The Daily Mail’s publisher has “strongly denied” an allegation made by a lawyer for Prince Harry that journalists’ emails and documents had been deleted.

The allegation was subject to a warning by a judge at the latest preliminary hearing in the case brought by a group of high-profile individuals including Harry, campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish.

They are suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) for alleged misuse of private information.

The group has accused the publisher of allegedly carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities, such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars and burglaries to order.

ANL firmly denies the allegations and is defending the legal claims, with cost budgets for both sides combined totalling more than £38m.

David Sherborne, for the individuals, said in his written submissions that “there have been deletions of some, but not all, of journalists’ emails” at ANL, and that some documents were destroyed during the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking.

In court, Catrin Evans KC, for ANL, denied the allegation, stating it was a claim of “deliberate tampering with the documents which is of course strongly denied”.

She added: “We regard it as important to put down a marker that it is not appropriate to come to this court, there are clearly going to be further hearings in these proceedings and face allegations like that.

“It is not professionally proper to make them.”

Mr Justice Nicklin said that evidence would need to be provided for such allegations, adding: “This sort of allegation would be career-ending and possibly give rise to potential criminal proceedings, so it could not be more serious.”

Hundreds of people, including the Duke of Sussex, have previously brought legal action against other newspaper publishers over allegations of unlawful information gathering, including related to phone hacking.

Harry was previously awarded £140,600 in damages after suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and faces a trial in January 2025 for his claim against Sun publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN).

Evans said that it would be “wrong” to treat the claims brought against ANL in the same way as cases against those publishers.

She continued: “Critically, the ‘bedrock’ of liability in the MGN and NGN cases consisted of criminal convictions of certain journalists and far-reaching admissions about the extensive use of unlawful acts … there is no similar ‘bedrock’ of matters here.”

Sherborne told the court that the individuals “were, in different ways, each the victim of numerous unlawful acts”, including “illegally intercepting voicemail messages; listening into live landline calls; (and) obtaining private information” between 1993 and 2018.

The court also heard from lawyers for ANL that Lady Lawrence was “alerted” to the potential legal claim by a text message from Prince Harry in January 2022.

Evans said in written submissions: “Litigation appears to have been contemplated by Baroness Lawrence almost immediately after the text was received by her.”

Evans also told the court that Lady Lawrence met with lawyers Harry had been working with a few days later.

However, the barrister later said she has lost “and possibly deleted” the text sent by Harry, and said in court that ANL wanted an “explanation” as “it has not been explained as to the circumstances of the discovery of it being missing”.

Sherborne said in his written submissions that some claimants, including Lady Lawrence, initially declined to provide the information about “personal watershed moments” in their claims, as the demand included “impermissible requests for evidence and privileged information”.

He said: “In general, the claimants refused to provide the information sought, on the basis that it was not reasonably necessary or proportionate to enable the defendant to prepare its case or understand the case it had to meet.”

He said that they then “voluntarily provided” the information earlier in November, and claimed in court that ANL had “accused (Lady Lawrence) of some nefarious intent in that she couldn’t find the message” from the duke.

Sherborne also said that ANL should disclose further documents, including an Excel spreadsheet detailing alleged payments to private investigators between 2005 and 2007, which Evans said was an “entirely premature demand”.

He said they wanted “clear and comprehensive answers to what documents still exist and what documents have been either destroyed or deleted”, and continued: “We have reached the point where we say there should be a clear and comprehensive picture given.”

The hearing before Mr Justice Nicklin and Judge David Cook is due to conclude on Wednesday, with a further hearing expected in May next year.

The full trial of the claims could then be held in early 2026.

The post Mail publisher ‘strongly denies’ lawyer’s allegation of document deletion appeared first on Press Gazette.

Telegraph Media Group director of technology Dylan Jacques talks to us about the title’s ambitious plans to roll out a new generative-AI powered feature every month for 12 months.

It has already rolled out AI-written summaries and various internal tools which are helping journalists use AI to improve content, increase reader engagement and so sell more subscriptions.

How to subscribe to Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast

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And if you sign up for our Future of Media newsletter you will receive an email link to the latest show every Thursday.

2. In a podcast app

The Future of Media Explained is available on all major podcast apps including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast.

Or search for Future of Media Explained wherever you get your podcasts.

3. On your smart speaker

If you have an Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod smart speaker, ask it to “play the latest episode of the Press Gazette Future of Media Explained podcast”. The same command also works with virtual assistants on mobile devices.

The post Podcast 78: Generative AI in the newsroom at The Telegraph 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.

Boston Globe chief commercial officer Kayvan Salamanpour reveals the key decisions made around online subscriptions, advertising and other revenue areas which have enabled the local news title to thrive in the digital age and continue to support investigative journalism.

How to subscribe to Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast

1. In your browser

You can use the player above to listen in your browser right now. Future of Media Explained is published every week.

You could bookmark the Future of Media Explained homepage on Acast.

And if you sign up for our Future of Media newsletter you will receive an email link to the latest show every Thursday.

2. In a podcast app

The Future of Media Explained is available on all major podcast apps including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast.

Or search for Future of Media Explained wherever you get your podcasts.

3. On your smart speaker

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The post Podcast 76: Making news pay the Boston Globe way appeared first on Press Gazette.

The amount former MP Charlie Elphicke has to pay The Sunday Times in legal costs has been reduced after a new judgment that found the publisher failed to “preserve evidence”.

Elphicke, who was jailed for two years in September 2020 after he was convicted of sexually assaulting two women, sued Times Media Ltd for libel over three articles published in The Sunday Times in 2018, including two which referenced an investigation of rape allegations against him.

The former Conservative Party MP for Dover ended his defamation case before it went to trial in 2022, but asked to avoid paying the costs of multiple applications made by Times Media, saying the publisher had “wiped” evidence.

Times Media, which defended the libel claim, made a bid for Elphicke to pay costs.

In a 51-page ruling on Monday, former judge Victoria McCloud found Times Media failed to “preserve evidence” in the case and that it was “appropriate to mark the seriousness” by reducing the amount that Elphicke must pay to 80%.

McCloud said Elphicke argued at a hearing in June 2023 that Times Media “had lost or destroyed critical information” that related to the allegations it made against him, including “the most serious matter [that] was said to be the loss or destruction of a journalist’s electronic telephone information”.

In the ruling, McCloud said “the phone material would have clarified… whether for example the complainant was being inconsistent or whether words were being put into her mouth or whether there was another motivating factor such as money, rejection, or pressure from anyone else”.

The former judge added that Times Media had “ample opportunity to preserve the electronic information concerned”.

A hearing in June 2023 heard that Times Media’s lawyers said its “journalist’s loss of phone was inadvertent” and that Elphicke had “chosen not to pursue issues relating to the defendant’s disclosure before discontinuing his claim”.

According to the judgment, the publisher argued that Elphicke “had litigated his claim aggressively, making serious allegations against the defendant and its journalists, its witness and the complainant”.

But McCloud ruled that Times Media had “a duty to preserve evidence when on notice of proceedings or likely proceedings”.

She added that “failures to preserve evidence when on notice to do so, and wrongful collateral use of witness statements” are “not matters which require significant consideration of documents and attendance notes: they go to the heart of the fairness of proceedings”.

Elphicke was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault committed in 2007 and in 2016 after a trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2019.

After the ruling, Elphicke said the judgment was “damning”.

He added: “It’s unprecedented for any media business to be caught misconducting themselves like this.”

Times Media has been approached for comment.

Speaking about the Elphicke case and the legal system under which it was brought, journalist Gabriel Pogrund previously told Press Gazette: “He sued us before, during and after his time living at Her Majesty’s pleasure in prison, and I would pose questions about the legal system that enables that to happen.”

The post Charlie Elphicke’s legal bill cut after Sunday Times libel battle appeared first on Press Gazette.

Almost all the top 50 news sites in the US saw traffic fall in September, deepening a decline that began in August.

But for most publishers visits have nonetheless improved year-on-year, with three-fifths of the top 50 recording traffic increases of at least 10% compared with September 2023.

• Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)

All of the ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic drop compared to August. The contraction was sharpest at Yahoo Finance (down 11.3% month-on-month to 144.4 million visits) and third-placed Fox News (down 11.2% to 260.2 million).

In August eight of the top ten publishers saw month-on-month decline, which marked a correction after an eventful July (in which the Paris Olympics kicked off, Joe Biden left the US presidential race and Donald Trump was shot).

Major news events in the US in September included Hurricane Helene hitting North Carolina, a second failed assassination attempt against Trump, and the first TV debate between him and Kamala Harris.

In September the shallowest traffic falls were recorded at The New York Times (down 1.9% to 355 million) and Forbes (down 2.1% to 113 million). Despite the drop September’s ranking reflects the first time Forbes has entered the US top ten after jumping three places to ninth. Google News (visits down 6.7% to 112.7 million), meanwhile, fell out of the top ten.

CNN, which was again the most visited site in the US, saw visits fall 4% to 424 million. The site has since rolled out its inaugural paywall, the effects from which will only become visible next month.

The Daily Mail (down 7.5% month-on-month to 113 million), which was the ninth most popular news site in the US in both July and August, dropped in September to tenth.

The only riser within the top ten, besides new entrant Forbes, was People, which was up one spot despite visits dropping 9.5% month-on-month to 147.2 million.

September saw the re-entry of The Atlantic into the top 50 (visits down 0.2% month-on-month but up 15.2% year-on-year to 22.9 million) after it dropped off in August. Far-right website Gateway Pundit, which entered the chart at 48th last month, has in turn fallen out of the top 50.

Athlon Sports (up 218.4% year-on-year to 35 million) was the fastest riser in the ranks of the top 50, jumping eight places to 33rd on the back of 18% month-on-month traffic growth, the second most growth of any publisher in the top 50.

The only site to see a larger rise in visits compared with August was CBS News, where traffic rose 20.7% to 92.5 million, translating to a five-place rise on the charts.

Another notable riser was local publisher SF Gate (up six places to 36th on the back of a 0.4% month-on-month traffic drop, to 29.3 million) and libertarian blog Zero Hedge (25.2 million), which rose five places to 40th despite a 7.7% traffic decline.

The UK's The Independent, which has been on a US expansion campaign, saw some fruits from that bid in September: it was one of the four sites to see month-on-month traffic growth (rising 5.7% to 39.7 million) and notched year-on-year growth of 88.3%, the fourth highest overall.

Going the opposite direction, however, was the US outpost of fellow British publisher The Sun (22.2 million visits), which dropped 15 places to 50th on the back of 34.9% month-on-month and 65.1% year-on-year traffic declines. The Sun recently made steep cuts at its US operation.

After Athlon the fastest-growing site in the US year-on-year was The Daily Dot (up 174.2% year-on-year to 29.2 million), which entered the top 50 for the first time in August. They were followed by Newsweek, where visits rose 115.1% year-on-year to 92.6 million. Newsweek's rapid rise up the charts has stalled in recent months: having been in the top ten in July it fell out last month and in September placed 14th.

All but two of the ten most-visited sites in the US in September saw year-on-year traffic growth. New top ten entrant Forbes was also the fastest-growing site in the group, seeing visits rise 48% compared with September 2023. It was followed by People magazine (up 37.8%), USA Today (up 29.6% to 166 million) and The New York Times.

The two top ten sites to see year-on-year traffic declines were Fox News (down 0.7%) and Mail Online, where visits dropped 7.2%.

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less journalistic focus.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the top 50 websites for news in the US:

August 2024

Two-thirds of the top news sites in the US saw traffic shrink month-on-month in August following a bumper July.

But the picture is rosier over a longer timespan, with three-quarters of the top 50 publishers seeing year-on-year growth in visits in August.

The contraction is particularly pronounced among the top ten US news sites by traffic, where eight publishers saw visits drop compared to July.

In July every site in the top ten saw month-on-month traffic growth, likely driven by blockbuster news events including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump and Joe Biden's departure from the presidential race.

But in August People.com (162.6 million visits) and Yahoo Finance (162.8 million) were the only top ten sites to continue growing their traffic, by 3% and 2% respectively.

The biggest drop came at CNN, which saw visits fall 16% to 441.4 million. It nonetheless remained the most-visited news site in the US, a position it has held since Similarweb updated its data model in June and pushed the site ahead of The New York Times.

The New York Times maintained its position in second place, with 361.8 million visits, and Fox News was third on 293 million.

Yahoo Finance and People both shuffled up the board one spot to sixth and seventh place respectively, pushing the New York Post (150 million visits, down 7% year-on-year) down to eighth.

Mail Online remained steady at ninth place with 122.2 million visits while Google News (120.8 million) jumped three places to tenth despite losing 4% of traffic month-on-month, displacing Newsweek (115.7 million) from the top ten.

Further down the rankings The Daily Beast was the highest debuting publication, entering the top 50 at 39th place after seeing traffic rise 22% month-on-month to 30 million. The other new entrants in August were Dailydot.com (29.8 million, 40th place), NJ.com (26.6 million, 47th) and Newsbreak.com (25.7 million, 50th).

The four sites that dropped off the top 50 to make room for them were climate site The Cooldown, which had been enjoying a rapid traffic rise in recent months, local publishers Patch.com and KSL.com, and current affairs magazine The Atlantic.

The biggest riser already on the charts was progressive news site Raw Story, which climbed eight spots to 37th place on the back of a 24% month-on-month traffic increase to 33.2 million. It was followed by UK news site The Independent (up six places with 37.6 million) and the Los Angeles Times (up five places with 28.5 million).

Among all top 50 sites The Daily Dot grew fastest month-on-month, seeing traffic rise 25%.

Year-on-year, however, the fastest growth was at sports publisher Athlon Sports, which has been the case among the US top 50 every month since May. The site received 374% more visits in August 2024 than in August 2023, reaching 29.6 million. The next fastest growth was at Newsweek, where traffic rose 158%, and the Daily Dot (88%).

Among the top ten news sites by US traffic People magazine again saw the most year-on-year growth in August, having also been the fastest annual growers in April, May and June. July's fastest year-on-year riser, USA Today, followed in second place in August.

July 2024

All but two of the top 50 news websites in the US saw visits grow month-on-month amid an eventful July for political news.

All of the top-ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic growth when compared with June, according to figures from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The biggest increases in traffic were at USA Today (34%), CNN (33%), Newsweek (21%), Fox News (20%) and The New York Times (15%).

These figures contrast against June, when none of the top ten saw month-on-month growth.

The figures for July are the first Press Gazette has published since Similarweb updated its data model. The company says the update has improved the accuracy of the data, particularly with regard to smaller websites.

The most notable result of the change appears to be that it has bounced CNN (525 million visits) ahead of The New York Times (385.7 million) to retake the top spot on the traffic ranking.

Fox News (336.7 million) retained its position in third place, ahead of MSN (263 million) which it overtook in May.

Under the new model People.com (158.3 million) drops from fifth place, which it occupied in May, to eighth, behind USA Today (188.1 million) in fifth, the New York Post in sixth (160.5 million) and Yahoo Finance in seventh (159.5 million). Mail Online (136.1 million) gains a place, rising to ninth, and Newsweek (133.3 million) leaps from 16th to tenth place.

The only sites to see visits decline month-on-month were the US website of the UK's The Sun newspaper (37.1 million) and Athlon Sports (27.5 million), which both dropped 3%.

Year-on-year, however, Athlon (athlonsports.com) saw the greatest growth in the top 50, drawing in 697% more visits in July 2024 than in July 2023.

The second-fastest annual growth was at climate site The Cooldown (25.5 million, up 562%) and the third-fastest was at Newsweek (172%), which was also the fastest-growing site among the top ten domains.

All the top-ten sites by total visits grew year-on-year in July, seven of them by double-digit percentages.

Six of the top 50 saw year-on-year visit declines in July. The Sun was again the biggest faller, dropping 46% of its traffic. It was followed by Yahoo News (down 22%), Buzzfeed (down 17%), the Los Angeles Times (down 12%), and CNBC and SFGate, each of which declined 2%.

The largest gains month-on month were at political and hard news sites, again reflecting a historic July for news. ABC News (83.5 million visits) saw the most growth between June and July, increasing traffic 81%. MSNBC (29.2 million) increased visits by 66%, NBC News (128 million) by 62%, Axios (40 million) by 54% and The Atlantic (28.2 million) by 52%.

June 2024

Newsweek was once again the fastest-growing news website in the US in June 2023, notching 15% month-on-month growth to 110.2 million visits.

In addition Newsweek saw visits rise 144% compared to June the prior year, but it did not see the most year-on-year growth among the top 50. The fastest year-on-year growth came at Athlon Sports, which attracted 28.5 million visits in June, up 484% from the prior year.

Climate news site The Cooldown saw the second most year-on-year growth, with visits rising 152% to 21.9 million.

Among the top ten sites by traffic no publisher saw month-on-month growth in June. The New York Post saw the biggest decline - dropping 11% of traffic month-on-month - followed by The New York Times, which dropped 10% to 336 million visits.

Celebrity-focused People.com saw the most year-on-year growth in the top ten, growing visits 37% to 142.1 million. It was followed by USA Today, which saw traffic rise 11% to 140.3 million.

May 2024

Note: Figures from May 2024 and earlier were calculated using an old Similarweb data model that has since been updated.

Celebrity-focused newsbrand People.com was the fastest-growing news website in the US in May, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the popular magazine’s website were up 18% month-on-month to 165.3 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

It was followed by two News Corp titles, foxnews.com (269.1 million visits) and nypost.com (160.8 million), which were both up 8% month-on-month.

CNN (419.2 million visits, up 3%) and the New York Times (503.4 million, up 3%) also saw growth, albeit more modest, compared to April.

While the New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits followed by CNN, a strong monthly performance from Fox News led it to overtake MSN (261.3 million visits) into third place, pushing MSN into fourth.

People meanwhile retook fifth place following its strong growth, with Yahoo Finance (154.4 million) falling into seventh.

Year-on-year, People was again fastest-growing with visits up 42%, while The New York Times (up 17%) and USA Today (125.7 million, up 16%) also saw strong growth - contrasting with USA Today’s sharp monthly slump (its visits were down 15% making it the biggest-falling site among the top ten compared to April).

Among the top 50, Newsweek, which has topped the list for growth in several of the past months, was only the third fastest growing site year-on-year despite another strong month.

Visits to the news magazine’s website were up 198% compared to May 2023 to 95.5 million but it was beaten by two specialist newsbrands.

Fastest-growing was long-standing sports publisher Athlon Sports, which entered our top 50 for the first time in 33rd place (35.9 million visits, up 962% year-on-year). Athlon is best known for publishing pre-season single-title sports annuals on professional and college sports, and was temporarily merged with Sports Illustrated in 2022. It was followed by financial news and advice site Moneywise (27.6 million visits, up 334% year-on-year).

The same two sites topped the table for monthly growth with visits to Athlon Sports up 126% and visits to Moneywise up 70% compared to April.

AP News (98.8 million, up 21%) and Variety (43.8 million, up 19%) also saw growth of over or close to a fifth.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking climbing one place into tenth (117.8 million visits), while the BBC was in rank 11 (112.7 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

April 2024

Newsweek continued a strong run of growth to retake its spot as the fastest-growing news website in the US in April, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the news magazine’s website were up 149% year-on-year to 90.5 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Newsweek was followed by Virginia-based national newsbrand Axios which like Newsweek more than doubled its traffic (31.9 million visits, up 107% year-on-year), new climate and sustainability news site The Cool Down (27.8 million visits, up 71% year-on-year) and Advance Local Michigan news site M Live (22.7 million, up 66%).

Month-on-month Newsweek did less well, seeing no change in audience compared to March. Instead fastest-growing was M Live (up 27% month-on-month), followed by CBS News (84 million, up 26%), Axios (up 21%), and technology specialist The Verge (up 17%).

The US Sun was also among the fastest-growing sites month-on-month, up 16% to 46.3 million, sharing joint fifth place with Forbes (108.3 million, also up 16% month-on-month).

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits, celebrity newsbrand People was the fastest growing year-on-year for a second month (140.2 million visits, up 31%). It was followed by Gannett’s flagship newsbrand USA Today (148.1 million, up 25% compared to April 2023),

The remainder of the top ten either declined year-on-year or in the case of the New York Times (up 1%) and the New York Post (down 1%) registered virtually no change in traffic. Fox News saw the biggest slump at 14% with visits down to 249.9 million despite a busy news cycle in the US with national elections later this year.

Month-on-month New York Post (149.4 million, up 7%), USA Today (up 3%) and MSN (263.2 million, up 2%) were fastest-growing. Those that declined only saw small traffic drops with People (down 4% compared to March) and Washington Post (117 million, also down 4%) seeing the largest drops.

The New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits (487.6 million), followed by CNN (405.7 million), MSN, Fox News and Yahoo Finance (151 million) which retained its fifth position after knocking People off fifth spot last month.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 115.4 million visits), pulling further ahead of the BBC (rank 13, 106.1 million), which fell one place from twelfth in March.

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

March 2024

Celebrity newsbrand People was the fastest-growing news website in the US in March according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to People.com were up 27% year-on-year to reach 145.7 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Along with USA Today (143.4 million visits, up 13% year-on-year) and New York Times (498.6 million, up 10%), it was one of three of the top ten websites by number of visits in March to see double-digit growth.

In contrast, top ten sites Fox News (248.5 million, down 19%), the New York Post (139.3 million, down 16%), MSN (258.5 million visits, down 13%), Google News (131.8 million, down 10%) and CNN (402.2 million, down 10%) saw double-digit slumps in visits compared to March 2023.

Month-on-month the picture was more positive for the ten biggest sites, with all but People (down 8%) seeing more visits in March than February. The New York Post (up 12%) saw the biggest monthly gain, followed by The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post (122 million) and CNN, which each saw a 9% month-on-month boost in visits.

Among the wider top 50, The Cool Down, which entered our ranking last month for the first time in 42nd position, saw strong growth for another month, moving up from 42nd to 35th in the table. Visits to the climate-specialised newsbrand were up 25% month-on-month and 421% year-on-year (30.4 million visits).

The Cool Down was the fastest-growing site year-on-year among the whole top 50. It was followed by Newsweek (90.5 million visits, up 144% year-on-year).

A Newsweek spokesperson told Press Gazette last month that “the share of readers visiting us via our front door is setting records” and is its “best source of stable, growing audience independent of third-party algorithm changes” as many publishers experience Google and Facebook referral declines.

Month-on-month, both Newsweek (up 31% compared to February) and The Cool Down were beaten by publishing group Advance Local’s Alabama-focused site al.com (22.6 million visits, up 67% month-on-month). It was followed by independently run consumer-focused science news site sciencealert.com (24.4 million visits, up 66% month-on-month).

Long-running magazine The Atlantic also saw a strong March with 30 million visits, an increase of 26% month-on-month.

The New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN, MSN, Fox News and Yahoo Finance (150.1 million visits) which knocked People out of fifth position.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 113 million visits), just ahead of the BBC (rank 12, 106.9 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

February 2024

Newsweek was the fastest-growing news site in the US in February while climate news startup The Cooldown entered the list in 42nd position, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the site of news magazine Newsweek, which has expanded its rankings content and consumer guides in the past year, were up 130% year-on-year to 69.1 million, making it the fastest growing news site in the top 50, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. (We excluded The Cool Down from the year-on-year analysis because the site only recently launched towards the end of 2022).

Newsweek was followed by Axios (25 million visits, up 88% year-on-year) and Politico (50.7 million, up 51%). UK newsbrand The Independent (25.7 million, up 44%) also made the top ten for growth, ranking 39th in the top 50. Last month The Independent also featured among the ten fastest-growing sites in the top 50, as it seeks to grow its US foothold.

Month-on-month the fastest-growing newsbrand was The Cool Down (24.3 million visits, up 52% compared to January). Ranked 42nd in this month’s top 50, the site was launched by founder and CEO of the sports media outlet Bleacher Report Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson, an ABC and Yahoo News executive, and purports to be the "first mainstream climate brand" in the US.

It was followed for month-on-month growth in visits by progressive news website Rawstory (20.4 million, up 24%) and Newsweek (up 10% month-on-month).

None of the ten biggest news websites by number of visits grew month-on-month in February. People (158.7 million visits, down 2% month-on-month) and Yahoo Finance (147.2 million, down 3%) saw the smallest falls, while Fox News (242.5 million, down 10%) and Gannett’s flagship title USA Today (131.3 million, down 13%) saw the only double-digit declines.

Annually, the picture was more mixed for the ten biggest sites. People (up 30% year-on-year), USA Today (up 20%) and Yahoo Finance (up 14%) saw the biggest increases in visits compared to February 2023.

At the other end of the list however, Microsoft news aggregator MSN (247.4 million visits) and News Corp’s New York Post (124.9 million) saw the biggest year-on-year slumps at 17% each.

The New York Times (456.7 million visits) remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN (372.8 million), MSN, Fox News and People.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (107.7 million visits) in tenth, one place ahead of the BBC (101 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

January 2024

The Independent was one of the fastest-growing news sites in the US in January, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the UK publisher’s site were up 29% month-on-month to 24.3 million, making it the second-fastest growing news site in the US, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

The Independent is one of several UK newsbrands along with The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express and the BBC that have recently put focus on expansion in the US.

The Independent’s chief executive Christian Broughton told Press Gazette last year that US expansion, along with e-commerce, Independent TV, reader revenues and AI, are the main drivers of growth for the publisher.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (119.8 million visits) although it dropped one place to eleventh from tenth in the past month.

Fastest-growing month-on-month in the top 50 was Advance Local-owned New Jersey news site nj.com (23.5 million visits, up 33% month-on-month) while third fastest-growing was Business Insider (74.4 million, up 21%).

Year-on-year, compared to January 2023, the fastest-growing site was Newsweek (62.7 million visits, up 94%), followed by Axios (28.8 million visits, up 60%) which in recent years has expanded into local news and its professional subscription service, Axios Pro.

The Independent also featured among the fastest-growing websites year-on-year coming in fifth place having seen visits up 40% compared to last January.

Among the ten biggest news websites by volume of visits, USA Today was the fastest-growing for a third month in a row.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by 32% year-on-year to 151.4 million – echoing its year-on-year growth rate last month.

It was followed by People (161.4 million visits, up 16% year-on-year) and both were the only large sites to see year-on-year growth for the second month in a row.

People and USA Today also saw the biggest growth month-on-month among the top ten sites. Visits to People were up 11% compared to December while they were up 8% to USA Today.

In contrast to the annual figures, however, all of the ten biggest sites saw month-on-month growth of at least 3% in January.

The largest site in the US remained The New York Times (482.7 million visits), followed by CNN (398.8 million) and Fox News (270.2 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

December 2023

USA Today was the fastest-growing of the ten biggest news websites in the US in December for a second month in a row, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by a third (32%) year-on-year to 140.8 million - dwarfing its own year-on-year growth rate of 11% last month, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

People (145.9 million visits, up 20% year-on-year) was the only other top ten site by number of visits to see an increase in traffic in December.

The remainder of the large US news sites saw falls in traffic, echoing our global ranking where none of the top ten sites grew year-on-year, possibly due to changes in Google’s search algorithm in the last four months of 2023.

MSN (259.2 million visits, down 33% year-on-year), Google News (134.1 million, down 20%) and CNN (374.7 million, down 17%) saw the biggest drops.

Since November, Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Two sites focused on news from Israel featured among the fastest-growing in the overall top 50, due to audience interest in the conflict in Gaza. Fastest-growing was Jerusalem-based Times of Israel (21.5 million visits, up 329%), while Yeshiva World (20.3 million, up 37%) also made the list of biggest-growing sites.

Aggregator Newsbreak (22.5 million, up 69%) and Axios (24.8 million, up 46%) also appeared among the fastest-growing sites in the top 50.

The New York Times saw visits grow 6% month-on-month compared to November and was again the biggest site in the US (464.4 million visits). CNN again came in second after leading the table for several months beforehand (373.7 million).

Fox News (262.1 million) and MSN again took third and fourth place, but People leapfrogged Yahoo Finance into fifth.

The Daily Mail jumped another place in December to rank tenth (116.3 million visits, down 12% year-on-year but up by the same month-on-month) ahead of fellow British news provider the BBC (104.6 million, rank 12).

The Sun performed markedly better compared to November, ranking ten places higher in 24th with 48.3 million visits, an increase of 70% month-on-month. However it was down by a third (32%) compared to December 2022.

November 2023

USA Today was the fastest-growing top ten news website in the US in November, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up 11% year-on-year to 121.8 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. It was one of just two top ten news sites by number of monthly visits along with People (127.3 million visits, up 9% year-on-year) to see an increase in traffic in November.

The remaining top ten newsbrands saw a slump in traffic with Microsoft-owned msn.com (243.3 million visits, down 37% year-on-year), CNN (372.4 million, down 27%) and Fox News (252.2 million, down 26%) recording the largest falls at more than a quarter each. This month the figures for edition.cnn.com have been excluded from Similarweb’s report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however last month made up just 1.5% of all visits to the CNN domain in the US and the change will therefore be slight.

The biggest site by number of visits was The New York Times (436.8 million visits) which has in recent months been jostling for top spot with CNN. The US cable broadcaster fell to second in November (372.4 million). Third was Fox News (252.2 million), while MSN was fourth and Yahoo Finance was fifth (138.6 million).

The best-ranked UK newsbrand in the US top 50 was Mail Online, which jumped one place to rank 11 despite a month-on-month fall in visits. It was followed by the BBC (rank 12, 99.9 million visits). The BBC’s visit total is slightly lower this month due to the exclusion going forward of visits to bbc.co.uk in the US since this traffic is redirected. The Sun meanwhile came in 34th position as it continues to lose traffic in the US (28.2 million visits, down 60% year-on-year and 44% compared to October).

Among the top 50 as a whole, fastest-growing was Times of Israel (27.3 million visits, up 468% compared to November 2022). It was followed by Newsweek (57.5 million, up 87%), aggregator Newsbreak (20.6 million, up 61%) and UK news site The Independent (20.4 million visits, up 28%). Jewish news site Yeshiva World (19.2 million, up 28% year-on-year) came in fifth. Like Times of Israel its growth is linked to increased interest in news about Israel and the Middle East region following the outbreak of war with Gaza on 7 October.

October 2023

Thirty of the 50 biggest news websites in the US (60%) grew traffic year-on-year in October, with The Times of Israel seeing the biggest growth.

The Jerusalem-based online newspaper saw visits up 708% year-on-year to 29.6 million, followed in second place by Al Jazeera (27.8 million visits, up 132%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Neither site has previously appeared in our top 50 ranking, suggesting the boost in visits is linked to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas which began on 7 October. The Times of Israel entered the ranking in 35th position, with Al Jazeera just behind in 36th.

AP (99.2 million visits, up 62%), ABC News (52 million visits, up 62% also) and The Independent (22.5 million, up 57%) also saw significant year-on-year growth in visits, suggesting a similar boost linked to increased reader interest in events in Gaza and Israel.

Among October’s top ten sites by number of visits, more than half saw year-on-year growth, reversing last month’s trend when all but two top of the ten sites saw a slump in visits.

People saw the biggest audience surge in October (137 million visits, up 31% year-on-year). It was followed by CNN (516.9 million, up 23%), Fox News (306.8 million, up 16%) and New York Post (137.3 million, up 15%). The New York Times (485.1 million, up 3%) and the BBC (150.7 million, up 1%) saw smaller growth in the single figures.

Despite smaller year-on-year growth, the BBC’s strong month-on-month growth of 25% meant it jumped five places in the ranking to fifth place. However it should be noted that Similarweb’s data captures visits to the whole BBC.com domain, which includes more than just news.

Washington Post (129.9 million, down 17%) and news aggregator MSN (259.8 million, down 19% saw the biggest falls among the top ten.

The biggest site by number of visits was CNN, which overtook the New York Times to resume its place as the top US news website. The New York Times has been the country’s biggest news website for the past three months and for much of the last two years, however that position had traditionally been held by CNN.

The best-ranked UK newsbrand in the US top 50 after the BBC was Mail Online (127 million visits, rank 12), followed by The Guardian (79.5 million, rank 18).

The Sun, which has generally seen consistently strong growth over the past two years in this ranking, fell seven places to rank 30 (45.6 million visits, down 24% year-on-year).

The Mirror (rank 48, 10.1 million visits), The Express (rank 50, 8.6 million) and Cosmopolitan (rank 42, 17.6 million) were among 11 sites that entered the top 50 for the first time in October.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

September 2023

AP News and Axios were among the top three fastest-growing news sites in the US in September, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Visits to the website of the UK public broadcaster were up 9% year-on-year to 133.9 million according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Visits to second-fastest growing AP were up 49% year-on-year to 79.6 million, while third-biggest growing Axios saw visits up 37% to 22.8 million.

US aggregator Newsbreak was however top of the table for growth with visits up 53% to 19.7 million.

The Independent also featured among the fastest-growing sites, coming in tenth place for growth with visits up 17% to 23.1 million. This however was markedly less than August when the British newsbrand’s year-on-year growth was 53%.

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits in September, USA Today was fastest-growing for the second month in a row and climbed three places compared to August to seventh. Visits to the Gannett-owned newsbrand were up 20% to 126.8 million.

Celebrity newsbrand People (122.9 million visits, up 7%) was the only other top ten site to see increased visits in September, and also climbed three places in the ranking (into ninth position).

The New York Times retained its position as the biggest news website in the US for the third month in a row (425 million visits), once again opening up a gap with second-placed CNN (401.2 million visits). CNN saw a bigger month-on-month traffic slump (down 13%) than the New York Times (down 8%).

CNN was historically top until February 2022, when the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle, and the broadcaster was briefly top again in June.

Completing the top five, which was unchanged from August, was Microsoft news aggregator MSN (246 million visits), Fox News (241.8 million) and Yahoo Finance (135.8 million). The BBC (120.6 million visits) fell one place to tenth compared to August but maintained a spot among the ten biggest newsbrands in the US.

Other British newbrands in the top 50 included The Guardian (68.7 million visits, rank 18), which saw visits fall 10% year-on-year, and The Sun’s US edition (50.2 million, rank 23), where traffic was up 13%.

Despite growing year-on-year, a sharp month-on-month fall in the number of visits at The Independent meant that along with technology site The Verge, the British newsbrand saw the biggest drop in places in September compared to August (both down seven spots).

August 2023

The BBC was one of the fastest-growing top ten websites in the US in August, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

The BBC was outdone, however, by USA Today which saw visits up 23% to 129.4 million. The Gannett-owned newsbrand has seen regular growth in recent months, and this month climbed the ranking into tenth place compared to twelfth place in July.

Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com and bbc.co.uk meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included.

USA Today and the BBC were followed by CNN, the only other site in the top ten by number of visits to grow year-on year (461 million visits, up 5%).

Washington Post (139.8 million, down 11%) and Google News (147.9 million, down 17%) were in contrast the biggest fallers among the top ten sites.

The New York Times maintained its title as the biggest news website in the US for the second month in a row, although its lead over CNN fell to just 800,000 as CNN saw a bigger month-on-month traffic boost (11% versus 5%). CNN was historically top until February 2022, as the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle, and the broadcaster was briefly top again in June.

Microsoft news aggregator Msn.com (270.6 million visits), foxnews.com (268.8 million) and Yahoo Finance (155.9 million) make up the remainder of the top five.

Among the top 50 as a whole, AP saw the highest year-on-year growth with visits up 85% to 55.6 million, echoing its leading position for growth in our global ranking.

It was followed by cbsnews.com (67.8 million, up 54%) and independent.co.uk (30.6 million, up 53%).

The Sun’s US edition, which has regularly featured among the fastest-growing sites in the US top 50 in the past year, this month recorded a drop as visits to the-sun.com were down 9% year-on-year to 49.5 million.

AP saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing four positions to 16 in contrast to last month when it was the biggest faller (dropping four places to 20) while entertainment title Variety (24.4 million, rank 43, down five places) saw the biggest fall in position.

July 2023

The Independent was the joint fastest-growing news website in the US in July, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Visits to the website of the UK newsbrand were up 69% year-on-year to 31.5 million according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The Independent, along with the BBC and The Sun, has recently increased its investment in the US in a bid to tap into the country’s large news market.

It was tied for growth with US broadcasting giant CBS News, which also saw visits up 69% year-on-year to 71.5 million.

Third fastest-growing was celebrity news-focused People.com (131.9 million visits, up 55% year-on-year) which jumped three places compared to June’s ranking to enter the list of the top ten biggest sites in the US in July.

The Sun’s US edition, which has regularly featured among the fastest-growing sites in the US top 50 in the past year, was the seventh fastest-growing in July as visits to the-sun.com were up 33% year-on-year to 54.7 million.

Sfgate.com, the website of Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle, saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing eight positions to 33 (33.7 million visits), while AP (67.3 million visits, rank 20, down four places) and ABC News (39.5 million, rank 31, down five places) saw the biggest falls in position.

The New York Times overtook CNN to resume its title as the biggest news website in the US by number of visits. CNN was historically top until February 2022, as the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle. But CNN was briefly top again in June.

In July there were 441.6 million visits to the New York Times website, compared to 415.2 for CNN.com, but both did see a fall in traffic by 4% and 9% respectively year-on-year.

The remaining top five sites - msn.com (269.6 million visits), foxnews.com (262.1 million) and nypost.com (153.5 million) - saw their positions in the ranking unchanged from June.

The BBC, which climbed one place in June to sixth position, fell two places to eighth with 134.6 million visits, a year-on-year fall of 7%. Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com and bbc.co.uk meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included.

Among the sites that saw the biggest falls in traffic this month were conservative US publisher Daily Wire (down 36% year-on-year to 21 million visits) and bloomberg.com (29.1 million visits, down 24% year-on-year).

Among the ten biggest websites, only Dotdash Meredith-owned website People.com and the BBC (134.6 million visits, up 7%) grew year-on-year.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

June 2023

CNN overtook the New York Times to become the biggest news website in the US in June, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Historically CNN had been above the New York Times but the newspaper brand overtook the broadcaster in February 2022 after it bought the Wordle game and had remained above ever since.

Visits to the CNN website were up 5% year-on-year to 458 million in June, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Visits to the New York Times website meanwhile were down 9% to 423.2 million pushing the newspaper brand into second position. In recent months, CNN has been closing the gap on the New York Times as web traffic to nytimes.com has consistently fallen compared to 2022, possibly in part due to falling interest in the popular game Wordle.

CNN and the New York Times were among several websites that changed ranks among the top ten.

The BBC climbed one place in June to sixth position as visits to the UK broadcaster’s website were up 26% year-on-year (152.7 million visits). It was the fastest-growing top ten brand by number of visits. While Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included, the corporation has recently ramped up its editorial presence in the US.

Microsoft aggregator MSN and Fox News meanwhile swapped positions in June. MSN climbed to third place with 289.5 million visits (up 6% year-on-year) while Fox News (276.5 million, down 5%) fell to rank four.

Among the ten biggest websites, USA Today was the second-fastest for growth (124.8 million visits, up 23%). The Gannett-owned brand was the only large news site other than the BBC to see double-digit audience growth in June. USA Today climbed three places in June to enter the top ten in tenth position.

Across the top 50 as a whole, cbsnews.com was the fastest-growing (75.5 million visits, up 71% year-on-year). The news website of the US broadcaster has enjoyed a recent strong run of growth and was also this month’s fastest growing top 50 news website worldwide.

Second-fastest growing in the top 50 was The Sun’s US edition (57 million visits, up 69%) while fellow British newsbrand The Independent (35 million visits, up 66%) was fourth-fastest growing. Like the BBC, both have recently invested in ramping up their US presence.

Among the sites that saw the biggest falls in traffic this month were conservative US publisher Daily Wire (down 43% year-on-year to 23.1 million visits) and digital home of Hearst print title San Francisco Chronicle, sfgate.com (24.7 million visits, down 29% year-on-year). Hearst also operates a paywalled premium website serving the city, sfchronicle.com, which is not included in the top 50.

May 2023

The Sun was the fastest-growing newsbrand in the US in May for the second month in a row, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

There were 69 million visits to the website of the UK tabloid’s US edition, which launched in 2020, an increase of 80% compared to May last year.

It was followed by cbsnews.com which has similarly enjoyed a recent strong run of growth (58.9 million visits, up 43% year-on-year) and NBC Universal-owned MSNBC (20.1 million visits, up 37%).

Meanwhile, the website of another British newsbrand also seeking to expand further in the US, The Independent, also made the top ten fastest-growing list. Visits to independent.co.uk were up 33% to 29.7 million.

Among the top ten sites by number of visits, there was little year-on-year growth. Visits to the BBC were up 1% to 142.1 million, while MSN saw virtually no change compared to last May (278.5 million visits).

In contrast, much of the top ten saw large falls. The biggest drop was seen by the New York Times (432.1 million visits, down 24% year-on-year) and Google News (144.2 million visits, down 20%).

Yahoo Finance (142 million visits, down 19%), Washington Post (124.8 million, down 19%), Mail Online (118.9 million, down 10%) and celebrity-focused site People (116.3 million, down 13%) also saw double-digit falls.

The New York Times maintained its spot at the top of the table, although second-place CNN continues to close the gap. CNN grew 3% month-on-month while the New York Times’ audience was largely static. The New York Times’ fall in traffic is possibly linked to declining interest in the Wordle puzzle and, like other titles, less news interest compared to the early months of the Ukraine war last year.

While the ranking of the top five brands remained unchanged, with Fox News, MSN and New York Post rounding out the top five, the BBC fell one place to rank seven after climbing last month, while Google News was up to rank six.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

April 2023

The Sun’s US edition retook its place at the top of the list as the fastest-growing newsbrand in the US in April, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Last month the US edition of the UK tabloid was third-fastest growing behind Substack and CBS News. It last topped the list for fastest-growing site in October last year.

Second fastest-growing in April was CBS News which has similarly enjoyed a recent strong run of growth (51.9 million visits in April, up 51%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

Among the ten largest sites by number of visits, fastest growing was USA Today up 26% to 118.8 million.

It was followed by News Corp-owned Fox News. Visits to the site were up 5% year-on-year to 290.9 million, amid a series of legal controversies involving the cable broadcaster concerning the 2020 US election.

No other top ten site saw visits increase in April. In contrast a number of them - washingtonpost.com (121.2 million visits, down 14% year-on-year), Google News (137.6 million, down 19%), Yahoo Finance (128.9 million, down 19%) and the New York Times (430.2 million visits, down 26%) - saw double-digit falls in visits.

The New York Times’ continued fall in traffic is possibly linked to falling interest in Wordle and, like other titles, a loss of the audience boost that came with the early months of the Ukraine war last year.

Despite falling traffic, the New York Times maintained its spot as the biggest site in the US followed by CNN (416.7 million visits), Fox News and msn.com (261 million visits).

Despite a small drop in visits the BBC (down 1% year-on-year, 138.2 million visits) climbed two places in the ranking compared to March - coming in sixth position in April. The BBC recently stepped up its editorial investment in the US.

March 2023

The New York Times saw the biggest drop in US traffic among the top 50 websites in the country in March, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to nytimes.com fell 35% to 452.4 million - echoing both a similar fall in Press Gazette’s global top 50 ranking and the site’s 21% fall in February’s US ranking.

The decline is potentially linked to declining interest in word game Wordle, which went viral early last year and quickly snapped up by the New York Times, and a widespread fall in year-on-year traffic comparisons following a surge in news interest about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The New York Times was also one of eight top ten sites by number of visits that saw a fall in traffic in March, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The site with the second largest year-on-year fall in the top ten was Google News (146.9 million visits, down 25%) followed by washingtonpost.com (127.4 million visits, down 23%), cnn.com (446.2 million visits, also down 23%) and bbc.com and bbc.co.uk (141.7 million visits, down 21%).

CNBC was the fastest-growing top ten site (128.9 million visits, up 9% year-on-year).

Within the overall top 50, the fastest-growing site was newsletter platform Substack to which US visits were up 37% to 30.3 million. Second-fastest growing was cbsnews.com (52.8 million visits, up 32%) while the Sun’s US edition came in third (63.6 million, up 27%) continuing its run of rapid growth since launching across the Atlantic in 2020.

Despite its year-on-year audience fall, the New York Times remains the largest site by number of visits in the US top 50. It was followed by CNN, foxnews.com (305.6 million) and msn.com (297.8 million visits). Fox News rose one place up March’s ranking to displace MSN from third place.

Yahoo Finance (148.4 million visits, rank six), Google News (rank seven) and cnbc.com (rank ten) were the other sites at the top of the table to climb up the ranking in March.

The Sun US edition saw the largest drop in places among the top 50, falling from rank 15 in February to rank 20 in March although it's year-on-year growth continued to be strong.

February 2023

The Sun’s US edition was one of the fastest-growing websites in the US in February, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to the US edition of the UK tabloid were up 56% to reach 71.5 million in February, making it the second fastest-growing site in the US top 50. The Sun’s US edition has grown rapidly since launching in the US in 2020 and is now ranked 15th in the US top 50 - a gain of four places since last month.

Fastest-growing was entertainment site Variety.com (27.4 million visits, up 67%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb, while cbsnews.com was third-fastest growing (47 million visits, up 43%).

The New York Times, which has regularly appeared among the fastest-growing sites in this ranking in the past year, saw its traffic fall by 21% to 418.6 million in February - reflective of its global traffic trend.

Among the top ten sites by audience size, only three saw an increase in traffic. They were people.com (up 36% year-on-year to 122.1 million), nypost.com (up 12% to 151.1 million) and Microsoft news aggregator MSN (up 9% to 298.3 million).

Despite the large fall in visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits. It was followed by CNN (400.3 million visits), msn.com and foxnews.com (291.3 million).

This month, News Corp-owned nypost.com (151.1 million visits, up 12% year-on-year) entered the top five, displacing Google News which fell to eighth place (131.1 million visits, down 26%).

The BBC climbed one place in the ranking to sixth (135.8 million, down 10% year-on-year).

Today.com (24.7 million visits, up 33% year-on-year) saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing six places to rank 39.

The site of celebrity and entertainment magazine Us Weekly (Usmagazine.com) meanwhile saw the biggest drop, falling eight places to rank 50 (18.3 million visits, down 23% year-on-year).

January 2023

CBS News was for the second month in a row the fastest-growing news site in the US, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to the website of the US broadcaster were up 79% year-on-year to 56.7 million in January.

It was followed by the nytimes.com (488.3 million visits, up 50% year-on-year), entertainment news provider variety.com (31.4 million visits, up 43%) and the-sun.com (62.7 million visits, up 40%).

The Sun’s US edition has grown rapidly since launching in the US in 2020. The site’s audience has more than quadrupled in the last two years from just under 13 million 24 months ago.

Among just the top ten sites by audience size, the New York Times was again the fastest-growing (CBS ranks 22nd). It was followed by msn.com (406.4 million visits, up 37%), People.com (139.6 million, up 31%), nypost.com (162.4 million, up 14%) and combined visits to bbc.com & bbc.co.uk (149.8 million, up 11%).

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits in a top five that remained unchanged from last month. It was followed by CNN (482.6 million visits), msn.com (406.4 million), foxnews.com (326 million) and Google News (166.6 million).

Among the sites that saw the biggest jumps in rank in January, compared to the previous month were three local news sites that each jumped six places. The website of the Los Angeles Times (38.3 million visits climbed to 29th place), San Francisco’s sfgate.com (34.1 million visits) climbed to rank 32, while Utah local ksl.com (22 million visits was up to 44th place.

The Atlantic’s website (27.6 million visits) saw the largest drop (down 7 places to 38, while today.com (22 million visits) fell 5 places to rank 45.

Two sites that did not make December’s top 50 entered the list this month. They were conservative news sites epochtimes.com (23.3 million visits) which entered in 43 place and Advance’s New Jersey site, nj.com (18.7 million visits) which entered in 50th position.

December 2022

Two British newsbrands featured among the top five fastest-growing top ten newsbrands in the US in December, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to Mail Online were up 14% year-on-year to 131.9 million making it the third-fastest growing site.

Visits to the BBC were up 11% to reach 141.1 million, making it the fourth-fastest growing. The BBC has in recent months seen consistent growth in its US traffic, having stepped up its editorial investment in the US.

Taking the top spot for growth among the ten biggest sites was once again the New York Times. Visits to nytimes.com increased 57% year-on-year to 488.4 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Second-fastest growing for another month meanwhile was Microsoft’s news aggregator msn.com (385.4 million visits, up 29%).

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits, while CNN maintained its second place (448.6 million visits) and msn.com its third spot.

Washingtonpost.com (144.6 million visits) dropped two ranks from sixth place in November to eighth this month, swapping places with nypost.com (152 million visits).

The Sun’s US edition was among the news sites that saw the biggest jump in rank between November and December. The-sun.com climbed five places to rank 18 in December with 62.2 million visits, up 49% year-on-year.

Substack.com (27 million visits) and today.com (25.9 million visits) also saw large changes in rank, climbing six and eight places respectively.

Among the whole top 50 list, the fastest-growing news website in December was cbsnews.com (51.3 million visits, up 84% year-on-year). It was followed by entertainment newsbrand variety.com (29.1 million visits, up 65%) and last month’s fastest-growing site nytimes.com. The-sun.com was fourth fastest-growing.

The only site not in November’s top 50 ranking to enter the list this month was celebrity news specialist Us Weekly. There were 22.4 million visits to its site usmagazine.com (rank 46).

November 2022

The New York Times was the fastest-growing news website in the US in November while the BBC was one of the strongest-performing large websites , according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, the New York Times grew the most year-on-year (535.1 million visits (up 81%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The NYT was followed by Microsoft news aggregator, msn.com (383.9 million visits, up 36%) and the BBC (140.7 million visits, up 22%). Fourth fastest-growing among the top ten was CNN with 506.8 million visits (up 14% year-on-year).

Although the BBC sites saw slightly less visits in November compared to October, the UK public broadcaster has been among the top three large sites in the US for year-on-year growth since September. The BBC has in recent months ramped up its investment in the US, doubling its editorial staff.

In total eight of the top ten sites in the US saw more traffic in November than the same month last year, echoing the pattern seen in Press Gazette’s global ranking this month.

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits, with the frontrunners largely unchanged from the previous month.

The BBC did, however, drop one position to ninth rank, while nypost.com climbed up one spot to rank eighth (143.2 million visits).

CNN was the second-largest website in the US, while third-largest was MSN. Foxnews.com (340.5 million visits) and Google News (165 million visits) rounded out the top five on this measure.

Politico.com (rank 21, 61.4 million visits) and right-wing news site thegatewaypundit.com (rank 37, 28.1 million visits) jumped the most places this month, with both news sites climbing six positions in the ranking.

Fastest-growing among the top 50 as a whole after nytimes.com was cbsnews.com (50.8 million visits, up 73%) followed by entertainment news publisher variety.com (26.1 million visits, up 60%).

Last month’s fastest growing site in the US top 50, the-sun.com, was the eighth-fastest growing site year-on-year in November. The US digital version of the UK tabloid saw visits up 36% year-on-year to 54.1 million.

October 2022

The Sun regained its title as the fastest-growing news website in the US in October while the BBC continued its strong run of growth, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, the New York Times maintained its spot as the fastest-growing with 470.8m visits (up 67%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

It was followed, however, by last month’s third-fastest growing site, the BBC, which grew 30% year-on-year (149.4m visits) to become October's second-fastest growing large site.

It comes as the BBC has ramped up investment in the US in recent months, doubling its editorial staff.

Third fastest-growing among the top ten was Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN.com with 321.9m visits (up 16% year-on-year), while the Washington Post (157m visits, up 12%) and CNBC (113.3m visits, up 8%) rounded out the top five on this measure.

Among the top ten newsbrands by number of visits in October, six recorded year-on-year traffic increases in October, with four recording growth in the double-digits. Fox News meanwhile recorded the largest drop among the top ten (264.5m visits, down 15% year-on-year).

When it comes to the largest site by number of visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of a table that remained largely unchanged from last month. The only change in the top ten was CNBC jumping two places to enter in tenth spot, replacing Mail Online.

CNN was again the second-largest website in the US (413m visits, up 1%), while third-largest was MSN.

Newsweek’s site saw the biggest overall drop in rank, falling 12 places to rank 33rd with 32.8m visits, a 34% fall year-on-year.

Among the top 50 as a whole, the Sun’s US edition the-sun.com regained its spot as the fastest-growing news website in the US (51 million visits, up 72% year-on-year).

It was followed by long-running politics blog realclearpolitics.com (21.1m visits, up 70%) and the New York Times.

For the second month in a row the majority (30) of the top 50 news sites saw year-on-year growth in the number of visits than falls. The US midterm elections may be a contributing factor to the increased interest in news.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

September 2022

The BBC and the Mail Online were among the top three fastest-growing large newsbrands in the US in September, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, Mail Online was second-fastest growing with 116.8 million visits (an increase of 22% year-on-year), while the BBC was third fastest-growing with 142 million visits (up 21% year-on-year), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

They were however both beaten by the New York Times, which once again was the fastest-growing top ten site in the US (457.3 million visits, up 58%). Since acquiring word game Wordle in the first part of this year, the New York Times has seen a consistent run of audience growth.

September was a better month for US traffic to the larger newsbrands than August, with seven of the ten biggest brands recording year-on-year growth in audience, compared to just four in August. Additionally five newsbrands (New York Times, Mail Online, BBC, New York Post and MSN) recorded double-digit growth.

When it comes to the largest site by number of visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the table. It was followed by CNN (419.7 million visits, up 1%) over which it extended its margin compared to August.

Third-biggest was Microsoft’s aggregator MSN (299.9 million visits, up 11%), fourth-biggest was foxnews.com (258.4 million visits, down 17%) while fifth-biggest was Google News (166.5 million visits, down 6%).

Among the top 50 as a whole, last month’s fastest-growing site, the Sun’s US edition, the-sun.com came in second place for growth this time (44.6 million visits, up 90% year-on-year). Newsletter platform Substack meanwhile was eighth-fastest growing with 21.5 million visits (up 30%).

In a departure from recent months, just over half of news sites (26) saw year-on-year growth in the number of visits. This is possibly linked to a busy US news agenda in recent weeks, with stories such as Hurricane Ian and the slowdown in the global economy likely driving increased interest in news.

August 2022

The Sun’s US edition was the fastest-growing site in the US in August, according to the latest monthly ranking of sites by Press Gazette.

There were 55.3 million visits to the-sun.com, a 150% increase year-on-year, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The UK tabloid launched its US digital edition in 2020 along with a separate US Twitter account which currently counts 9,222 followers. The Sun’s US site has seen steady growth since launch and has risen to twentieth place in our US news ranking.

The-sun.com was also the fastest growing site month-on-month with visits in August up 34% compared to July.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits, just four saw year-on-year growth in August. For the second month in a row, the New York Times, New York Post and Mail Online all saw double-digit growth. Visits to the New York Times were up 52% year-on-year to 468.7 million, while second and third-fastest growing were the New York Post (146.7 million visits, up 26%) and Mail Online (117 million visits, up 14%).

Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN was the only other site in the top ten to grow in August (292.6 million visits, up 6% year-on-year).

The New York Times remains the largest site in the US by number of visits. The legacy publisher has grown in popularity, earlier this year replacing CNN as the most popular digital newsbrand in the country. Its recent growth, as Press Gazette has reported, may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.

The second-biggest site for number of visits was CNN (438.6 million visits, down 5% year-on-year) while in third place was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News (294.3 million visits, down 10% year-on-year). MSN and Google News round out the top five.

The BBC sites (bbc.co.uk and bbc.com) were the best-ranked British domains among the US top 50 (rank nine, 123.2 million visits). It narrowly beat Mail Online (tenth place).

Like July, August was overall a slow month for growth as just 17 sites of the top 50 saw year-on-year increases in their audience. It’s probable that year-on-year traffic declines for many sites reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns after a surge of interest to news sites in 2020 and 2021.

July 2022

The Mail Online was one of only three top ten sites by number of visits to grow its US audience in July, according to the latest monthly ranking of news websites from Press Gazette.

US visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 15% year-on-year to reach 115.7 million, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. It was beaten only by the New York Times (458.7 million visits, up 55%) and New York Post (163.9 million visits, up 41%). As Press Gazette has reported in recent months, the New York Times has seen continued strong audience growth in 2022 which may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.

Yahoo Finance (155.9 million visits, down 14% year-on-year) and Google News (174.3 million visits, down 13%) saw the biggest slumps in growth of the top ten sites.

Among the top 50 as a whole, the fastest growing site was internet culture site dailydot.com (20.2 million visits, up 178%). It was followed by the US website of UK tabloid The Sun (41.1 million visits, up 78%) and news aggregator Newsbreak (19.8 million visits, up 55%).

Mail Online also performed well among the top 50 as a whole, ranking tenth for year-on-year growth in this wider group.

The most popular online news source in the US was the New York Times which earlier this year knocked CNN off its top spot (419.9 million visits, down 6% year-on-year). Third most popular was foxnews.com (286.9 million visits, down 5%), which was followed by Microsoft’s msn.com (275.7 million visits, down 4%), and Google News.

Just 17 sites in the top 50 saw higher traffic this July compared to the same month in 2021. Content analytics firm Chartbeat has said that while news traffic in 2021 was more stable than 2020 where the pandemic and US election pushed readership very high in some months, some 2020 readership gains persisted in 2021. This month’s year-on-year traffic decline may therefore reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns, especially as interest in the Ukraine war has waned.

Update: this article and its charts was amended on 23 August to reflect a revised set of traffic figures received from Similarweb. The visit data for a number of websites mentioned in this article have been changed .

June 2022

The New York Times was again the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US in June, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking.

Visits to the US publisher’s site were up 21% year-on-year to 310.4 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The New York Times Company earlier this month reported that it had added about 180,000 net digital-only subscribers in the second quarter of the year - a slowdown in growth compared to previous quarters. The company’s All Digital Access tier, which includes its games and cooking content, however recorded its highest ever number of new subscribers. The NYT also notably acquired the online game Wordle in February this year.

Microsoft’s news aggregator and portal MSN was the only other top ten site by number of visits to see year-on-year growth in June (340.8 million visits, up 1%).

Other major sites saw traffic fall or stay static. There were 99.4 million visits to nypost.com (no change year-on-year), 105 million to business news site Cnbc.com (down 1%) and 103.3 million to Yahoo News (down 1%).

CNN was once again the biggest news site in the US in June (373 million visits, down 5% year-on-year). It was followed by msn.com, nytimes.com, foxnews.com (240.7 million, down 6%) and Google News (174.8 million, down 10%) in a top five largely unchanged from recent months.

The top-ranked British newsbrand in the US list remains Mail Online although it this month dropped out of the top ten to eleventh spot (99.1 million visits, up 8% year-on-year but down 11% month-on-month). The BBC was ranked twelfth (87.3 million, down 19%) while the Guardian site maintained its rank of 16 (54.3 million visits, down 12% year-on-year).

Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was again instapundit.com. Visits to the popular political blog were up more than 2,500 times to 17 million, following a lull in the site’s traffic in the same month last year according to Similarweb’s analytics.

Sportz Bonanza, the fastest growing site worldwide this month, also grew sharply year-on-year in the US with visits up 4,698% to 45.9 million.The independent.co.uk was the ninth-fastest growing with visits up 12% to 16.7 million.

May 2022

The New York Times topped the list for the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US for the third month in a row.

Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in May, nytimes.com saw the most year-on-year growth (352.2 million visits, up 36%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The publisher, which released its first quarter results in April put much of its growth down to acquisition of viral game Wordle. The New York-based title gained an impressive 301,000 new digital subscribers in the first quarter, although it said this was its slowest gain in over a year.

It was followed by the website of Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, nypost.com which had 119 million visitors in May, an increase of 27% on the same month in 2021.

Website of British mid-market daily, Mail Online, was the third fastest growing site in the US top ten and its performance in May was even better in May than April. Visits to its site were up 21% to 111.9 million (in April it grew 16% year-on-year).

Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (347.6 million visits, up7%) was the only other top ten site to see more traffic year-on-year.

Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was instapundit.com. The long-standing blog by Glen Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, is one of the most popular blogs on the internet. In May, Reynold’s site counted 204.2 million visits (up from a lull in 2021 when visits fell to less than 10,000 in some months according to Similarweb figures).

CNN maintained its position atop the US table as the biggest site in the US in May (393.2 million visits, no change year-on-year). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com (347.6 million visits, foxnews.com (248.4 million visits) and Google News (179.4m).

Echoing the global picture, the majority of sites saw more visits in May than April. The BBC was one of just eight sites that saw less traffic in May than the previous month.

The BBC was also one of just three British newsbrands in the top half of the list (100.3 million visits, ranked 12). Best-ranked British newsbrand was ninth-place Mail Online (111.9 million visits, up 21% year-on-year). Theguardian.com, in sixteenth place, had 60.7 million visits, down 3% year-on-year). The Mail Online’s US growth in recent months has moved the site, owned by Lord Rothermere's DMGT up the table where it has replaced the BBC as the only British name in the US top ten. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and global top 50 news site ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

April 2022

While CNN still sits atop the list of biggest websites for US news, the New York Times has continued its strong recent run as the fastest growing major news site in the country for the second month in a row.

Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in April, the New York Times site saw the most year-on-year growth with visits up 30% to 355.5m, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The publisher, which released its first quarter results earlier this month, said its acquisition of viral game Wordle had brought "an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times".

The New York Times was one of a minority of sites in the top 50 that saw more traffic this April compared to the same month last year, echoing the picture in our global top 50 ranking. Only 17 of the top 50 US news sites saw year-on-year traffic gains in April, compared to half of all sites last month .

The NY Times was followed by the site of US tabloid New York Post, which saw the second-highest year-on-year growth in traffic (109.7m visits, up 16%) among the ten most visited sites. It was followed by Mail Online (103.3m visits, also up 16%). Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (335.1 visits, up 7%) and Yahoo’s news aggregator (103.8m visits, up 5%) were the only other top ten sites with more traffic this April than in April 2021.

As with the global ranking, news sites saw fewer visits from the US in April compared to March as interest in the Ukraine conflict, entering its fourth month, is likely to be waning. Only Atlanta Black Star saw a significant month-on-month increase in traffic (24.6m visits, up 18%.

The black news site (which is placed 38th in the ranking) was also the fastest growing site year-on-year in the top 50 with visits up 74%.

British news sites also did well in April with three UK newsbrands among the ten fastest growing news sites year-on-year in the top 50. The Sun’s US digital edition continued its strong recent audience growth and was the second fastest growing site in the top 50 (17.7m visits, up 67%). Next best-placed UK newsbrand was Mail Online, which was followed by The Independent (181.1m visits, up 16%).

As in March, mainstream newsbrands featured strongly in the top ten sites for year-on-year growth taking seven of the top ten spots.

When it comes to number of visits, Mail Online was the only British site in a US-dominated top ten. The DMGT-owned site, which placed 12th last month, moved up three places in the ranking coming in ninth place in April. In contrast the BBC, which has tended to be the only British name in the top ten, fell down the ranking to twelfth place (101m visits, down 11% year-on-year). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Leading a top five unchanged from last month, CNN was the biggest site in the US in April (367.5m visits), followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com (229.9m visits) and Google News (170.6m).

In contrast to the UK ranking, a significant number of conservative and right-wing news sites continue to feature in the US top 50. Among them are drudgereport.com (42.1m visits, rank 23), breitbart.com (41m visits, rank 24), thegatewaypundit.com (26.6m visits, rank 36),
newsmax.com (25.2m visits, rank 37), zerohedge.com (22.6m visits, rank 39), theepochtimes.com (20.1m visits, rank 42), and dailywire.com (18.5m visits, rank 44).

March 2022

The New York Times was the fastest growing major news site in the US in March 2022, as mainstream news brands showed strong growth overall.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits in March, the website of the US daily saw the strongest growth with 420.4m visits during the month, an increase of 47% compared to March 2021 according to Similarweb data. The increase is likely in part due to the publisher's acquisition of highly popular word game Wordle. Similarweb data on top search terms for The New York Times' site reveals that Wordle was the most popular organic search term leading to the publisher's site.

Among the bigger publishers, it was followed for growth by Yahoo News (116.3m visits, up 16%), Microsoft news aggregator MSN (365.4m visits, up 12%), the BBC (124.8m visits, up 11%) and Fox News (269.5m visits, up 8%).

In contrast to recent months where the bigger sites have tended to see year-on-year falls in traffic, traffic to mainstream brands was up in March, likely driven by a surge of interest in news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a search for trusted sources of information.

Across the top 50 sites overall, the Sun’s US digital edition maintained its long run of audience growth and was the fastest growing site overall year-on-year (21m visits, 124% growth). The US digital version of the UK tabloid was ranked 43rd overall in terms of number of visits and it has slowly moved up the table in recent months.

The second fastest growing site in the top 50 in March was Reuters.com (44.7m visits, up 60%), followed by nytimes.com, independent.co.uk (23.3m visits, up 47%) and entertainment news site variety.com (20.5m visits, up 45%).

This month, mainstream newsbrands and legacy names featured strongly among the fastest growing sites in the top 50, in a departure from recent months when the fastest growing sites have tended to be entertainment, foreign or more niche news sites.

When it comes to number of visits, CNN was the biggest site in the US in March (465.1m visits). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com and Google News (196.3m visits).

The BBC was the only non-US site among the top ten, ranked in eighth place with 124.8m visits. The Daily Mail’s US site was the best-ranked British newspaper brand (in 12th place with 114.1m visits). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Half the sites in the top 50 saw more traffic this March compared to the same month last year.

Several conservative and right-wing sites, some of which benefited from traffic bumps during Trump’s tenure, saw audience falls in March. Newsmax.com’s visits were down 10% year-on-year (29m visits), while visits to theepochtimes.com were down 2% (25.4m visits). Thegatewaypundit.com (28.2m visits) and far-right blog zerohedge.com (25.1m visits) however saw traffic increases of 8% and 11% respectively.

January 2022

The Sun's US digital edition continued its recent run of audience growth in January with 94% year-on-year growth in visits.

The UK tabloid launched a US website in January 2020 and since then the site has seen significant growth recording its biggest audience yet this January. There were 21.4m visits to the-sun.com, placing it in 45th place in Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 news sites in the US.

Only Atlanta BlackStar (34.2m visits- 128% increase year-on-year) outperformed the UK title for growth, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

Celebrity news publication people.com was the only other site to see double-digit growth (74.6m visits - up 13%).

Among the ten biggest sites by audience size only MSN’s audience grew year-on-year. Microsoft’s news aggregator received 357.8m visits in January, up 1%.

The remainder of the household names saw traffic fall.

US websites will have benefited from large surges in traffic during the pandemic and the US election, with current President Biden taking office last January. Last January also saw the Capitol insurrection in Washington DC. Current traffic, while down year-on-year, is in the case of some big names including CNN and New York Times better this January than compared to the same month in 2019 and 2020 (pre-pandemic).

CNN, the biggest news site in the US, had 401m visits in January (down 42% year-on-year). The second-biggest site by volume of visits was MSN. Third-biggest site nytimes.com received 271.1m visits (down 33%). It was followed by Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News (262.4m visits - down 22%) and Google News (191.3m visits - down 27%). Of the top ten sites with the most visits, Bezos-owned Washington Post saw the biggest fall compared to January 2021 (126.2m visits - down 47%).

Mail Online (104.6m visits - down 5% year-on-year) narrowly beat the BBC (103.1m visits - down 20%) as the top-ranked British site in the US coming in tenth ahead of the UK public broadcaster in 11th place. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Theguardian.com was the only other British publisher in the top half of the ranking, coming in 15th position with 63.4m visits.

December 2021

The Sun's US digital edition was one of the fastest-growing news sites year-on-year in the US in December, recording growth of over 100%.

The UK tabloid's website received 18.3m visits in December - an increase of 111% compared to the same month in 2020, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. It was only outperformed by US title Atlanta Blackstar which increased its traffic by 125% year-on-year (35.8m visits).

The Sun and Atlanta Blackstar were among just seven sites that recorded year-on-year growth in visits as December saw another month of slow news traffic in the US. No other site saw visit growth comparable to the leading two players, with third fastest-growing site people.com seeing visits up 12% to 68.3m.

Only two of the top ten sites by number of visits saw year-on-year growth: MSN.com (359.5m visits - up 3%) and Murdoch-owned New York Post (108.5m visits - an increase of 1%).

Instead six of the ten biggest sites for volume of visits saw double-digit falls in traffic. Visits to the Washington Post website were down 32% to 126.3m, while visits to CNN were down 27% compared to last December at 399.4m.

News sites across the globe benefited from a surge in traffic in 2020 due to both the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election. The effect of the latter is naturally likely to be have been more pronounced in the US. Data shows that traffic to leading US news sites is far below 2020 levels.

CNN retained its position as the number one online news source in the US in terms of visits, although Microsoft's news aggregator MSN is not far behind with 50m fewer visits.

Fox News remained the third most popular site in December (262.2m visits - down 10% year-on-year). Nytimes.com and Google News were the two remaining sites in the top five in a list that remained unchanged from November.

Mail Online was the top-ranked British site in the US coming in at 11th place (102.1m visits − down 4%), this month beating the BBC which had 98.8m visits in December. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Fox News is among just 12 sites that saw less traffic in December than November. While year-on-year comparisons reveal most sites did worse for traffic in 2021, most sites did better month-on-month in December.

November 2021

November was generally a slowdown for traffic for the leading US news sites, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits in November, just two saw more traffic this November than in the same month last year. MSN.com had 342.6 million visits - up 1%, while Yahoo! Finance saw 174.1 million visits - an increase of 11%.

The rest saw double-digit falls in traffic compared to last November when many US news sites enjoyed a bumper month for traffic thanks to the country's presidential election.

Of the leading sites, nytimes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic (250.8 million visits - down 51% year-on-year). It was closely followed by CNN (384.1 million visits - down 50%) and washingtonpost.com (116.8 million visits - also down 50%).

Overall, CNN maintained its leading position as the number one news site in the US in terms of visits, according to data from Similarweb. It is however, closely followed by Microsoft's news aggregator MSN, which in recent months has been narrowing the gap on the broadcaster's digital news offering. In November, CNN counted 41.5 million more visits than MSN. In contrast in early 2019 CNN regularly saw almost twice the number of visits as MSN.

Fox News was the third most popular site in November (277 million visits - down 40%). Nytimes.com and Google News round out the list of the top five sites for visits.

No British sites made it into the top sites for volume of visits. The highest ranked British site, the BBC, came in 11th place with 94 million visits. Instead, all the leading sites were homegrown US brands.

After temporarily losing its top spot to The Sun in October, entertainment and lifestyle news site gazillions.com was once again the fastest growing online news site (48.2 million visits - up 581%).

It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.4 million visits - an increase of 130%). Last month's fastest growing top 50 site, The-sun.com, came third with 18.5 million visits (a year-on-year increase of 61%). The UK tabloid's digital edition narrowly made it into the top 50 in 48th place.

A number of right-wing and far-right news sites continue to feature in the US top 50 in contrast to the UK list. Best-ranked is breitbart.com (50.7 million visits - 20th place ). Also making the top 50 are right-wing news aggregator drudgereport.com (42.2 million visits - 24th position), thegatewaypundit.com (31.5 million visits - 31st position), newsmax.com (30.2 million visits - 32nd position), zerohedge.com (23.8 million visits - 39th position), and theepochtimes.com (21.3 million visits - 42nd place). All these sites however, saw significant double-digit year-on-year falls in number of visits.

October 2021

UK tabloid The Sun was the fastest-growing news site in the US in October, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.

• Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)

The-sun.com had 18.8 million visits (up 64% year-on-year) - ranking it number 48 in our top 50 list. It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.6 million visits - an increase of 57%), according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb.

Household names, US News (43.9 million visits - up 3%) and Microsoft’s news and app platform, MSN (341.8 million visits - up 2%) were also among the top ten fastest-growing sites.

Among the sites with the biggest falls in traffic compared to last October were politics-focused thehill.com (37.8 million visits - down 73%) and recent Axel Springer acquisition, politico.com (37 million visits - down 65%). Both sites likely benefited from a surge in interest for US election-related news last year, as would have Newsweek.com, the site that recorded the biggest year-on-year drop in October (21.7 million visits - down a staggering 149%).

Looking at the top ten sites for volume of visits, only MSN and Yahoo! Finance saw any year-on-year growth. MSN had 341.8 million visits - up 2%, while visits to Yahoo! Finance were up 7% compared to October 2020 at 164.7 million. The rest of the leading sites saw falls in traffic. The number of people accessing washingtonpost.com was down 53% (115.8 million visits), while the number of visits to cnn.com (364.3 million) was 38% lower than in the same month last year. Like-for-like comparisons will have been affected by the surge in traffic last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election.

At the top, CNN continues to lead when it comes to the number of visits racked up by its mobile and desktop sites at 364.3 million. MSN has, however, eaten into CNN’s dominance in recent months. In October, CNN counted just 22.4 million more visits than MSN’s total of 341.8 million. In January 2019 (the earliest date for which we have data), CNN led MSN by a margin of 215.5 million visits. The Microsoft platform has seen its audience grow by over 40% since January 2019. Fox News - once second to CNN - is now the third most popular site in terms of visits (257.2 million visits in October).

The most popular news sites in the US tend to be homegrown. The BBC is the best-ranked international site with its two domains (BBC.com and bbc.co.uk) together counting 96.9 million visits in October.

September 2021

Once again celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com came out on top as the fastest-growing site in the US.

There were 19.5 million visits to the new entertainment site - an increase of 870% - according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb.

It was followed by standardnews.com, which is owned by US-based Spine Media (32 million visits - up 440%).

As seen in previous months, right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits. Third-place theepochtimes.com had 19.6 million visits (up 162%) while there were 29.5 million visits to pro-Trump nexsmax.com (up 144%). Both sites score badly when it comes to website rating tool NewsGuard's trust scores.

The highest-ranked British site for year-on-year growth was The Sun. The UK tabloid's digital edition the-sun.com was the fifth fastest growing news site in the US counting 16 million visits - a year-on-year increase of 65%.

Recent Axel Springer acquisition Politico.com saw the largest year-on-year fall in traffic (37.8 million visits - down 42%). As in recent months, theatlantic.com has also seen year-on-year traffic declines (22.7 million visits - down 40%) while visits to politics-focused thehill.com were down 39% to 38.3 million. Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, standardnews.com came out on top with an increase of 293% on the number of visits in August. Only four other sites (theverge.com, usmagazine.com, cbsnews.com and the-sun.com) saw monthly traffic growth although of far less proportions.

The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall and enjoys a similar position of dominance as the BBC in the UK. Cnn.com was the most visited site in September with 378.7 million visits. It was followed by MSN.com (329.3 million visits), foxnews.com (266.3 million) and nytimes.com (252.7 million visits). Press Gazette has ranked MSN and Yahoo! News for the first time this month.

The BBC’s sites was the only British site in the top ten when it came to volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.

As in previous months, only a minority (15 in September) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases.

August 2021

Celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com was again the fastest-growing site in the US, according to Press Gazette’s analysis of traffic to the most popular English-language news websites.

Right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.

Gazillions.com, which launched at the end of 2019, was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to August 2021 visits were up more than 1,262% (a more than 10-fold increase) from 2.1 million in August 2020 to 29.2 million in August 2021 as the new site picked up audience.

It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (21.1 million visits - up 186%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.1 million visits - up 166%). Both sites have regularly appeared among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in our ranking and their growth reflects the increasing audience to many right-leaning sites in recent years.

The US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun also stayed in the top five for another month. There were 15.9 million visits (an increase of 38%) to the-sun.com.

At the foot of the list, sites that saw large year-on-year falls in traffic included forbes.com (56.1 million visits - down 38%), politico.com (46.1 million visits - down 36%), cbsnews.com (25.7 million visits - down 36%) and thehill.com (45 million visits - down 33%). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, gazillions.com also came out on top with an increase of 65% on the number of visits in July. Reuters.com also performed well with 32.9 million visits (an increase of 14%) as did atlantablackstar.com which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience (25.3 million visits in August -up 14%).

The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 423.5 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (284.9 million visits). and nytimes.com (271.1 million visits).

The BBC’s sites and Mail Online were the two British sites in the top ten for volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.

As in previous months, only a minority (12 in August) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Unlike recent months however, mainstream news sites featured in the list this time with the-sun.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, wsj.com, newsweek.com and reuters.com recording year-on-year growth.

July 2021

For the second month in a row, recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US, while right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.

Gazillions.com which brands itself as news focused on “pop culture, luxurious lifestyle, and global entertainment” was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to July 2021. Visits were up more than 542% (over 5 times) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 2.8 million in July 2021.

It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (23.5 million visits - up 72%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.5 million visits - up 165%). Both sites were among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in June’s ranking. Their growth reflects a surge in visits to right-leaning sites as a whole over the last year.

This month, the US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun, also entered the top five. The-sun.com racked up 18.1 million visits (up 54%), putting it in fifth place for year-on-year growth in visits although it came in at 47 out of 50 for volume of visits.

At the foot of the list, the BBC’s digital properties BBC.com and BBC.co.uk saw the biggest relative year-on-year fall in traffic with visits down 18% to 108.2 million - although BBC sites did well in terms of overall number of visits, coming in at six out of 50). Other sites that saw large falls in traffic compared to July 2020 were Forbes.com (visits decreased by 46% to 53.2 million) and political news site the hill.com (visits were down by 39% to 43 million). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, atlantablackstar which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience was the fastest-growing site in July 2021 compared to June 2021. The site which takes an African American perspective on politics racked up 22.2 million visits in July (up 16%). The-sun.com also did well in terms of month-on-month growth with visits up 29% to 18.1 million. Gazillions.com, despite showing strong year-on-year growth saw a huge month-on-month traffic fall in July. There were 52% fewer visits to the site in July than June.

Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 411.7 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (274.2 million visits). and nytimes.com (261.4 million visits), which have in previous months jostled for second and third places. The sites of two British publishers also made it into the top 10 leading sites for volume of visits. BBC.co.uk and BBC.com racked up 108.2 million visits, while there were 97.5 million visits to dailymail.co.uk.

There were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites in July this year compared to the same month in 2020. The leading 50 sites this month counted a combined 3.1 billion visits - a decrease of 19% compared to the combined 3.9 million visits to the leading 50 sites in July 2020. As was the case in June, only 10 of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Most of these were niche sites catering to specialist audiences or sites with a strong conservative or right-wing bias.

June 2021

Recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US in June with right-leaning news sites also making strong showings.

Gazillions.com, which launched in late 2019, was the number one fastest growing site, according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits were up over 5,000% (a more than 50-fold increase) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 37.1m in June 2021.

The rest of the top five sites for year-on-year growth were right-leaning sites that have seen considerable traffic increases in recent years.

The second fastest growing site, pro-Trump Newsmax, saw visits increase by 196% to 31.7m, while visits to next in place theepochtimes.com were up 186% to 22.5m. Alternative video news platform bitchute.com saw a 109% increase in audience to 20.9m, while visits to the fifth fastest growing site, thegatewaypundit.com, increased to 33.4m – up 61%.

At the foot of the list, mainstream sites featured heavily among the outlets with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 46% to 51.6m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 44% to 21m and visits to cbsnews.com were down by 43% to 26.3m.

Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, Gazillions.com again came out on top. Visits to the site were 141% higher than in May, when there were 15.3m visits. Tech news site theverge.com also saw more traffic in June with visits up 18% compared with 27.5m visits the previous month.

Thegatewaypundit.com was the only other site that saw a more than 10% traffic increase compared with May.

Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. CNN.com was the most visited site in June with 392.5m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (257.5m visits) and foxnews.com (257.3m visits), which has significantly narrowed the gap on the site of the New York Times.

UK sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 108.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 92m visits in June.

While CNN.com regularly tops US lists for number of visits, its lead over its closest competitors is smaller than the BBC’s relative lead over competing news sources in the UK, according to our analysis.

Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites this month compared with June 2020. June’s leading 50 sites counted a combined 3.1bn visits compared with 3.8bn visits in the same month last year (a decrease of 16%).

Only ten of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. These were gazillions.com, newsmax.com, theepochtimes.com, bitchute.com, thegatewaypundit.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, apnews.com, people.com and usmagazine.com.

All 50 sites combined, however, saw slightly more traffic in June (3.09m visits) compared with May (3.06m) – although the increase in visits is less than 1%.

April 2021

Right-wing news sites saw the biggest year-on-year growth in the US in April.

The Epoch Times was the single fastest growing site according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits to another pro-Trump site, Newsmax, increased by 171% to 29.4m, while visits to right-wing video platform BitChute were up 150% to 19.3m.

Also in the top five for year-on-year growth was far-right site thegatewaypundit.com, whose founder and editor-in-chief, Jim Hoft, was permanently suspended from Twitter in February for sharing false news about the US election. The site saw visits increase by 41% to 25.5m.

Among the sites with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic were several mainstream national news brands and business titles. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 54% to 53.2m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 52% to 21m and visits to newsweek.com were down by 50% to 22.7m. Like for like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, investigative tabloid RawStory came out on top. Visits to the site were 4% higher at 17.7m in April. The New York Post and the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Wire also saw small traffic increases of 1%.

The website of cable broadcaster CNN has by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in April with 410.9m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (273.9m visits) and foxnews.com (244.1m visits). British sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 113.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 89.1m visits in April.

Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites that month compared with April 2020. The current top 50 sites racked up a combined 3bn visits in April compared with 4.1bn visits in the same month last year. The only sites among the top 50 that saw year-on-year traffic increases were theepochtimes.com, newsmax.com, bitchute.com, usmagazine.com, thegatewaypundit.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, startribune.com and people.com.

Compared with last month, there were 7% fewer visits to the leading 50 sites combined in April (3.1bn compared with 3.3bn in March).

Note: Press Gazette will be updating this page on a monthly basis. See our previous coverage here:

Biggest news websites in the world archive data

• March 2021: Top 50 news websites in the world for March 2021: Times and Telegraph two fastest growers
• February 2021: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Sputnik, Drudge and Fox see biggest traffic falls in February
• December 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Surge in traffic to Epoch Times and other right-wing sites
• November 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world revealed: Controversial pro-Trump sites were fastest-growing in US election month

Related Article: Top 50 biggest news websites in the world: September slump for ten biggest names

The post Top 50 news websites in the US: All but four sites saw traffic fall in September appeared first on Press Gazette.

Former BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment suspended for two years after admitting accessing indecent images of children.

He will also be subject to 25 rehabilitation sessions and be placed on the sex offender treatment programme for 40 days.

In July Edwards admitted three charges of “making” indecent photographs after he was sent 41 illegal images by convicted paedophile Alex Williams over Whatsapp.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard on Monday that the 63-year-old was “truly sorry” for how he has “damaged his family and his loved ones”, and for committing the offences.

The court also heard Edwards had told Williams to “go on” when asked if he wanted “naughty pics and vids” of somebody described as young.

He sent hundreds of pounds after Williams asked for a “Christmas gift after all the hot videos”, the court was told.

Prosecutor Ian Hope said: “Alex Williams says he wants some Air Force 1 trainers that cost around £100, and Mr Edwards offers to send him £200.”

Defence barrister Philip Evans KC said Edwards did not make payments in order to receive indecent images of children, telling the court: “Mr Edwards did not make payments in order for images to be sent to him, and he certainly did not make payments in order that indecent images would be sent to him.”

Edwards wrote “yes xxx” when he was asked by Williams if he wanted sexual images of a person whose “age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16”, the court heard.

The judge sentencing Edwards said his “long-earned reputation is in tatters”.

Chief Magistrate, district judge Paul Goldspring, said: “Perhaps it does not need saying but you are of previous good character.”

The judge said he accepts Edwards had been of “exemplary” good character “having enjoyed a very successful career in the media”.

“It’s obvious that until now you were very highly regarded by the public,” he continued, adding that Edwards was “perhaps the most recognised newsreader-journalist”.

“It is not an exaggeration to say your long-earned reputation is in tatters,” the judge said.

Going through the mitigating factors in the case, Goldspring said he believed the former broadcaster’s remorse was genuine and that his mental health at the time of the offences could have impaired his decision-making.

But the judge added that the financial and reputational damage Edwards suffered was “the natural consequence of your behaviour which you brought upon yourself”.

He continued: “I am of the clear view that you do not present a risk or danger to the public at large, specifically to children.

“There is a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.”

The judge declined to make a sexual harm prevention order against Edwards.

Evans, defending, said Edwards “did not gain any gratification” from indecent images.

Huw Edwards said ‘go on’ to ‘naughty pics and vids’

Opening the case against the veteran broadcaster, Hope, prosecuting, said: “It is clear from the face of the Whatsapp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature.

“It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.

“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.”

Hope continued: “From that chat in December 2020, Alex Williams said that he had ‘a file of vids and pics for you of someone special’.

“Mr Edwards immediately queried who the subject was and was then sent three images of seemingly the same person, from two of which images the subject’s age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16.

“These two were category C indecent images of children in which the child was exposing his penis.

“Alex Williams stated that he had ‘12 videos and 42 pics I’ve sent you a video of him before’.

“Shortly after Alex Williams asked: ‘want me to send you the full file?’ Mr Edwards responded ‘Yes xxx…’ immediately following which Alex Williams sent to Mr Edwards around 30 attachments, about half of which were category C indecent images of children.”

Hope said Edwards did not respond after convicted paedophile Williams sent him a sexual video of children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13.

The prosecutor said: “On February 10 2021, a category A video was sent which is notable because the age of one of the children involved was significantly younger than in the rest of the images sent – it showed several acts of penetration between two children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13 respectively.

“There was no direct response from Mr Edwards to this video, beyond it being marked as ‘read’.

“A week later… a number of attachments were sent which included two category B videos and four category C still images comprising indecent images of children.

“On February 19 2021, Alex Williams asked: ‘is the stuff I’m sending too young for you?’

“The next response from Mr Edwards is dated February 22 2021 saying: ‘don’t send underage’.”

Hope continued: “In a later exchange on August 11, 2021, Alex Williams says he has some ‘naughty pics and vids unsure if you’d like’. Mr Edwards tells him to ‘go on’ and Alex Williams states ‘yng [sic]’.

“Mr Edwards again tells him to ‘go on’ and Alex Williams sends a Category A moving image showing a male child aged around 7 to 9…”

“Mr Edwards inquires where the video is from and Alex Williams says an image sharing group on another social media platform which they have both also used, Telegram.

“Alex Williams says the subject is ‘quite yng looking’ to which Mr Edwards responds it ‘can be deceptive’ and asks if he has ‘any more?’

“Alex Williams says he has but he is not sure if Mr Edwards would like them as they are illegal.

“Mr Edwards says: ‘Ah ok don’t’ and the exchange immediately following concerns a series of images which Alex Williams describes as ‘looks young don’t he but he’s deffo 19′.”

The relevant images in Edwards’ case range from the most serious category, known as category A, to the least serious, known as category C.

They include seven category A images, 12 category B images and 22 category C images.

Of the most serious images received by Edwards, the estimated age of most of the children was between 13 and 15, but one was aged between seven and nine.

The Sentencing Council, a public body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, defines category A images as those involving penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal, or sadism.

Category B images are those involving non-penetrative sexual activity, while category C images are indecent images that do not fall into A or B.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), “making” an indecent image has been broadly interpreted by the courts.

It can range from opening an attachment to an email containing an image, to accessing pornographic websites in which indecent photographs of children appear by way of an automatic “pop-up” mechanism.

BBC in attempt to recoup pay Huw Edwards received after his arrest

Williams was charged in relation to his Whatsapp chat with Edwards and was convicted of seven offences following an investigation by South Wales Police, receiving a 12-month suspended sentence.

The final indecent image was sent in August 2021, a category A film featuring a young boy, with convicted paedophile Williams telling the newsreader the child was “quite young looking” and that he had more images which were illegal.

Overall the charges cover a period between December 2020 and August 2021.

Edwards was arrested in November but continued to receive a BBC salary until his resignation on medical advice in April. The BBC is trying to retrieve an estimated £200,000 paid during that time.

A BBC spokesperson said after Edwards was sentenced: “We are appalled by his crimes. He has betrayed not just the BBC, but audiences who put their trust in him.”

Edwards was charged in June but the fact of his arrest and charge was not made public until late July, days before his first court appearance.

He has been convicted on charges that are completely separate to allegations published by The Sun last year, which prompted his initial suspension from the BBC, that he had paid a young person for sexual images.

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Alasdair Riley has died after a long and distinguished Fleet Street career. He was 78.

Alasdair began his career as a reporter on The Kent Messenger in Maidstone where he also worked shifts for the Kent News Agency filing news stories, features and diary items to all the national newspapers.

Alasdair’s industry, enthusiasm and prolific flow of stories soon earned him shifts on the Londoners’ Diary column on the London Evening Standard and subsequently a staff job there under Jeremy Deedes.

He joined at a time when the Evening Standard under the editorship of Charles Wintour was a highly respected newspaper publishing several editions a day with a paid-for daily circulation of between 600,000 and 800,000.

With his innate, self-deprecating charm, his genuine interest in people and his love of the Arts, Alasdair was the perfect diarist, always a popular invited guest at book and record launches, society cocktail parties, theatre first nights, film premieres and after-parties, and he delighted in chronicling London’s nightlife for his readers with an observational eye and a sense of humour.

Alasdair moved into television when he was head-hunted by David Bell, head of entertainment at London Weekend Television, to help launch a new magazine-type TV show for Scottish Television where he was an on-screen reporter covering local news and interviewing celebrities. 

But he missed the life of working on newspapers and returned to London specialising as a television correspondent for several Fleet Street papers, including The Sun, before being hired as a commissioning editor at the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine.

Eventually Alasdair went fully freelance contributing features to a wide range of publications, notably The Times where his travel articles in particular caught the eye.

Close friend and former colleague Tim Ewbank said: “Alasdair was a lovely writer. Working closely with photographer Chris Smith, he covered the Cannes Film Festival every year where his reputation as one of Fleet Street’s good guys earned him interviewing access to some of the biggest stars of the day.”

Alasdair’s funeral will be held at 12pm on Friday 20 September at Mortlake Crematorium in London.

The post ‘One of Fleet Street’s good guys’ Alasdair Riley dies aged 78 appeared first on Press Gazette.

Former crime reporter John Weeks, who spent 30 years at the Daily Telegraph in the 1960s to 1980s, has died aged 86.

Here his daughter Tracey Weeks recalls some memorable moments from his time at the paper.

The Telegraph’s crime correspondent Tom Sandrock, along with his deputy (who was my father) John Weeks, mainly operated from the press office at the bottom of Scotland Yard and rarely went to The Telegraph’s Fleet Street offices. This was their main contact point where they could follow up leads and where they filed copy to their news desks.

I visited Dad many times in the press office. There was a centre table covered in papers, newspapers, pens and notebooks, with a few scattered chairs. Open-fronted telephone booths lined the back wall and along one side – labelled with the dailies: Telegraph, Express, Mail, Mirror etc. They had direct lines to the newsdesks.

I recall on one occasion my father had been working on a drugs story and the pharmacist had carefully spelt out a long-winded medical name. Dad was filing his copy and, as a joke, he said to the copy-taker: “usual spelling”.

Without hesitating, the man actually correctly spelt the name of the drug.

Sandrock and Dad relied on their memories while pursuing stories – they could hardly get out notebooks while talking to the likes of the Kray twins. A lot, or should I say most, of their work was done in pubs, and I remember reading somewhere that it was my father who worked out that the average crime reporter drank eight pints per day. For charity they would have a dry January and I do recall Dad would lose a stone every time – nothing to do with cutting down on food but simply giving up booze for a month.

When it came to police contacts, Sandrock would focus on the senior officers, and my father – who was also the best judge of character I have ever met – concentrated on the juniors. It worked quite well for the pair of them as one had a good memory for names and the other for faces. I suspect it was Dad who remembered the faces as for years he called a member of the Flying Squad Dave, and only found out on the officer’s leaving do that his name was Reg. Dad asked him why he hadn’t corrected him, to which he replied he rather liked the name Dave.

My father was in the last intake for National Service in the early 1960s. He was a local reporter at the time, having rejected his jeweller father’s wish for him to become a diamond cutter. The RAF needed a cook and a secretary – so Dad became a cook, and a fellow inmate, a trained chef at The Savoy, naturally became the general’s secretary.

He married my mother, Val, hoping that they would be posted to Cyprus – only to discover that married men couldn’t be sent abroad. They had met when they were both local reporters on rival newspapers. When I joined Dad’s paper, the Loughton Gazette I worked with his former editor John Yates and others who always talked about how it was better to be big cogs in small wheels rather than the other way around. My father steered his career around in the big wheel – in the fast lane.

We had many late nights, Dad and I, often up till two to three am, discussing my copy. He patiently explained why the pie and mash shop couldn’t possibly have appeared at the magistrates’ court – there was no room for it.

Hard news stories are easier to write, ie the facts just fall into place – once you have the intro. When I was struggling to find that order I remember Dad saying: “if someone in the pub asks you what story you’ve been working on, what you tell them in a sentence is your intro.”

One year Dad was covering the National Police Conference where the guest was Liverpudlian Ken Dodd. Apparently the comedian was backstage two hours before he was due on, tuning into conversations, themes, policies and strategies being discussed – along with various individuals and their contributions, including my father. When Dodd eventually came on he asked the audience: “So is John Weeks really here?”

It was the golden era of crime reporting. Once a deadline had passed and the reporter had got the splash, they would share the story with the other crime reporters. Dad would pass it on to Owen Summers (Express) and Jack McEachran (Mirror) in particular.

Sandrock and my father covered over 165 bomb attacks. Dad once told me that one time he was following a tip-off about a bomb in London. Desperate to be the first reporter on the scene, Dad thought he would be clever and nipped up several back streets till he came across the bomb squad and other officers who had sealed off the area.

“So where’s the bomb?” he asked one of the police guards.

“Right there,” he replied, pointing to an object just yards in front of him.

Dad made a hasty retreat.

It wasn’t just the reporters who would go to any lengths to get their story – the news photographers were just as eager. As police vans (with darkened windows) transported criminals to and from the Old Bailey they would be flashing cameras in the hope they’d be lucky in snapping the accused. A Telegraph photographer ‘friend’ of Dad’s actually pushed him into the road, forcing the van to screech to a halt, so he could shoot as many photos as he could in the few extra minutes he’d gained.

One reporter would stay in court waiting for the jury to return, then he would alert the others, who would be drinking in the pub opposite, when the verdict came through.

“Why are the police all over the airfield?” Mum asked Dad one Sunday afternoon in 1969, as she watched hundreds of officers probing North Weald Aerodrome.

“Very funny,” he replied joining her at the window. “Wow, I thought you were joking!”

After making a few calls, my father made his way across to the full-scale search party – looking for kidnap victim Muriel McKay. It was Britain’s first kidnapping case (with a £1m ransom demand) and an early example of mistaken identity. The real target was media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s wife. Mrs Mckay’s body was never found.

And who could forget the James Bond-style killing in London when a man was jabbed with a poisoned pellet fired through the tip of an umbrella. I was with Dad when the story broke. We were waiting for news on the condition of the victim and a police statement on what had happened. Dad was doing the rounds when he asked me quietly if I’d seen anyone leaving the property. I confirmed that two men had gone up a side street. Quick as a flash, Dad shot up the road in hot pursuit of the two men. In his youth my father had sprinted for Essex, which obviously stood him in good stead for chasing leads. The two men Dad was pursuing turned out to be scientist contacts that he had nurtured – and no-one else knew about.

When he left The Telegraph, my father joined the Police Federation to edit their magazine.

John Weeks died on 2^nd May, 2024. He leaves three children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

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A British security adviser for Reuters has been killed in an airstrike in Ukraine on Saturday 24 August 2024.

Two journalists for Reuters were also injured, one seriously, in the strike.

A missile struck the Hotel Sapphire where a six-person Reuters team was staying in the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, the news agency said. The area is in Ukrainian control but near the frontline of fighting with Russia.

Ryan Evans, a 38-year-old Army veteran from Wrexham in Wales, had four children, the youngest of which was 18 months old. His wife described him as a “gentle giant”.

Evans had been working for Reuters since 2022 including on other Ukraine reporting trips, in Israel close to the border with Gaza, and during the Paris Olympics.

Reuters said in a statement it was “devastated” by the loss.

“We are urgently seeking more information about the attack, including by working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and we are supporting our colleagues and their families. We send our deepest condolences and thoughts to Ryan’s family and loved ones.

“Ryan has helped keep so many of our journalists safe as they covered events around the world. He was a dear colleague and friend, and we will miss him terribly.”

Reuters said on Monday that its Ukrainian video journalist Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, 40, remained in a critical condition after the attack.

Ukraine correspondent Daniel Peleschuk, an American journalist for Reuters who was also injured, has been discharged from hospital.

The three other Reuters members of staff present at the hotel for the attack are safe and accounted for.

In a conference call with reporters a Kremlin spokesperson did not address whether the hotel was targeted but said Moscow only struck military infrastructure or places “related to military infrastructure in one way or another”, Reuters reported.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Evans while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky  said of the attack: “A regular city hotel was destroyed by a Russian Iskander missile. Absolutely purposefully, in a thought-out way.”

Jeanne Cavelier, head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres), said: “RSF condemns the death of Reuters security advisor Ryan Evans and is concerned about the health of his two journalist colleagues – one of whom is in a serious condition – who were injured by the same Russian missile strike. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.

“At this stage, we do not know whether the hotel was targeted because of the presence of the media. One thing is certain: since the beginning of the war, the Russian army has been deliberately attacking journalists and their crews to prevent them from reporting, in violation of international law. RSF is calling for a thorough investigation to identify and prosecute those responsible.”

Scroll down or click here for coverage of other journalists killed or injured in Ukraine since 24 February 2022:

• AFP journalist Arman Soldin killed
• La Repubblica fixer Bohdan Bitik
• Reuters journalists injured and driver killed
• Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff
• Vira Hyrych
• Mantas Kvedaravicius
• Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin
• Oksana Baulina
• Fox News cameraman killed and presenter seriously injured
• Brent Renaud
• Oleg Baturin kidnapped
• Guillaume Briquet was wounded and hospitalised
• Alaraby TV journalists under fire
• Ukrainian news cameraman Yevhenii Sakun
• Sky’s Stuart Ramsay wounded in ambush
• Danish journalists shot

Journalists attacked in Ukraine:

10/5/23: AFP journalist Arman Soldin has been killed by a rocket strike in eastern Ukraine, the news agency announced on Tuesday night (9 May 2023).

Soldin was reporting with four AFP colleagues from the town of Chasiv Yar, close to Bakhmut – the epicentre of fighting in eastern Ukraine for several months. The rest of the team were unhurt.

The 32-year-old was part of the first AFP team to be posted in Ukraine when the war began, and he was later appointed Ukraine video coordinator based in Kyiv in September, a role that included leading coverage and travelling to frontlines himself.

AFP chairman Fabrice Fries said: “The whole agency is devastated by the loss of Arman. His death is a terrible reminder of the risks and dangers faced by journalists every day covering the conflict in Ukraine.”

AFP’s Europe director Christine Buhagiar described him as ‘‘enthusiastic, energetic and brave’’, adding: ‘‘He was a real on-the-ground reporter, always ready to work even in the most difficult places. He was totally devoted to his craft.’’

Soldin is believed to be at least the tenth journalist killed reporting on the war in Ukraine, one of more than 12,000 accredited journalists who have covered the conflict.

26/4/23: Two journalists working for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica came under fire on 26 while reporting near the Antonivskiy Bridge on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine – the IFJ reports. A Ukrainian journalist working as a fixer, Bohdan Bitik, was shot dead and his Italian colleague, Corrado Zunino, was wounded in the shoulder.

22/6/22: Reporters Without Borders has concluded that photojournalist Maks Levin was likely executed by Russian troops.

The press freedom group reports that Levin entered a Russian-occupied forest near Kyiv to retrieve his drone when he was killed on 13 March.

It found the place where he died and reports: “Levin’s charred Ford Maverick was still there. RSF found several bullets at the scene, along with the identity papers of Chernyshov, the soldier who was with Levin, and identified 14 bullet impacts in his car. Several items with possible DNA traces attesting to the presence of Russian soldiers very close to the spot where Levin and Chernyshov were killed were also identified by RSF and some of them were taken. In a final search phase initiated by RSF, metal detectors located a bullet that had probably struck Levin.”

6/6/2022:

Two Reuters journalists have been injured, and their driver killed, as their vehicle came under fire from Russian forces as they travelled towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk.

The news agency reported that its photographer Alexander Ermochenko and cameraman Pavel Klimov respectively sustained a small shrapnel wound and an arm fracture and were treated in hospital.

Reuters said it did not immediately know the identity of the driver as he and the car they were in had been provided by Russian-backed separatists for the journalists’ reporting trip. The incident took place on a Russian-held part of the road.

31/5/22:

French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff has been killed in eastern Ukraine while covering the civilian evacuation.

Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, was killed by shell shrapnel which pierced the armoured vehicle he was travelling in, according to the BBC. Earlier reports, prompted by a tweet by French president Emmanuel Macron and which were carried by Press Gazette, had said Leclerc-Imhoff had been shot on board a humanitarian bus.

Leclerc-Imhoff reported for French news channel BFMTV. According to Sky the regional governor of Luhansk wrote on Telegram that Leclerc-Imhoff suffered a “fatal wound to the neck” while “making material about the evacuation”.

The BBC reports Leclerc-Imhoff’s colleague Maxime Brandstaetter was also injured, but a Ukrainian journalist travelling with the pair was unharmed.

29/4/22:

Vira Hyrych, a Ukrainian journalist for international news service Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was killed in a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Thursday 28 April.

The Institute of Mass Information said a rocket had hit her apartment. Her death brings the journalist death toll to at least eight since the invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February.

Hyrych joined Radio Svoboda (Liberty) in February 2018 after working for Ukrainian TV channels. The outlet said: “The editorial staff of Radio Svoboda expresses its condolences to the family of Vira Girich and will remember her as a bright and kind person, a true professional.”

One of Hyrych’s colleagues, Mike Eckel, described her as “one of the nicest people in our bureau; patient, diligent, kind, and dedicated”.

7/4/22: Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall has revealed the extent of his injuries for the first time, three weeks after an attack that killed two of his colleagues.

The British journalist, 39, said he felt “damn lucky” to have survived the shelling attack by Russian forces that killed cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova.

Hall wrote on Twitter: “It’s been over three weeks since the attack in Ukraine and I wanted to start sharing it all. But first I need to pay tribute to my colleagues Pierre and Sasha who didn’t make it that day.

“Pierre and I travelled the world together, working was his joy and his joy was infectious. RIP.”

Sharing a picture of himself bandaged and wearing an eye patch he added: “To sum it up, I’ve lost half a leg on one side and a foot on the other.

“One hand is being put together, one eye is no longer working, and my hearing is pretty blown… but all in all I feel pretty damn lucky to be here – and it is the people who got me here who are amazing.”

4/4/22: Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed by Russian forces while trying to leave Mariupol, according to Reuters in a report citing the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.

His death means seven journalists have been killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Kvedaravicius was shot “with a camera in his hands” according to a colleague in the besieged port city that has become one of the most violent centres of fighting in Ukraine.

Kvedaravicius was known for creating the 2016 conflict-zone documentary “Mariupolis”, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival and covered life in the city, as well as the 2011 film Barzakh.

The latter covered life in Chechnya, a region where the Russian military fought two brutal wars quashing rebellions during the 1990s and 2000s, and was awarded a prize at the Berlin International Film Festival by Amnesty International.

“We lost a creator well-known in Lithuania and in the whole world who, until the very last moment, in spite of the danger, worked in Russia-occupied Ukraine,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.

“Mantas Kvedaravicius was murdered today [3 April] in Mariupol, with a camera in his hands, in this shitty war of evil, against the whole world,” added Russian film director Vitaly Mansky, founder of the Artdocfest festival which Kvedaravicius had participated in.

4/4/22: Maks Levin, a well-known Ukrainian photojournalist, has become the sixth journalist to be killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.

Levin, who had worked with outlets including Reuters, the BBC and AP, had been missing since mid-March but his body was found in a village to the north of Kyiv on Friday (1 April).

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said in a statement that preliminary information indicated he had been killed “in two small arms fires” by Russian armed forces.

Levin, who was married with four young sons, was reportedly travelling with a serviceman and ex-photographer whose condition is still unknown.

Levin worked with the Ukrainian news site LB.ua (Left Bank) for more than a decade. Its editor-in-chief wrote that two days before the war began, he told her: “The war is about to begin. I have to be at the very epicentre. The Russians will certainly go to chaos, there will be war crimes, we must document all this, fix it.”

Economist correspondent Oliver Carroll shared one of Levin’s final photos on Twitter:

Russian investigative reporter killed in Kyiv

24/3/22: Russian journalist Oksana Baulina was killed by shelling on Wednesday (23 March) while filming from a Kyiv shopping centre. She is the fifth journalist to have died during the invasion of Ukraine.

Baulina was reporting for The Insider, an independent Russian news outlet. Her last report can be read here.

Prior to The Insider, Baulina had worked for opposition leader Alexander Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. She left Russia in 2021, according to The Guardian.

Earlier, on Monday 21 March, kidnapped Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna was released by Russian forces. A video of Roshchyna saying that the Russian military “saved her life” was real, said her employer Hromadske, but filmed as a condition of her release.

AP journalist on filing from Mariupol

21/3/22: Two AP journalists were put on a Russian “hit list” for their reporting as the last international journalists in the besieged eastern Ukraine city of Mariupol.

Video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka reported from the city for more than two weeks before Ukrainian soldiers arrived to get them out.

Chernov has explained why those who had been pleading with them to stay and tell the world about what was happening began to urge them to leave. They were told by a policeman: “If they catch you, they will get you on camera and they will make you say that everything you filmed is a lie. All your efforts and everything you have done in Mariupol will be in vain.”

The journalists also later found out about a “growing Russian disinformation campaign to discredit our work”.

In addition, Victoria Roshchyna, a journalist for Ukrainian digital TV station Hromadske who had been reporting from Eastern and Southern Ukraine, has been missing for more than a week and it is feared she may be being held hostage by Russian forces.

Another Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped, Oleg Baturin, was reportedly “beaten, threatened with death, without water and food” for eight days but was released on Sunday 20 March. He had been reporting for the Novy Den newspaper.

Fox News journalists killed and injured

16/3/22: Two journalists working for Fox News have been killed and a correspondent injured and hospitalised while working just outside Kyiv in the latest of a series of incidents where journalists have been attacked in Ukraine.

Veteran Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, died after his vehicle came under fire in Horenka.

Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, known as Sasha, was killed in the same incident. Fox News said the 24-year-old was “serving as a consultant, helping crews navigate Kyiv and the surrounding area while gathering information and speaking to sources”.

Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was in the same vehicle, was seriously injured and hospitalised. Fox News said on Wednesday he had been able to travel out of Ukraine, was “alert and in good spirits” and “being treated with the best possible care in the world”.

Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott said on Tuesday: “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we share the news this morning regarding our beloved cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski.

“Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us. His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.”

Of Kuvshynova, Scott later said: “She was incredibly talented and spent weeks working directly with our entire team there, operating around the clock to make sure the world knew what was happening in her country.”

Fox News president and executive editor Jay Wallace added that Zakrzewski was a “constant in all of our international coverage” and had a “positive spirit, boundless energy and eye for the story”.

Hall is originally from the UK, has three young daughters, and has worked for Fox since 2015.

Of Hall, Scott said on Monday: “Earlier today, our correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured while newsgathering outside of Kyiv in Ukraine. We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalised and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds.”

Other Fox journalists remain in Ukraine. Scott said: “The safety of our entire team of journalists in Ukraine and the surrounding regions is our top priority and of the utmost importance. This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone.”

US journalist Brent Renaud killed

News of Hall’s injury came a day after another US journalist, Brent Renaud, was shot and killed in the outskirts of Kyiv.

Brent Renaud, who had been reporting for Time and who previously worked for The New York Times, was shot dead on Sunday in the town of Irpin, on the north-western outskirts of the Ukrainian capital.

The BBC reported that two other journalists were injured in the incident, which was attributed to Russian forces by Kyiv police chief Andriy Nebytov. Renaud’s death is the first recorded killing of a foreign journalist during the war.

One of the journalists injured alongside Renaud, photographer Juan Arredondo, reported that they had been spending the day filming refugees fleeing the town that has become a frontline in the Russian assault on Kyiv.

After driving through a checkpoint, Arredondo said guards started shooting at the car the journalists were travelling in, injuring him and killing Renaud.

Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal and president Ian Orefice said: “We are devastated by the loss of Brent Renaud. As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud.

“In recent weeks, Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

Ukrainian journalist missing

Ukrainian journalist Oleg Baturin has disappeared in Kakhovka, a city in Kherson region of Ukraine, according to the European Federation of Journalists.

Baturin, a journalist for the Novy Den newspaper, reportedly left his home at 4pm on 12 March planning to meet a friend at a nearby bus station. He promised to return in 20 minutes, but has not been seen since.

It is suspected that Baturin may have been the victim of an alleged kidnapping by Russian forces in the region, according to reports by The Ukrainian Independent Information Agency.

Swiss journalist wounded

Swiss journalist Guillaume Briquet was wounded and hospitalised on Sunday 6 March after Russian soldiers fired on his car marked PRESS. They reportedly confiscated his passport, 3,000 Euros in cash and his laptop, according to Ukraine-based news outlet Hromadske.

Briquet later told Reporters Without Borders: “They were less than 50 metres away. They clearly shot to kill. If I hadn’t ducked, I would have been hit. I’ve been fired on before in other war zones, but I’ve never seen this. Journalists traveling around the country with no war experience are in mortal danger.”

According to RSF, he was injured in the face and arm by glass splinters from his windshield, and bullets came within centimetres of his head.

Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said: “As this incident clearly illustrates, reporters in the field are targets for belligerents despite all the rules protecting journalists. They are civilians, who are keeping the world informed about the progress of the fighting. They must be able to work safely.

“We therefore call on all parties to the conflict to immediately commit to protecting journalists in the field in accordance with international law. We also recommend that journalists exercise the utmost caution in the light of the many attacks by Russian commandos sent ahead as scouts.”

Alaraby TV journalists under fire

A crew for London-based Arab TV channel Alaraby TV came under fire on Sunday 6 March.

Reporter Adnan Can and cameraman Habib Demirci were shot at in their car in a Kyiv suburb despite the vehicle having a white flag and “press” signs attached to it. The pair then hid with residents while fighting was taking place according to The New Arab, which is part of the same media network.

Cameraman killed in attack on Ukraine TV transmitter

On Tuesday, 1 March, Ukrainian news cameraman Yevhenii Sakun was killed when Russian forces shelled a television tower in Kyiv.

Sakun, 49, had been covering the Russian invasion for the Ukrainian TV station LIVE. Four others are believed to have died in that attack.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, TV broadcast towers have been shelled in other Ukrainian cities.

Sky’s Stuart Ramsay wounded in ambush

Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay has revealed how he was badly wounded in an ambush outside Kyiv – one of a number of journalists attacked in Ukraine.

The incident occurred on Monday, 28 February, but only came to light several days later following the escape of his Sky team from the country. He was replaced in Kyiv by Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford.

Writing in the Daily Mail Ramsay explained how the Sky team’s rental Hyundai saloon was hit with up to 1,000 bullets in a targeted attack that continued despite their shouts of “journalist”.

Producer Dominique van Heerden was also in the car as well as cameraman Richie Mockler (who continued filming throughout the attack), producer Martin Vowles and translator Andrii Lytvynenko.

The five managed to scramble away from the car and down a nearby embankment from where they walked to an industrial building.

Ramsay was shot in the upper leg with the bullet wound exiting through his lower back but missing his vital organs.

He said the car was “absolutely shredded” by bullets.

That night the Sky team was rescued by local police, with the local police chief hosting them in his own home

Ramsay believes he was ambushed by a Russian reconnaissance unit.

He said: “The Russians whom we never saw were not fighting a war against uniformed foes in armoured vehicles — but attempting to kill unarmed journalists operating in a standard saloon car in cold blood.”

Ramsay said he plans to return to Kyiv when he has recovered to “bear witness to what I fear is an unspeakable looming catastrophe for the brave people of Ukraine”.

Danish journalists shot

On 26 February, two journalists from the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet were shot while reporting near the eastern Ukrainian city of Ohtyrka.

Unidentified attackers reportedly fired multiple times at reporter Stefan Weichart (who was wounded in the shoulder) and photographer Emil Filtenborg (who was wounded in the legs and back). The pair were clearly identified as journalists on their protective equipment and shouted “press” during the attack. They were able to make their own escape and are expected to recover.

Journalists remain in Ukraine

Hundreds of foreign reporters remain in Kyiv and Ukraine including at least 50 UK journalists.

There is also a large presence of US journalists reporting from Ukraine.

Pictures L-R: PA Wire/Damien Storan and Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Peabody Awards

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