building society scandal – 18 months before collapse
• Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham Building Societies to pay tens of millions to Philips Trust victims

Jane Haynes — Birmingham Mail and Birmingham Mail/Post

• Teacher’s ‘life blown apart’ in onslaught of hate as false racism claim goes viral
• The truth exposed about ‘secretive’ council meeting on equal pay crisis in Birmingham
• ‘Like a prison’ – the tower block for homeless families that has 8pm curfew and no visitors allowed

Wendy Robertson — The Bridge

• The Bridge newsletter

Health & Life Sciences Journalism

Rebecca Thomas — The Independent

• Mental health patients ‘raped and sexually assaulted’ as NHS abuse scandal revealed
• Nicholas’s story: ‘I’ve been locked up for 10 years because I’m autistic. Is a chance at life too much to ask?’
• Revealed: NHS regulator’s ‘culture of fear’ that leaves rogue nurses free to abuse patients

Fin Johnston — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Science for sale: Philip Morris’s web of payments to fund tobacco research
• Inside the strategy doc Philip Morris never meant you to see
• Tobacco state: why Japan was the perfect testing ground for Philip Morris

Hannah Barnes — The New Statesman

• The trauma ward
• The Cass Review into children’s gender care should shame us all
• Hundreds of doctors are challenging the BMA’s stance on puberty blockers

Robbie Boyd, Eamonn Matthews, Steve Grandison, Ian Bendelow, Sophie Borland, Katie O’Toole, Islay Stacey, Ali Watt, Frances Peters — Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 Dispatches

• Undercover A&E: NHS in Crisis

Ellie Pitt, Cree Haughton, Justina Simpson, Ellie Swinton, Patrick Russell, Liam Ayers — ITV News

• The Dark Side of Cosmetic Surgery

Martin Bagot — Daily Mirror

• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth
• Urgent warning amid fears cosmetic fillers could cause immune system problems

Hanna Geissler — Daily Express

• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying ‘allowed me to mostly forget’ fears, says Aussie man hit by brain tumour
• Dame Esther’s assisted dying petition delivered to Prime Minister’s doorstep

Crime & Legal Affairs Journalism

Sue Mitchell, Rob Lawrie, Joel Moors, Winifred Robinson, Dan Clarke, Philip Sellars, Tom Brignell, Mom Tudie — BBC

• To Catch a Scorpion
• How we found Europe’s most wanted migrant-smuggler
• Why the BBC could track down a people-smuggling kingpin before the police

Gabriel Pogrund, Katie Tarrant — The Sunday Times

• Millionaire’s ‘sex worker immigration scandal’
• Hamish Ogston: millionaire accused of exploiting women ‘set up charity to help win knighthood’
• Hamish Ogston: tycoon asked Met to arrest woman who accused him of sex trafficking

Mike Sullivan, Jerome Starkey, Mike Ridley — The Sun

• ‘Distraught’ Holly Willoughby under police guard after man is arrested over terrifying ‘kidnap plot’
• Police chief faces ‘Walter Mitty’ probe after being pictured wearing Falklands medal despite being 15 at time of war

Hannah Summers — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Family Court Files: mother ‘devastated’ after rapist father granted contact with child
• Family Court Files: Psychologist’s evidence used to ‘ramp up’ allegations of parental alienation
• Kristoffer White: TBIJ wins court battle to publish name of sex offender

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans — BBC Panorama and BBC News

• Abercrombie & Fitch ex-CEO accused of exploiting men for sex
• Lawsuit accuses Abercrombie & Fitch of funding sex-trafficking operation
• FBI investigate after ex-Abercrombie boss sex claims

Isobel Yeung, Alex Nott, Esme Ash, Nick Parnes, Alistair Jackson, Matt Bardo, Sarah Wilson — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Britain’s Unsolved Crimewave: Dispatches

Comment Journalism

Daniel Finkelstein — The Times

• Israelis and Palestinians must start to listen
• Wes Streeting’s lessons from Richard Nixon and China
• Here’s the Keir Starmer I’ve known for decades

Matthew Syed — The Sunday Times

• When I was at school a teacher could call me the P-word. We’ve come so far
• The storm is gathering, and Europe is still dithering on defending itself
• Locked in by language, we are freed by music, poetry, painting … and love

Will Hayward — WalesOnline/The Will Hayward Newsletter

• The most pointless job in Wales
• The worst political leader in the UK
• Bluster, fluster and ‘word salad’ nonsense: Vaughan Gething ducks and weaves like a boxer at the Welsh Covid Inquiry

Kitty Donaldson — i

• Part political update, part group therapy: inside Starmer’s Cabinet meeting
• Grenfell is a tragic reminder to the Tories that regulation is not a dirty word
• The winter fuel row is a painful wake up call for new Labour MPs

Frances Ryan — The Guardian

• A summer defined by men killing women and girls. This can’t go on
• Think of this: a plan to ‘warehouse’ disabled people. What kind of nation is Britain becoming?
• Cropped out, banned, airbrushed: the school photos that show the ugly face of Britain today

Duncan Robinson — The Economist

• Why the next Westminster scandal is already here
• The narcissism of minor differences, Labour Party edition
• British boomers are losing out for the first time

Specialist Journalism

Peter Blackburn — The Doctor (by the British Medical Association)

• Nowhere left to turn
• Fears for patient care due to shortages of chronic alcohol misuse treatment Pabrinex
• Not the only failing

Lucinda Rouse, Emily Burt, Ollie Peart, Louise Hill, David Robinson, Rebecca Cooney, Andy Ricketts, Nav Pal, Til Owen — Third Sector

• The End of Charity podcast

Lucie Heath — i

• Revealed: Water firms dumped sewage 5,500 times in a year ‘illegally’
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• Toxic water, debt and sewage dumping: How Britain’s rivers got so bad

Deborah Cohen, Margaret McCartney — BMJ/Pharmaceutical Journal

• Inclisiran: the ‘extremely unusual’ political influence behind the novel drug’s approval
• Galleri promises to detect multiple cancers—but new evidence casts doubt on this much hyped blood test
• Inclisiran: Government’s strategy to promote cholesterol lowering drug after Brexit was “spectacular failure,” says insider

Lee Mottershead — Racing Post

• Revealed: the racehorse owner fronting an illegal bookmaker with more than 1,000 customers
• ‘People don’t want to provide bank statements. We’ve got so many people betting with us’

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• The rise of the parent activist
• AI’s allure is proving hard to resist for the UK’s learners
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision

Emily Townsend — Health Service Journal

• Over 30 sepsis deaths linked to ‘systemic’ failings, investigation reveals
• Revealed: Doubling of average waits for critical stroke treatments
• Midwives call women in labour ‘Asian princesses’ amid ‘hostile’ environment fears

Roya Nikkhah — The Sunday Times

• Prince Harry at 40: ‘All he does is spend time looking back’
• The hospital heart-to-hearts that brought Kate and King even closer
• Prince William to build houses for homeless on his land in Cornwall

Foreign Affairs Journalism

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• Gun in hand, the Israeli settler tells the Palestinian: I will kill you
• First Hamas fighters raped her. Then they shot her in the head
• ‘Who will protect us?’: Christina Lamb on the Yazidis’ dangerous journey home

Alex Crawford — Sky News

• Libya floods: Child’s voice heard under rubble as rescue teams search desperately in Derna for survivors
• Warning of Islamic State’s growing resurgence – as Sky News gets rare access to terrorists’ families
• Report from Lebanon

Kim Sengupta — The Independent

• Bombs, betrayal and burying loved ones: Plight of one Ukraine village illustrates toll of Russia’s invasion
• ‘I have buried more than 50 friends’: My life as a British soldier fighting on Ukraine’s bloody front line
• The families of hostages taken by Hamas are desperate – but can Israel get them back?

Vanessa Bowles, Jaber Badwan — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Kill Zone: Inside Gaza

Louise Callaghan — The Sunday Times

• The secret city of tunnels where hundreds live below Vegas glitz
• Claudia Sheinbaum: Meet the woman ready to be Mexico’s first presidenta
• Stand-off at Eagle Pass: welcome to the epicentre of the US border crisis

Secunder Kermani — Channel 4 News

• Palestinian detainees allege torture and sexual abuse by Israeli captors
• Myanmar military forces victims to fight in brutal civil war

Gesbeen Mohammad, Brad Manning, Nechirvan Mando, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, Esella Hawkey, Tom Giles, Hafez — ITV

• Inside Iran: The Fight for Freedom

Stuart Ramsay, Dominique van Heerden, Toby Nash — Sky News

• Haiti gang boss will take part in talks if invited – but warns foreign forces will be treated as ‘invaders’
• Aboard ‘The Beast’: What do migrants face travelling through Mexico on way to US?
• Shocking scenes in Gaza hospital as IDF moves into Khan Younis | Israel-Hamas war

Arkady Ostrovsky — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Life and death in Putin’s gulag
• Death and destruction in a Russian city
• Life and fate (podcast)

Technology Journalism, sponsored by Amazon

Alexander Martin — The Record from Recorded Future News

• Ransomware attacks hit record level in UK, according to neglected official data
• UK government urged to get on ‘forward foot’ with ransomware instead of ‘absorbing the punches’
• Exclusive: UK to propose mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks and licensing regime for all payments

Marianna Spring — BBC News

• The real story of the news website accused of fuelling riots
• Trump supporters target black voters with faked AI images
• X takes action on deepfake network smearing UK politicians after BBC investigation

Joe Tidy — BBC World Service

• ‘Pig butchering’ scammers target BBC reporter
• Sextortion warning: In six hours, my son was dead
• Stolen test data and NHS numbers published by hospital hackers

Amanda Chicago Lewis — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Secrets of a ransomware negotiator

Cathy Newman, Job Rabkin, Emily Roe, Sophie Braybrook, Guy Basnett, Ed Howker — Channel 4 News

• Deepfake Porn

Helen Lewis — BBC Radio 4/BBC Sounds

• Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat

Energy & Environment Journalism, sponsored by Renewable UK

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Apocalypse Neagh: The source of 40% of NI’s water is ‘dying’
• Watch: Sam McBride’s in-depth look at Lough Neagh’s blue-green algae crisis

Josephine Moulds — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Backroom deals, mystery companies and a ‘killer lake’: inside DRC’s gas and oil auction
• HSBC helped oil and gas industry raise $47bn despite net-zero pledge
• Barclays’ billions of ‘sustainable’ finance for fossil fuel industry is greenwash, says investor

Esme Stallard, Becky Dale, Sophie Woodcock, Jonah Fisher, Libby Rogers — BBC News

• Water firms illegally spilled sewage on dry days – data suggests
• BBC uncovers 6,000 possible illegal sewage spills in one year

Rachel Salvidge, Leana Hosea — The Guardian/Watershed

• The Watershed Pollution Map
• Landfills across England could be leaking harmful toxic ooze, warn experts
• ‘It’s a poison and it’s killing us’: the hidden dangers of old UK landfills

Guy Grandjean, Patrick Fee, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight Northern Ireland

• Spotlight – The Lough Neagh Monster
• Hundreds of environmental breaches by Moy Park

Sofia Quaglia — The Guardian

• ‘If we can’t fish any more, we’re going to die’: the volunteer sea patrols protecting precious Philippine waters
• From sea to plate … to sea! Hong Kong puts oyster shells to new use
• ‘It smells so bad’: glut of wild salmon creates stink in Norway and Finland

Jess Staufenberg — SourceMaterial

• Trojan Horsepower – Formula 1 and the Saudi oil lobby
• F1 lobbies for Saudi against EU green rules

Arts & Entertainment Journalism

Mark Daly, Mona McAlinden, Shelley Jofre, Jax Sinclair, Karen Wightman, Hayley Hassall — BBC Panorama

• The Dark Side of Ballet Schools

Jonathan Dean — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Oasis reunion and Wembley gigs next year … is that definitely, maybe?
• Ridley Scott: I didn’t need historians to make my Napoleon epic
• Olly Alexander on Eurovision: ‘I was trying not to have a breakdown’

Rachael Healy — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘At the start you get molested and by 45 you’re too old to work’ – the secret misery of women working in TV
• Fresh crisis at ‘toxic’ Strictly as ex-staff claim they faced sexualised comments and cruelty
• ‘The outrageousness of what Louis CK did is totally lost’: the film about the backlash faced by his accusers

Tom Bryant — Daily Mirror

• BBC’s Huw Edwards scandal teen breaks silence in first interview – ‘I felt groomed’
• Huw Edwards scandal teen: Why I first tried to protect BBC star but now feel shame
• Paul O’Grady’s beloved dog nuzzled star’s shoulder as devoted husband battled to save him

Lucy Osborne, Stephanie Kirchgaessner — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘I honest to God believe I was drugged’: magician David Copperfield’s alleged victims speak out
• The FBI investigated David Copperfield for two years. The claim that he was ‘exonerated’ was widely embraced. Was he?
• ‘Magic David called’: David Copperfield repeatedly contacted Jeffrey Epstein

Clemmie Moodie, Hannah Hope, Scarlet Howes — The Sun

• Strictly pro Giovanni Pernice probed over serious complaints by 3 ‘traumatised’ contestants as BBC ‘gathers evidence’
• Strictly Come Dancing bosses make huge changes to show after Giovanni Pernice quits
• Strictly bombshell as Amanda Abbington demands backstage footage of her and Giovanni as she is diagnosed with PTSD

Carolyn Atkinson, Olivia Skinner — BBC Radio 4 Front Row

• The British Museum’s missing gems
• Painting stolen in art heist more than 30 years ago returned to Glasgow museum

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• ‘I felt used and abused’ on Arthur: alleged Russell Brand victim speaks

New Journalist of the Year

Rafe Uddin — Financial Times

• Labour loses Muslim support over stance on Israel-Hamas ceasefire
• Reform UK’s unusual structure with Nigel Farage in the middle
• How Post Office lawyers pushed boundaries in UK sub-postmasters scandal

Sammy Gecsoyler — The Guardian

• ‘We’re going to see people dying on the streets’: homeless refugee crisis grips Liverpool
• ‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis
• Met police agree six-figure payout to student hit by baton at protest

Kaf Okpattah — ITV News, ITV News London

• Whistleblower reveals corruption and collusion inside Wandsworth Prison
• The fraud scammers putting people out of pocket by cloning phone numbers

Simar Bajaj — The Guardian, New Scientist

• Everyone is on their phones. But is it really phone addiction we’re experiencing?
• The surprising mental health and brain benefits of weight-loss drugs
• He was shot in the throat. Now he saves gun victims as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore

Nimra Shahid — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Santander arranged billion-dollar oil bond after making green pledge
• Santander weakened fossil fuel policy after raising billions for gas projects

Venetia Menzies — The Sunday Times

• Anxiety drug pregabalin killed my son — and hundreds more are dying from it
• The company taking refugees out of Gaza — and ‘making millions’
• After the earthquake: how Morocco is rebuilding

Oliver Marsden — The Sunday Times/Al Jazeera

• Hero taxi driver who saved scores from Hamas faces hatred from both sides
• Dodging Israeli rockets with Ghana’s UN peacekeepers
• Israeli strikes on Lebanon: Attacks are causing wildfires across south

Yasmin Rufo — BBC News

• London mayor election: Bots, misleading URLs cause voter confusion
• Ulez expansion: Contested claims examined
• Ulez: More than 300 cameras damaged or stolen in four months

Sports Journalism

Jacob Whitehead — The Athletic

• Special report: Newcastle United sponsor Noon and shocking allegations of worker mistreatment
• Saudi Arabia investigates worker mistreatment allegations after The Athletic report on Newcastle sponsor Noon
• Special report: ‘Disturbing’ safety issues at Hillsborough 35 years after disaster

Oliver Brown — The Telegraph

• Angela Carini was sent unforgivably into harm’s way by gutless IOC cowards
• After my grandfather hugged Jesse Owens, the Nazis told him: ‘Never embrace a black man again’
• Michael Vaughan: If I had gone through this racism ordeal at 80, I would have wanted to be shot

Simon Lock, Rob Davies, Jacob Steinberg — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / The Guardian

• Abramovich’s hidden football deals during Chelsea’s time at the top (TBIJ) and Chelsea FC face new questions over how Roman Abramovich funded success (Guardian)
• ‘I worked for Abramovich?’: footballers were owned by oligarch via offshore deals (TBIJ) and Revealed: Abramovich, the super-agent and the footballers owned as ‘commodities’ (Guardian)
• Leaked documents reveal Abramovich is still connected to Vitesse (TBIJ) and Abramovich loans fund owner of Dutch football club, leaked documents suggest (Guardian)

Jacob Judah — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• The strange case of the disappearing football team

Riath Al-Samarrai — Daily Mail

• Drifting through life without gold medals, tortured by his past, and now claims of bankruptcy… How did petulant Wiggins fall so spectacularly from his golden bike?
• Seb Coe explains why he’s HAPPY to break 128 years of Olympic tradition by handing out cash for gold… and reveals Roman Abramovich’s unlikely role in athletics
• The curious case of Jade Jones’ drugs test and why the Chinese might be quick to ask questions, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Ian Herbert — Daily Mail

• Looting and rioting, setting fire to police officers and hunting down English fans… fearful European clubs are turning a blind eye to shadowy leaders of their untouchable ultras
• Thirty-five years after horror of the Hillsborough tragedy, Mail Sport can reveal that incredibly the stadium is still not fit for purpose with poor stewarding, inadequate turnstiles and a problem tunnel
• Grubby, classless, the five-year legal battle over plane crash victim Emiliano Sala takes us into football’s sewers… where players are pawns and chronically inept clubs desperately try to save cash

Matt Lawton — The Times

• Man City launch unprecedented legal action against Premier League
• ‘The horror is everywhere’ – inside Lord Coe’s secret trip to Ukraine
• Russian athletes should be allowed at Olympics, says government

Um-E-Aymen Babar — Sky Sports

• How does endometriosis affect women in sport?
• USA cricket teen on tackling social media trolls, South Asian heritage and 2028 Olympic goals
• Um-E-Aymen Babar ok Tiktok

Campaign of the Year

Caroline Wheeler —The Sunday Times: Bloody Disgrace

• Thousands dead, 40 years of cover-up: time for justice for infected blood victims
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims
• Jeremy Hunt: I promised a dying friend I’d end infected blood scandal

Patrick Butler, Josh Halliday, John Domokos — The Guardian: Unpaid Carers

• Carers threatened with prosecution over minor breaches of UK benefit rules
• ‘Injustice’: 92-year-old with dementia told by DWP to repay £7k in disability allowance
• I’m under attack and fighting back: the scandal trapping carers

Computer Weekly editorial team — Computer Weekly: Post Office Scandal

• Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
• Fujitsu staff instructed how to bid for government contracts during self-imposed ban
• Post Office Horizon replacement project labelled ‘unachievable’ as taxpayer bill reaches £1bn

David Cohen — Evening Standard: Show Respect

• Boys, porn and the alarming way they talk about girls – a special investigation
• School pupils tell how they are victims of sexual harassment every day
• Show some respect: Standard launches campaign with £500k to tackle sexist abuse in schools

Lucie Heath — i: Save Britain’s Rivers

• Save Britain’s Rivers: i challenges all parties to commit to election manifesto
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• National Trust signs up to i’s Save Britain’s Rivers manifesto

Hanna Geissler, Giles Sheldrick — Daily Express: Give Us Our Last Rights

• My assisted dying petition proves Brits are compassionate – now Rishi Sunak must act
• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying debate must move on to how law will change, MND campaigner says

Amy Clare Martin — The Independent: IPP Jail Sentences

• Revealed: 16 years in prison for stealing a bike and no hope of release – as 7 trapped in jail kill themselves
• ‘He looked like a starving dog on the floor’: Prisoner trapped on indefinite jail term driven to hunger strike
• Father imprisoned for 12 years for stealing mobile phone under ‘cruel’ indefinite jail term reunited with son

Martin Bagot, Jason Beattie — Daily Mirror: Save NHS Dentistry

• Dentists warn ‘rescue plan’ will fail to end crisis as 60,000 people sign our petition
• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth

Photojournalism

Thomas Dworzak — 1843 magazine, The Economist

André Luís Alves — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Giles Clarke — CNN Digital

Nichole Sobecki — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Dimitris Legakis — Athena Picture Agency

Stefan Rousseau — PA Media

Hannah McKay — Reuters

Interviewer of the Year

Alice Thomson — The Times

• Ed Davey: ‘Being a carer is harder than being a politician’
• Peter Kyle: It was 5am. A woman said, ‘Your partner is dead ’
• Emma Barnett: ‘The pain was so bad, I was losing the will to live’

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• ICC prosecutor: UK didn’t blitz the IRA — Israel needs that restraint
• The president’s daughter (and Instagram star) wanted by Interpol
• David Cameron: ‘Why did I take the job? Rishi Sunak asked!’

Laura Kuenssberg — Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News

• Baroness Mone and the PPE Scandal
• How Can We Protect Our Children Online?
• Inside No 11 with Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Charlotte Edwardes — The Guardian

• ‘You asked me questions I’ve never asked myself’: Keir Starmer’s most personal interview yet
• ‘Dismissing global warming? That was a joke’: Jeremy Clarkson on fury, farming and why he’s a changed man
• ‘The levels of attack are extraordinary’: Gary Lineker on punditry, podcasts – and why he won’t stop speaking his mind

Nick Ferrari — LBC

• Labour leader Keir Starmer joins Nick Ferrari to take your calls
• Champagne and caviar: Esther Rantzen reveals plans for final moments as she pushes for assisted dying law change
• Nigel Farage joins Nick Ferrari

Samantha Poling — BBC

• How I confronted Emma Caldwell’s killer
• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell
• Who Killed Emma?

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey
• Kevin Spacey Breaks Down As He Faces Debt Of MILLIONS
• Piers Morgan vs Rishi Sunak Round 2 | Prime Minister Discusses Israel-Hamas War, NHS, Rwanda & More

Paul Brand — ITV News

• Interview with Rishi Sunak
• Interview with Ed Davey
• Interview with Keir Starmer

(View all three interviews here)

Politics Journalism

Jim Pickard, Anna Gross — Financial Times

• Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 of freebies including tickets to over 20 football games
• Keir Starmer faces backlash over early failure to disclose £16,200 in donor-funded clothing
• Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves declared clothing donations as office support

Pippa Crerar — The Guardian

• Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff
• Rishi Sunak aide placed bet on election date days before announcement
• Tories putting party reputation before sexual assault claim, says alleged victim

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• ‘No room for the Indians?’: Tory donor Frank Hester suggested staff climb on train roof
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Beth Rigby — Sky News

• Election exit poll
• The Battle for Number 10: A Sky News Leaders’ Special
• How Reform fares on Thursday will also determine the Conservatives fate

Caroline Wheeler — The Sunday Times

• Commons worker arrested after allegedly spying for China
• My MP husband Andrew Bridgen was captured by antivax ‘cult’
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims

Jane Merrick — i

• Thousands of disabled people died after ‘Covid treatment withheld’, inquiry to probe
• ‘My daughter was allowed to die of Covid because she had Down’s syndrome’
• Labour manifesto missing pensioners’ winter fuel and bus pass pledges

Steven Swinford — The Times

• Britain and US launch airstrikes on Houthi targets
• Jeremy Hunt looks for £9bn to balance his budget
• Teachers and nurses should get above-inflation pay rise, ministers told

Business, Finance and Economics Journalism, sponsored by Starling Bank

Simon Murphy — Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror

• Fujitsu boss lives on ‘blood money’ with £2m mansion as we suffer, says Post Office victim
• Provider boasting of ‘compassion’ threatens daughter with court action over £50k care bill for her 93-year-old amputee mother with dementia
• Mirror tracks down former Post Office IT chief that Horizon inquiry insisted couldn’t be found

Ed Conway — Sky News

• Surge in sale of UK-made cars to Russia’s neighbours shows how it’s beating sanctions
• British firms’ exports are almost certainly bolstering Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, Sky data analysis finds
• How British financial services aid sale of Russian gas on European market | Ukraine War

Tom Bergin — Reuters

• Online-gambling giants conquer U.S. with tactics deemed too tough for Britain

Gill Plimmer, Robert Smith — Financial Times

• Chinese state banks are lenders to Thames Water’s parent company
• Thames Water owners pile group with debt
• Thames Water shareholders backed away over regulator’s debt demands

Siddharth Philip, Benedikt Kammel, Anthony Palazzo, Katharine Gemmell, Sabah Meddings — Bloomberg News

• Bogus Supplier of Jet-Engine Parts May Have Faked Employees Too
• Ghost in the Machine: How Fake Parts Infiltrated Airline Fleets
• UK Fraud Cops Make Arrest in Fake Airplane Parts Scandal

Anna Isaac, Alex Lawson — The Guardian

• Sellafield apologises after guilty plea over string of cybersecurity failings
• Nuclear Narnia: why is Sellafield Europe’s most dangerous industrial site?
• Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China

Danny Fortson — The Sunday Times

• Mike Lynch: Flown to the US in chains, now he is free … and talking
• Inside Mike Lynch’s last stand as $11bn fraud trial looms
• The app that promised an NHS ‘revolution’ then went down in flames

Online Video Journalism

Alex Rothwell, Alastair Good, Yasmin Butt, Pauline Den Hartog Jager, Jack Feeney, Federica De Caria, Kasia Sobocinska, Stephanie Bosset — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse | Investigation
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation
• ‘Illegal’ conspiracy theory school exposed | Times Investigation

Andrew Harding — BBC News

• BBC tracks down smuggler behind Channel crossing which killed Sara, 7

Mohamed Ibrahim, Owen Pinnel, Mouna Ba, Wael El-Saadi, Feras Al Ajrami — BBC Eye Investigations

• Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue

Tom Pettifor, Matthew Young, Daniel Dove — Daily Mirror

• Has the man who killed Jill Dando finally been found?
• Jill Dando murder: Man wanted for questioning matches features of Serbian assassin
• Jill Dando murder: Key witness identifies Serbian assassin

Lucinda Herbert, Iain Lynn — National World Video

• Lured To Her Death: The Murder of Sasha Marsden

Reem Makhoul, Robert Leslie, Clancy Morgan, Amelia Kosciulek, Matilda Hay, Liz Kraker, Dorian Barranco, Barbara Corbellini Duarte, Erica Berenstein, Yasser Abu Wazna — Business Insider

• 4 Gazans show how war devastated their coastline

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey

Ben Marino, Joe Sinclair, Veronica Kan-Dapaah, Petros Gioumpasis, Greg Bobillot — Financial Times

• Chinese brokers launder hundreds of millions for global crime groups | FT Film

Investigation of the Year

Scarlet Howes, Mike Hamilton, Alex West — The Sun

• Ex-BBC presenter Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’
• Huw Edwards used position of power to groom young people for 6 years even sending pictures from BBC desk to impress them
• We’re still suffering, say parents at centre of Huw Edwards scandal as they slam BBC for lack of answers after he quits

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace, Paul Morgan-Bentley, Esella Hawkey, Imogen Wynell Mayow, Alice McShane, Florence Kennard, Ian Bendelow, Victoria Noble, Alistair Jackson, Sarah Wilson, Geraldine McKelvie — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions, Channel Four Dispatches Investigations Unit

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• Russell Brand: In Plain Sight

Alex Thomson, Nanette van der Laan — Channel 4 News

• Post Office Scandal

Paul Morgan-Bentley — The Times

• I worked undercover in one of UK’s most dangerous jails — without checks
• My son died in HMP Bedford. I never felt he was safe there
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation

Ruth Evans, Oliver Newlan, Leo Telling, Sasha Hinde, Hayley Clarke, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• Undercover School: Cruelty in the Classroom

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Holly Bancroft, May Bulman, Monica C. Camacho, Fahim Abed — The Independent and Lighthouse Reports

• At last! Afghan special forces heroes set for sanctuary in UK after government U-turn
• MoD accused of burying admission that UK special forces had power over Afghan sanctuary claims
• Murdered, tortured or in hiding from the Taliban: The special forces abandoned by Britain

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Isabel Alderson-Blench, John Ray — ITV News: The Post Office Tapes

• New secret tape reveals top Post Office lawyer was warned of ‘wrongful’ convictions decade ago
• Secret tape shows Paula Vennells was told about problems with Horizon and warned not to cover it up
• Paula Vennells’ ‘smoking gun’ email reveals Post Office ‘cover-up’

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• No yawning or fingerprints on doors: the strict rules at Tory donor’s firm
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Samantha Poling, Eamon T. O Connor, Anton Ferrie, Shelley Jofre — BBC Disclosure

• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell

Scoop of the Year

Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions and Channel 4 Dispatches

Huw Edwards Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’ — The Sun

Naked photos sent in WhatsApp ‘phishing’ attacks on UK MPs and staff— Politico

No 10 pass for Labour donor who gave £500,000 — The Sunday Times

Labour will add 20% VAT to private school fees within first year of winning power — i

The Nottingham Attacks: A Search for Answers — BBC Panorama

Innovation

Harry Lewis-Irlam, Stephen Matthews, Darren Boyle, Rhodri Morgan — Mail Online: Deep Dive

• Anatomy of a loveless landslide: How Labour won on apathy and division
• Hour by hour, how D-Day unfolded…
• How China could seize Taiwan and spark WW3

Laura Dunn, Katie Lilley-Harris, Ellie Senior, Sherree Younger, Scott Nicholson, Jamie Mckerrow Maxwell — KL Magazine

• Rocky Bottoms
• Johnny Cave’s Asparagus
• Archangel Distilleries

Niels de Hoog, Antonio Voce, Elena Morresi, Manisha Ganguly, Ashley Kirk — The Guardian

• How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation

Alison Killing, Chris Miller, Peter Andringa, Chris Campbell, Sam Learner, Sam Joiner — Financial Times

• FT investigation finds Ukrainian children on Russian adoption sites

David Dubas-Fisher, Cullen Willis, Paul Gallagher, Richard Ault — Reach Data Unit

• DWP Cold Weather Payment postcode checker – map shows where households are due £25, £50 or £75 boost
• Enter postcodes in this map to see average house prices in your area
• Cheapest places in Greater Manchester to buy petrol as RAC issues fuel price warning

Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo, Venetia Menzies, Darren Burchett, Narottam Medhora, Cecilia Tombesi — The Sunday Times

• The dead teenager, the lying suspect and the black box that proves it

The post British Journalism Awards 2024: Full list of this year’s finalists appeared first on Press Gazette.

The Financial Times made more than half a billion pounds in revenue for the first time in its history in 2023.

The FT Group globally brought in revenue of £510m amid growth in all its major revenue lines, according to consolidated and unaudited figures shared internally and seen by Press Gazette.

The FT is wholly owned by private Japanese firm Nikkei, which does not publish any global FT financial figures. This report is therefore the best indicator of the 136-year-old newsbrand’s financial health.

The internal performance report also shows operating profit of £30m, which chief executive John Ridding described as “healthy” and “keeping us on track for our medium-term targets and a sustainable operating margin”. Operating profit was £28.7m in 2022, meaning 5% annual growth.

Separate accounts filed on the UK’s Companies House for Financial Times Ltd report revenue of £444m (up 5% year-on-year) and operating profit of £9m, a drop of 33% put down to inflationary pressures, an increase in staff costs of £15.1m to £166.4m partly because of an increase in average headcount of 78 people to 1,586 in 2023 to as well as a £2,000 one-off payment to all employees.

The accounts said the company “has sought to balance employee compensation with the longer term needs of operating a sustainable business which resulted in a further cost of living payment in order to support employees”.

The FT’s UK accounts do not include all of international revenue, making them an incomplete picture.

FT global paying audience ‘North Star’

The FT has set a new “North Star goal for the business”: global paying audience, which includes subscribers to the FT Specialist portfolio and FT Chinese but extends further to include those paying in other ways to consume its content such as through events, services and apps.

At the end of 2023, the internal report said, the FT Group had a global paying audience of 2.57 million people.

It has set a goal of reaching three million people on this metric by 2028.

The FT alone, according to the Companies House accounts, reached 1.4 million paying readers across all formats in 2023 of which almost 1.3 million were digital subscribers.

Ridding said: “Our digital FT.com audience reached 1.85 million, up 19% year on year, and the number of engaged readers rose to 552,000.”

The FT Group covers the newsbrand’s operations across the world including the FT Specialist portfolio of 18 brands, the B2B thought leadership agency Longitude, FT Chinese and some other services and joint ventures. It says it employs more than 3,000 people, including 700 journalists in almost 40 countries.

All ‘major’ FT revenue streams up in 2023

The internal report said advertising on the FT website and newspaper “saw its best year since 2012”, contributing £134m in revenue.

Print advertising was up 11% year-on-year and digital was up 6%.

“We continue to evolve our advertising business to reflect the changing media landscape and client requirements, and invest in our commercial content division,” the report said.

“We rebranded FT Studio (formerly Alpha Grid) to support the development of our commercial content capabilities across multi-media formats, from scrolly storytelling to mini documentaries.”

FT Professional, the rebranded B2B division aimed at corporate, government and academic customers, delivered an unspecified “double-digit revenue and profit growth year on year”.

Meanwhile the FT’s Consumer Revenue Group, which won the reader revenue strategy category at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Awards last month, increased revenues by 10% to £103m.

This was put down to a focus on “increasing value from our core customers and optimising average revenue per user” alongside investment in the “subscription experience platform and access model, including new barrier technology and in-app purchases” and the introduction of a new “recognised users” metric.

The Future of Media Awards judges said: “This was a perfect case study of how media companies should approach reader revenue strategies, creating multidisciplinary teams that use tech, data and knowledge to launch new products, improve current ones, AB test, redefine goals, move fast and optimise results.”

Events business FT Live achieved its best-ever financial performance for the second year running, with revenue up 14% to £34m. It ran 238 paid-for events (down from 270 in 2022) which included the Commodities Global Summit, Future of the Car and the Global Banking Summit.

FT Specialist was said to have grown revenues by almost 13%, excluding biopharma outlet Endpoints News for which the FT took a majority stake in April 2023.

And media consultancy FT Strategies was said to have “continued to deliver on its accelerated growth trajectory in 2023”.

The report also cited the FT’s growth in the US, where it reached its 2025 target of 125,000 “engaged users” (a data point used internally that looks at metrics like frequency and volume) early. It said the US is now its biggest audio market by audience size having reached 795,000 podcast listeners in September 2023.

The post Financial Times exceeds £500m annual revenue for first time appeared first on Press Gazette.

Upmarket UK newsbrands are far less likely to link through to the work of their colleagues at other publishers than tabloid news sites, new Press Gazette research suggests.

Press Gazette assessed recent output from nine leading UK news websites to establish how often they include a hyperlink when repeating information sourced from other publishers.

In the snapshot survey we found that the Mirror and The Sun were the most likely to link to other publishers, doing so in eight out of ten stories assessed at each site.

The Times, Financial Times and Telegraph, on the other hand, each only linked to another news site in one of the ten articles analysed at each and appear to have taken editorial policy decision not to link.

The Guardian and BBC, meanwhile, appeared to link through to their sources slightly less often than not.

Mail Online linked to publisher sources in the majority of articles and the Express in half of the examples we found.

The overall picture is of an industry that routinely avoids linking to sources when lifting information from other sites.

Press Gazette searched each publisher for articles published in recent weeks that featured the word “reported” (i.e. “The New York Times reported…”) and selected from the results the first ten stories that carried information copied from a named third-party news outlet.

Because the research only looked at articles that disclosed they were citing another news outlet, this research does not account for the overall frequency with which the publishers credit their sources: uncredited rewrites of a competitor’s story, for example, would not be picked up in the analysis.

Across all the publishers assessed internal links to other parts of their own websites were common. Many of the publishers would also credit information to "local media" when describing something that had been reported overseas, without identifying or linking to the source.

The Mirror told Press Gazette that it is supportive of linking and that the two articles in which no external link had been inserted were the result of human error.

A spokesperson for The Sun, similarly, said: "The Sun has always been known for breaking great exclusives and we have long campaigned for publishers to receive recognition for their original journalism.

“Alongside expecting to receive this attribution we in turn make every attempt to ensure that we attribute other publications' good stories that we have picked up."

The BBC’s operating licence requires the corporation to link to relevant third parties in its online output, and in its most recent “Delivering our Mission and Public Purposes" report it said that, in a sample of 1,370 articles published across the BBC News and BBC Sport websites, 18% of its output had linked to another media organisation. The BBC declined to comment.

Mail Online declined to comment. The Guardian also declined to comment, but pointed Press Gazette to its editorial code, which instructs its journalists that material "obtained from another organisation should be acknowledged".

The Times, FT and Telegraph had not responded to a request for comment at time of publication.

What's best practice on linking to other news sites?

Gavin Allen, a digital journalism lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism and a former associate editor at Mirror.co.uk, said there can be a “double incentive” for news sites not to link to competitors: “On the one hand, you're saying ‘we didn't break the story, someone else did’ which may be bad for reputation.

“On the other hand, you're pointing readers away from your website,” which he said may lead them to click away.

Materially, Allen said traffic from backlinks is often “vanishingly small”. Instead, he said, the way un-linked re-reports “might start to cannibalise your traffic is if it’s attracting search away”.

He said: “It’s more a courtesy and an ethics thing as well, I think… If you’re doing stuff based on other people’s work then you should be crediting that work. That would be good practice.”

Search engine optimisation orthodoxy holds that Google gives better rankings to articles that link to relevant third-party websites.

The Association of Online Publishers offers the following guidance on this topic: "Fair attribution is vital to help publishers get credit for the time, money, and effort they put into sourcing, investigating, and producing original content.

"As well as helping direct users to the original source of a story, linking is vitally important for SEO. Google uses links from ‘prominent websites’ as a signal to determine ‘authoritativeness’ – a key factor in determining ranking."

The AOP invites publishers to sign up to the Link Attribution Protocol, a group of publishers who agree to follow best practice on linking and who share a single email point of contact for getting links added to stories.

Scroll down for the full linking results from each of the nine publishers

The post Missing links: Upmarket UK newsbrands deny click-throughs to story sources appeared first on Press Gazette.

Senior executives at Politico, Racing Post and the Financial Times have explained why they charge a high price for quality journalism and resist the temptation to offer heavy discounts.

Politico does not publish prices for its B2B “Pro” subscriptions (but they cost tens of thousands of pounds per year), the FT charges £59 per month for a digital subscription and the Racing Post charges £50 for monthly online access.

Speaking at the recent Press Gazette Future of Media Technology Conference, Politico Europe deputy editor-in-chief Kate Day (who runs the UK team) said: “We are unashamedly expensive. We charge a lot for our subscriptions, tens of thousands of pounds, and people pay it because it’s useful in their job.”

She said subscriptions now account for 60% of Politico’s revenue. Data on which content drives subscriptions and retention gives the editorial team focus, she said: “The biggest value from our journalism is the scoops… that is a very clarifying focusing goal.”

She added: “Where is the value for our readers? In our case it’s because it helps them do their jobs better. We have to keep the newsroom focused all the time on what is the journalism that is going to make a difference, or can they get the same information somewhere else?

“We talk a lot about who our readers are and what they need. The clarity when you know your audience very well is amazing for the newsroom. You need to build that into every part of how your newsroom talks about commissioning, editing and success.”

Day said subscription revenue funds Politico’s teams of specialist journalists who are “the cornerstone of our competitive advantage”.

FT: ‘Deep discounting is very tempting but not the right thing’

FT managing director for consumer revenue Fiona Spooner said the title tries to resist the temptation to offer deep discounts (although in the UK it is currently offering 50% off a digital subscription for the first year).

She said: “We have found that deep discounting is not the right thing for sustainable long term growth. It’s very tempting because you see the results straight away.

“The latest offer for the Washington Post is $29 a year and we are $50-$60 per month, so our pricing is quite significantly higher. We are in a market which is used to discounting. The internal pressure is why don’t we just drop the price?

“When we did that going back to Brexit we had a huge spike in subscriptions…but one year and two years later we saw a big spike in cancellations.”

She said that the FT prefers to offer different packages at lower prices: such as subscriptions to individual newsletters (eg. Inside Politics), or FT Edit (an app which offers access to a selection of FT journalism).

The FT also offers readers who want to read just one article the ability to pay £1 for a four-week trial.

Racing Post: ‘We are unashamedly premium’

Racing Post editor Tom Kerr told the conference: “We are an unashamedly premium product. It’s £5 for the newspaper, £50 a month for a top tier [digital] subscription.

“We realised a long time ago that with the changing economics of the industry, either we could charge people what we thought was a fair price for the quality of content and data we were providing or we would have to cut corners.

“We went down the route of quite aggressive price rises and have been on that path for some time now. If you are offering the quality of content, if it is distinct, if it is unique and if it demonstrably provides value to a discerning audience, people are willing to pay that.”

Guardian: Focus on lifetime value of subscribers

The Guardian currently offers access to the title’s digital edition for £149 per year (up from £99 a year ago). It also offers ad-free reading and unlimited access to The Guardian app for £12 per month.

Guardian chief supporter officer Liz Wynn said the language around reader revenue (which includes a large volume of donations) is different at The Guardian.

“It’s a contribution towards supporting the ongoing work of The Guardian.”

On the subject of retaining reader revenue, she said: “The best way to optimise your churn rate is to run no ads. Driving profitable growth while having the right level of retention is the art…

“For some or our readers they are really engaged and want to buy into premium products and subscriptions and that’s incredibly valuable for us.”

She said a good way to avoid a high churn rate is by focusing on the lifetime value to a business of subscribers (rather than acquisition numbers).

She said: “I am a big fan of running your acquisitions team with a three-year revenue target.”

She added: “If you have an immediate trading problem today, if you want to make a short-term difference, look at winning back lapsed customers.”

Krish Subramanian, CEO and co-founder of Chargebee, told the conference that publishers are increasingly using data science to head off cancellations much earlier.

He said: “It’s not about saving at the point of cancellation, it’s about understanding why they are coming to the point of cancellation. Which cohort of customers are likely to cancel in the next 30 days?

“We see more companies investing in data science to know who is likely to leave and we can pre-empt the motions that are needed to start saving them.

“At the point of acquisition, some companies are establishing transparency about how you can leave, not because a regulator says so but because this is the right way to treat a customer. Those are the businesses that are able to build that level of trust and think about it as a recurring relationship and not as a subscription.”

The post Because we’re worth it: Why FT, Politico and Racing Post charge big for online news appeared first on Press Gazette.