| File:The Daily Telegraph front page.jpg Cover of The Daily Telegraph (May 26, 2016), occupied by a hit piece on David Feeney, during the 2016 federal election campaign. | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) | Nationwide News (News Corp Australia) |
| Editor | Chris Dore |
| Founded | The Daily Telegraph 1879 The Daily Telegraph-Mirror 1990 (merger with The Daily Mirror) The Daily Telegraph 1996 |
| Political alignment | Centre-right[1] |
| Headquarters | 2 Holt Street, Surry Hills, NSW, Australia |
| Circulation | 280,731 (Weekdays) 265,711 (Saturday) (as of 2013-14 financial year) |
| Readership | 1,191,000 (Weekdays) 909,000 (Saturday) |
| Website | www.dailytelegraph.com.au |
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian daily tabloid newspaper[2] and website published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News Limited, a division of News Corp Australia, formerly News Limited.
The Daily Telegraph is published Monday through Saturday and is available throughout Sydney, across most of regional and remote New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland.
DailyTelegraph.com.au is the website and smartphone site for both The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers. It is Australia's leading subscription news website,[3] according to Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings for July 2018,[4] with a unique monthly audience of 2,841,381 readers.
The Daily Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879.[5] From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Sir Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to News Limited (now News Corp Australia).
The paper ran as a broadsheet until 1927, when it switched to a tabloid format. The paper returned to a broadsheet format in 1931, but wartime paper restrictions saw it return to tabloid format in 1942.[6]
In February 1957 the Australian Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, barred correspondents of The Daily Telegraph from his press conferences because the paper had been critical of his policies.[7]
In October 1990, it merged with its afternoon sister paper The Daily Mirror to form The Daily Telegraph-Mirror with morning and afternoon editions. The new paper continued in this vein until January 1996 when the paper name reverted to The Daily Telegraph. The paper continued morning and afternoon editions until January 2002, when the afternoon edition was discontinued.
The circulation of the newspaper during the June quarter 2013 was 310,724 on weekdays,[8] the largest of a Sydney newspaper. In the 2013-14 financial year it decreased 9.65% to 280,731.[9][10]
A 2013 poll conducted by Essential Research found that the Telegraph was Australia's least-trusted major newspaper, with 41% of respondents citing trust in the paper.[11][12]
On 22 August 2013, the Daily Telegraph published an article headlined "Tailor’s alter ego as a gunrunner". The article referred to an individual who was known to Sutherlind Shire locals as a "friendly tailor who spends his days altering their clothes". The article claimed that the individual was "alleged" by police to be "the mastermind behind a haul of military-grade weapons smuggled into Australia".[13]
The article mistakenly attributed the alleged crimes to the wrong individual, who subsequently filed a complaint of defamation in the New South Wales Discrict Court. In the first instance, the Court found that, despite the serious errors in the article, the publisher's defence based on a prior offer of amends should prevail.[14]
On appeal, the Supreme Court of NSW upheld the complaint of defamation. It held that, "Taking into account the seriousness of the defamatory imputations and the significant hurt they caused the appellant, the damage to his business as a tailor, the unequal prominence the respondent afforded to the proposed correction and apology and their resultant inadequacy, the modest monetary component of the offer, and the likelihood of the proceedings being successful, the offer of amends was not reasonable." [15] The Court awarded a sum of $150,000 to the complainant.
The Telegraph was widely criticised for its coverage of former New South Wales Liberal leader John Brogden. After Brogden resigned in 2005, the newspaper ran a front-page headline, "Brogden's Sordid Past: Disgraced Liberal leader damned by secret shame file," detailing past allegations of misconduct by Brogden. The following day, Brogden attempted suicide at his electoral office.
Rodney Tiffen, an academic at the University of Sydney, described the newspaper's coverage as an example of "hyena journalism", judging Brogden's personal life to be off limits following his withdrawal from public life.[16]
Editor David Penberthy claimed that his source was from inside the Liberal Party and that none of the events would have happened if no one leaked from inside the party.[17]
On 8 January 1997, the Telegraph published the headline, "The class we failed" concerning was the Year 12 class at Mount Druitt High School in outer Western Sydney in which no student scored a Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER) above 50 (the maximum possible rank is 100). Although the article made clear that the newspaper believed that the state had failed the students, many accused the Telegraph of branding the students themselves as failures and showing a full year photo identifying students.
The story led to a renewed focus on the quality of public schools in Western Sydney and precipitated several reviews of schooling in the area.[18] But for many, the headline highlighted problems with interpreting Higher School Certificate results and the accompanying TER.[19]
The students successfully sued the newspaper in the Supreme Court for defamation. The Telegraph subsequently apologised and settled for damages out of court.[20] The published apology stated:
In that story The Daily Telegraph suggested, among other things, that the students in the class of 1996 failed their HSC. This is wrong and The Daily Telegraph withdraws any such suggestion. The Daily Telegraph also withdraws any suggestion that those students acted without discipline or commitment in their HSC studies. The students in the HSC class of 1996 successfully completed their HSC and contrary to the suggestions in the original article many of those students performed very well scoring high marks in the HSC. The Daily Telegraph apologises to each student in the class of 1996 at Mt Druitt. It also apologises to their parents and friends for all the hurt, harm and suffering it has caused them.[20]
Later, criticising defamation laws, News Limited CEO John Hartigan said that
The words in the story pointed to deep-seated problems within the education system, but a barrister convinced the jury that, regardless of the words before him, what we really meant to say was that the entire class was too stupid to pass the HSC."[21]
In October 2006, The Telegraph claimed in a front-page article that ANZ were using call centres in Bangalore, India. The paper even sent a journalist to Bangalore, Luke McIlveen, and a photographer to verify this claim.[22] ANZ denied the claim, stating that they do not employ overseas call centre staff in India.[23] Subsequently, ANZ pulled all of its advertising from News Limited, including Foxtel and News website, which amounted to $4 to 5 million, about 10 per cent of ANZ's advertising budget.[23]
In assuming blame, David Penberthy, editor-in-chief of News Limited, defended McIlveen.[24]
In 2002, former Telegraph journalist, Matt Sun, was accused of plagiarism by the TV program Media Watch.[25][26] Editor at the time, Campbell Reid, responded by accusing Media Watch's host of having a conflict of interest that "destroyed the credibility of any judgement he could pass on the ethics and standards of others in the media".[27]
In May 2011, The Telegraph published an article making an assertion about the Australian Greens which subsequently prompted a complaint to the Australian Press Council. The article asserted that the Greens had managed to "force" the Government to divert money from flood relief, to fund various Green programs. The Press Council upheld the complaint and stated that the assertion was inaccurate and remained uncorrected.[28]
In June and July 2011, The Telegraph published a series of articles about the National Broadband Network. These articles triggered a complaint to the Australian Press Council, alleging that they were factually incorrect, unbalanced and misleading. In December 2011, the Press Council upheld the complaints on all three articles, forcing The Telegraph to publish the adjudication.[29][30] The Council also published the following statement in regards to the issue:
The Council expressed concern that within a short period of time three articles on the same theme contained inaccurate or misleading assertions. It considers that this sequence of errors should not have occurred and that they should have been corrected promptly and adequately when brought to the newspaper's attention.[31]
In December 2011, The Sunday Telegraph published two articles about former Labor leader Mark Latham and an alleged argument he had with his child's swimming teacher. Mr Latham complained to the Australian Press Council that there was a conflict of interest which should have been disclosed as the reporter was the daughter of one of the swim teachers at the school. Mr Latham also complained that the articles breached the privacy of his family, especially his young children, and were not in the public interest. The Press Council upheld the complaint and published the following statement (extract only):
The Council emphasises that in accordance with generally recognised principles a conflict of interest exists where there is a reasonable possibility that the conflict will affect a reporter's impartiality, irrespective of whether it actually does so. Accordingly, this aspect of the complaint is upheld.
The Council also found that there had been an "unreasonable intrusion on the children's privacy" and upheld that aspect of the complaint.[32]
In November 2011, The Telegraph published an article about asylum seekers with the front-page heading 'OPEN THE FLOODGATES – Exclusive: Thousands of boat people to invade NSW'. Another headline stated 'Detainee Deluge for Sydney'. This prompted a complaint to the Australian Press Council, which was upheld. The Press Council published the following statement (extract only):
The Press Council has concluded that use of the word "invade" was gravely inaccurate, unfair and offensive because of its clear connotations of forceful occupation. Accordingly, the complaint is upheld on this ground for what the Council regards as an especially serious breach of its principles. The Council has concluded that use of the words "open the floodgates" and "deluge" were inaccurate and unfair. Even the intake levels claimed in the article could not reasonably be described as having such an extreme impact on suburban Sydney, and nothing quoted from the briefing note asserted government fears of inability to cope.[33]
Throughout 2011, The Telegraph published 17 articles about Sydney Lord Mayor and MP Clover Moore. The articles prompted a complaint to the Australian Press Council. The complainant argued that the articles provided unbalanced coverage and that many of the headlines and phrases were opinion rather than fact. The Press Council upheld the complaint in part and published the following statement (extract only):
The Council has concluded that the headlines mentioned above breached [the Council's] principles because they expressed the newspaper's opinions rather than being a summary of facts reported in the accompanying news story. The inclusion in a news story of words such as "crazy council policies", "junket" and "diva-like list of demands" which were not attributed to any sources also failed to separate fact from opinion. Accordingly, the complaint is upheld on these grounds.[34]
This adjudication marked the 4th complaint to have been upheld against The Daily Telegraph under the editorship of Paul Whittaker, since commencing the role in April 2011.[35]
Following the resignation of Fairfax commentator Mike Carlton, The Daily Telegraph published a 2-page spread attacking Carlton and competing newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald. The spread included a composited image of Boston Marathon bombing victim James Costello, with Mr Carlton's face and wearing an Arab headdress. The photoshopped image portrayed Carlton 'escaping Gaza'. The image manipulation drew widespread criticism on social media, and forced the editor to apologise, saying he was unaware of the origin of the image.[36]
On Sundays, its counterpart is The Sunday Telegraph.
Its Melbourne counterparts are the Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun. In Brisbane, it is linked with The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail, in Adelaide, The Advertiser and Sunday Mail, in Perth, The Sunday Times, in Hobart, The Mercury and The Sunday Tasmanian, in Darwin, The Northern Territory News and Sunday Territorian.
The Daily Telegraph has traditionally been opposed to the Australian Labor Party, and is often a supporter of the Australian Liberal Party. A 2013 front-page headline said of the second Rudd Government "Finally, you now have the chance to kick this mob out".[1][37] The paper's high-profile columnists are predominantly conservative, including Piers Akerman, Miranda Devine, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.
A Roy Morgan media credibility survey found that 40 per cent of journalists viewed News Limited newspapers as Australia's most partisan media outlet, ahead of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 25 per cent. The survey found that readers took a generally dim view of journalists. In response to the question "Which newspapers do you believe do not accurately and fairly report the news?", the Daily Telegraph came third (9%) behind the Herald Sun (11%) and "All of them" (16%).[38]
At the Australian federal election, 2007 The Daily Telegraph for only the second time endorsed the Australian Labor Party. At the Australian federal election, 2010 the Newspaper endorsed the Coalition and Tony Abbott. In the 2013 election, the Daily Telegraph ran 177 stories that were pro Coalition 11 stories that leaned the other way.[39]
The Telegraph is edited by Christopher Dore.[40] Dore's predecessors are Paul Whittaker, Gary Linnell, David Penberthy,[41] Campbell Reid,[41] David Banks[42] and Col Allan, who now served as editor-in-chief at the Murdoch-owned New York Post from 2001 to 2016.
Columnists include Piers Akerman, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine and education specialist Maralyn Parker. Journalists include Joe Hildebrand, Samantha Maiden, Andrew Clennell, Mark Morri, Nick Tabakoff, Edward Boyd, Ashleigh Gleeson, Laura Banks and Daniel Meers.
Past writers for the newspaper include Lucian Boz, Mark Day, Peter Frilingos, Mike Gibson, Peter Holder and David Luff.
The Daily Telegraph website hosts the blogs of several columnists.
*Tim Blair, blog
*Andrew Bolt, blog
*Miranda Devine, blog
*Piers Akerman, right-wing conservative commentator since 1993
*RendezView, a stable of several opinion columnists
*Game of Moans, a pop culture blog focusing on Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead.
Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA) figures show that 2,983,000 people in NSW read The Daily Telegraph in print or digitally every month. The Daily Telegraph's average Monday to Friday newspaper audience is 822,000 compared to the Sydney Morning Herald at 580,000.
in 2013, the average print circulation for The Daily Telegraph on weekdays was 310,724 during the June quarter.[8] In the 2013-14 financial year, however, weekday circulation was 280,731 (Saturday circulation 265,711). These circulation figures were down year on year (-9.65% and -8.67% respectively). However readership rose 1.53% to 1,191,000 readers on weekdays, while falling 1.62% on Saturdays to 909,000.[9][10] Average readership was 781,000 during 2012, and 902,000 during 2011. Its readership on Saturdays was estimated at 729,000 during 2012, down from 800,000 during 2011.[43]
As of July 2015, third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb, ranked The Daily Telegraphs's website as the 90th and 200nd most visited website in Australia respectively.[44][45] SimilarWeb rates the site as the 21st most visited news website in Australia, attracting almost 3.7 million visitors per month.[45][46]