Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
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Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
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Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, was an influential journalist and publisher. He perfected the modern model of British journalism. In 1896 he founded the Daily Mail, with brisk reports, human-interest stories, and eye-catching headlines for a mass middle-class readership.
The pictorial Daily Mirror followed in 1903 and also found mass acceptance. After gaining control of The Times in 1908, he applied disciplined news gathering to a venerable title without abandoning his flair for promotion. He fused sensational headlines with solid reporting, campaigns, and reader services, including competitions, advice columns, exclusive scoops—creating a profitable model others copied.
His contemporaries In the United States were William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who also exploited dramatic headlines and crusading coverage. Hearst pushed further toward spectacle and flamboyant advocacy, courting scandal to drive circulation. Pulitzer paired sensational presentation with institutional reforms—investigative teams, a school of journalism, civic crusades. Harmsworth’s mix sat between them: more restrained than Hearst, more commercially ruthless than Pulitzer, and calibrated to British politics and markets.
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, 1865–1922
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