Mail Online

MailOnline

Web address	dailymail.co.uk
Slogan	"Seriously Popular"
Commercial	Yes
Type of site	Tabloid journalism, entertainment, lifestyle & personal finance
Registration	Optional
Available in	English
Owner	Daily Mail and General Trust
Launched	2003
Alexa rank	97 (April 2014)[1]
Current status	Active

MailOnline (also known as dailymail.co.uk) is the website of the Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom, and of its sister paper The Mail on Sunday. MailOnline is a division of DMG Media, part of Associated Newspapers Ltd.

Launched in 2003, DMG later made it a separately-managed publication in 2006 under the editorship of Martin Clarke.^[2] It is now the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world,^[3] with over 11.34m visitors daily in August 2014.^[4]

The website has an international readership, featuring separate home pages for the UK, USA, India and Australia.^[5] While the MailOnline maintains the conservative editorial stance of the print edition, much of the content featured on the website is produced exclusively for the MailOnline and is not published in the Daily Mail. It is known for its "sidebar of shame",^[6][7] a box listing celebrity misdemeanours.^[3] The Financial Times has suggested that "If you are tired of MailOnline, you are tired of Kim Kardashian’s life – and most readers are not";^[3] conversely George Clooney has described it as "the worst kind of tabloid. One that makes up its facts to the detriment of its readers" after it published an untrue story about his fiancée's family.^[8]

Reach

The website reached 199.4 million unique monthly visitors in December 2014,^[9] up from 189.52 million in January 2014 and 128.59 million in May 2013,^[10] according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.^[11]

Globally, MailOnline is the most visited English-language newspaper website;^[3] ComScore gave the site 61.6 million unique desktop computer visitors for January 2014, ahead of The New York Times website, which received 41.97 million visitors in the same month.^[12] According to ComScore, MailOnline recorded 100.5 million visitors across desktop computers, smartphones and tablets in that month.^[13] In July 2014 it recorded 134 million users.^[14]

Almost 70% of its traffic comes from outside the UK, mostly from the United States.^[15] The Daily Mail print newspaper has no presence there, but has aggressively targeted the country with its online offering, branded as the "Daily Mail" rather than MailOnline.^[3] In January 2014 it paid over £1m to the Charleston Daily Mail for the domain name www.dailymail.com in order to increase its attractiveness to US advertisers.^[15]

In January 2014, it was ranked the eighth most-visited news website in Australia, up from 10 in December 2013.^[16] Globally the site was forecast to reach £60m in advertising sales in the year to September 2014, up 49%.^[17] £35m has been invested in creating the site.^[3] The site has introduced sponsored articles, with a guarantee of 450,000 page views at a cost of £65,000 per article.^[3]

Content

MailOnline features a broad mixture of international news, and carries mainly UK-focused coverage of sport, personal finance, travel, celebrity news, science and lifestyle editorial. As of September 2014, it employs 615 people, including 406 editorial staff.^[3] These create over 750 articles per day,^[3] the editorial stance of which broadly reflects that of the Daily Mail, being to the right wing of mainstream British politics and typically supporting the UK Conservative Party.^[18] MailOnline articles tend to be dominated by pictures rather than long-form journalism.^[19] A major component of the website is its entertainment news, often featuring celebrities such as Kim Kardashian^[20] or members of the British Royal Family such as the Duchess of Cambridge.^[21] It is estimated that 25% of the traffic received by the website is purely to access the entertainment and gossip stories.^[22]

The website allows users to create accounts in order to comment on articles, and also allows anyone to express anonymous approval or disapproval of comments made. The site also publishes statistics about this activity.^[23] The house rules state that the monitors usually remove inappropriate content in full,^[24] although they do reserve the right to edit comments.^[25] The site also does not allow comments on some articles for legal reasons.^[26]

Claimed inaccuracies and controversies

• September 2009: Geek.com reported that a story posted in MailOnline about a solar panel made from human hair^[27] was a hoax.^[28] Engineer Edward Craig Hyatt stated that it was not possible to use human hair in any configuration to generate electricity when exposed to light.^[29]
• June 2010: The Guardian reported that MailOnline had published an inaccurate story about an iPhone 4 recall, based on a Twitter message from a parody account by a Steve Jobs impersonator.^[30] MailOnline realised its error and removed the article.^[31]
• In October 2011, MailOnline and several other news sources published standby articles on Amanda Knox's trial prematurely. The articles reported an upholding of the guilty verdict before the judge had finished announcing the reversal of the guilty verdict.^{[32][33][34][35]} Mail Online stated the article was removed within 90 seconds and apologized. The article became the subject of a Press Complaints Commission complaint that noted the article's reporting of events and reactions that had not taken place and said that was "not acceptable" but commented positively on the handling of the error.^{[36][37][38][39]}
• January 2012: ABC News Radio reported the falsity of a story "repeated by numerous media outlets" concerning a supposed naming by Advertising Age of a campaign by singer Rihanna for fashion house Armani as the "sexiest ad of the year." The story, Ad Age said, "seemed to have originated with the British tabloid the Daily Mail.^[40] Huffington Post removed the story and apologized.^[41]
• January 2012: Robert Hart-Fletcher, of the charity "Kids and Media", told BeefJack, a gaming magazine, that quotes attributed to him were "completely fabricated" across a range of British media, most prominently the Daily Mail and the BBC.^[42]
• April 2012: MailOnline published an article about a dentist who extracted her ex-boyfriend's teeth; the piece was later exposed as a hoax by MSNBC.com. The article appeared under the byline of reporter Simon Tomlinson, who said he does not know where the story came from.^[43][44][45]
• April 2012: The Christian Science Monitor reported that MailOnline had misused an opinion piece published in Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper and translated into English by Al Arabiya. The original article claimed "Egypt's parliament was considering a piece of legislation sponsored by Islamists to allow men to have sex with their wives after their death." The Daily Mail, wrote Monitor staff writer Dan Murphy, "distorted the original claim from a proposal to a done deal: 'Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives', the tabloid claimed, apparently having misunderstood the original Al Arabiya translation."^[46]
• October 2012: Actor Nicolas Cage received an apology and damages for a false story in Mail Online about allegations of tax evasion.^[47]
• July 2014: The MailOnline admitted having published an entirely false story about George Clooney and the family of his fiancée.^[48]
• April 2016: Martin Fletcher wrote in the New Statesman about travelling to Iraq and writing a piece for The Times, then seeing his piece appear on Mail Online under someone else's byline "within five hours".^[49]

Sourcing

In March 2012, the Poynter Institute published an article criticising the MailOnline for failing to give proper attribution to the sources of some article content, and often reprinting paragraphs without permission or attribution. The article said that when the Mail Online is called out for stealing content, it will sometime removes the text in question without acknowledging or apologising for the problem.^[50]

Martin Clarke, editor of MailOnline, said, "We will soon be introducing features that will allow us to link easily and prominently to other sites when further recognition of source material is needed."^[50] However, by July 2013, MailOnline articles, including main articles, still did not contain any links to original sources or tips.^[51]

In 2015, James King, who left the MailOnline after a year as a reporter, said that the editorial model of the Mail depended on "dishonesty, theft of copyrighted material, and sensationalism so absurd that it crosses into fabrication". King worked as a contractor, and declined a full-time job because he did not want to put his byline on his stories.^[52]

Awards

In March 2014, MailOnline Sports was named Laureus Sports Website of the Year at the 2014 Sports Journalist Association awards.^[53] 2

In December 2013, the Mail Online Android mobile app, Daily Mail Online, was named one of "The Best Apps of 2013" in the UK by the Google Play store.^[54]

In 2012, the Mail Online received the chairman's award for Online Media.^[55]

In 2012, the Daily Mail and Mail Online won "eight awards, including newspaper of the year, campaign of the year and hat-trick for Craig Brown".

"I'd like to pay the most enormous tribute to all of the journalists on the Daily Mail and Mail Online, our new very successful, equal partner," Dacre said after accepting the newspaper of the year award.^[56]

In 2011, the first year of the Online Media awards, Mail Online won for "Best Brand Development."^[57]

References

1. "Dailymail.co.uk Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
2. "How ‘Journalism Crack’ Conquered the Internet". The Observer. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
3. Mance, Henry (24 September 2014). "MailOnline and the next page for the ‘sidebar of shame’". Financial Times. Retrieved 2014-12-25.
4. Fothergill, Joel (19 September 2014). "Newspaper ABCs: Digital figures for August 2014". Media Week. Retrieved 2014-12-25.
5. "Mail Online to launch in Australia with Mi9". MediaWeek. 26 November 2013. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
6. Brown, Andrew (24 March 2012). "The shocking thing about the Mail Online's sidebar of shame". The Guardian.
7. Kiss, Jemima (2014). "A new medium seeks old skills". British Journalism Review 25 (3): 33–38.
8. Greenslade, Roy (11 July 2014). "George Clooney rejects Daily Mail apology, calling it 'worst kind of tabloid'". The Guardian.
9. Mail Online on verge of reaching 200 million monthly visitors in December 22-January 2015
10. Mail Online soars to biggest ever traffic total with 129m unique browsers worldwide 20- June 2013
11. "Newspaper ABCs: Digital statistics for January 2014". 20 February 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
12. Durrani, Arif (19 April 2011). "MailOnline overtakes Huffington Post to become world's no 2". MediaWeek (London). Retrieved 18 May 2011.
13. comScore Innovates to Deliver Single Metric for Global Multi-Platform Audiences 31 March 2014
14. "Mail Online records 134m users in July". Guardian Online.
15. Sweney, Mark (27 January 2014). "Mail Online to switch to .com domain name". The Guardian.
16. "News.com.au regains top spot as most read website, Mail Online now in eighth position". mUmBRELLA.
17. Mance, Henry (17 September 2014). "DMGT suffers further software headaches". Financial Times.
18. This Is Money (5 August 2002). "Charges take the shine off Ashanti". Daily Mail. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
19. Wheeler, Brian (27 January 2012). "How the Daily Mail stormed the US". BBC News. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
20. Smith, Lizzie (30 July 2013). "Kim Kardashian plots her first post-baby public appearance ahead of sister Kylie Jenner's Sweet 16". MailOnline. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
21. London, Bianca (30 July 2013). "Princess Beatrice makes waves in £15 bikini and stylish kaftan as she hits the beach in St Tropez with boyfriend Dave Clark". Daily Mail. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
22. Robinson, James (15 November 2010). "MailOnline: what is the secret of its success?". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
23. "MailOnline - Stats Page". Daily Mail. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
24. "House rules". MailOnline. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
25. "Terms and conditions of use". Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Limited. Retrieved 8 November 2015. By submitting any material to Associated, you automatically grant Associated the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, edit, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such material (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content. You acknowledge that Associated is not obliged to publish any material submitted by you.
26. "Reader Comments Security". MailOnline. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
27. "Is there something in the hair? The tale of a solar cell made with human hair". gizmag.com. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
28. "Nepal inventor creates a solar panel using human hair [Updated]". geek.com. 10 September 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
29. "Nepal Human Hair Solar Panel Hoax". Retrieved 12 January 2013.
30. Charles Arthur (28 June 2010). "Daily Mail fooled by fake Steve Jobs tweet on iPhone 4 recall". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
31. "Mail gets wrong number on iPhone 4 recall scoop". theweek.co.uk. 28 June 2010. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
32. "Daily Mail inquiry into 'Knox guilty' blunder". PressGazette. 4 October 2011. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
33. Joel Gunter (4 October 2011). "Daily Mail criticised over Amanda Knox guilty story". journalism.co.uk. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
34. Stuart Kemp (3 October 2011). "Amanda Knox Verdict: Daily Mail’s Website Posts Wrong Decision". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
35. Greenslade, Roy (4 October 2011). "The Guardian on the false Mail Online Amanda Knox verdict". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
36. "Mail Online censured over 'Amanda Knox guilty' story". Press Gazette. 9 December 2011. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
37. Rachel McAthy (12 December 2011). "PCC censures Mail Online for Knox verdict report". journalism.co.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
38. Andrew Beaujon (10 May 2012). "Daily Mail spanked for fabricating Amanda Knox story". Poynter. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
39. Roy Greenslade (9 December 2011). "Daily Mail censured for fictional story about Amanda Knox verdict". Greensdale Blog. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
40. "'Ad Age' Denies It Named Rihanna's Armani Ad 'Sexiest of the Year'". Advertising Age. 4 January 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
41. Misener, Jessica (3 January 2012). "Sexiest Ads Of 2011 List Includes Rihanna, Miranda Kerr, Models In Skivvies (PHOTOS)". Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
42. "British news outlets 'fabricated' quotes to support anti-gaming story". BeefJack. 30 January 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
43. Tennant, Eric (8 May 2012). "Story of vengeful jilted dentist was too good to be true". MSNBC. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
44. Jonathan Lemire (28 April 2012). "Sweet revenge: Dentist pulls ALL of ex-boyfriend’s teeth out after getting dumped". Daily News (New York). Retrieved 5 January 2013.
45. "Vengeful Polish dentist story reported to be a hoax". Fox News Channel. 30 April 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
46. "Ahead of elections, Egypt's state propaganda machine rolls on". The Christian Science Monitor. 30 April 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
47. "Nicolas Cage receives damages and apology over online story". BBC. 2 October 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
48. "George Clooney: A correction and an apology". Mail Online. 9 July 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
49. Martin Fletcher (29 April 2016). "What it's like to fall victim to the Mail Online’s aggregation machine". New Statesman. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
50. "Editor of Daily Mail’s website defends attribution practices in face of growing criticism". poynter.org. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
51. Sinmaz, Emine (24 July 2013). "MailOnline article showing no links". MailOnline. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
52. My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online, James King, Gawker, March 4, 2015
53. Daily Mail named Sports Website and Newspaper of the Year as Sportsmail picks up four gongs at SJA awards in London 24 March 2014
54. MailOnline named one of the top 10 best Android Apps in Britain by Google 4 January 2014
55. Hot off the press: Winners shots from the Online Media Awards 22 June 2012
56. Press Awards: Daily Mail leads winners The Guardian; 21 March 2012
57. Online Media Awards 2011 Press Gazette 24 June 2011

External links

• Official website
• Mail on Sunday
• DailyMail U.S