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Comment by darkclarity | Hacker News Reader

The Daily Mail has a bad reputation with the Twitterring classes, but like every other UK newspaper they cater for their own audiences - it just so happens that you probably aren't in that particular group.

If Yahoo are in trouble then they need leadership to find an audience (and adjust their services appropriately). What better way than to rely on the owner of one of the most successful news outlets? Either that, or it slowly disappears.

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Daily Mail has always had a bad reputation, unless you're in the racist warmongering homophobic group, since their inception over a century ago. I'd not limit it to just with the twittering classes though.

They were repeatedly accused of warmongering in the years preceding WW1.

They actively promoted fascism and the blackshirts in the 30s, and promoted Mosley. They changed their stance in 39 only to avoid charges of treason.

Even amidst their renaissance in the 80s they managed to stay controversial in opposing any sporting bans with S Africa and ran opinion pieces promoting apartheid.

It's only 2012 there was some controversy for running a piece promoting "arbeit macht frei" as jobhunting advice. They did describe the phrase as "somewhat tainted"

They have at least been consistent in their reactionary racist bilge.

Say whatever you want, but they still make money and they have a huge readership.

How is this at all relevant? Nobody is accusing it of being unpopular.

> The Daily Mail has a bad reputation with the Twitterring classes, but like every other UK newspaper they cater for their own audiences

The Daily Mail has a bad reputation with virtually anyone in the UK who has any interest in accuracy of reporting. It is a rag which makes money by selling fear and outrage.

Which UK papers, except perhaps The Spectator or Private Eye, do not make their money through fear and outrage on either the left or right?

I'd say the Grauniad (read - Guardian) isn't _as_ bad as the other broadsheets.

Well, they've definitely been starting on the clickbait and outrage baiting in the last few years. They especially like riding the 'internet harassment' bandwagon into the ground.

Better than the Daily Mail? Yes, not much isn't, even in the UK media. But they're still getting worse over time.

All papers will carry stories that have elements of fear and outrage in their mix of course. What makes the Mail special is that it puts fear and outrage at the very core of its proposition. It is what it specialises in. It will jettison any other aspect of a story, including accuracy, to maximise these factors. It is wholly toxic.

>The Daily Mail has a bad reputation with the Twitterring classes, but like every other UK newspaper they cater for their own audiences - it just so happens that you probably aren't in that particular group.

It also happens to that particular group has base taste, and the Daily Mail caters to their worst gossipy, vacuous, racist, sexist, backwards, etc, nature. It's a manipulative, right wing, yellow paper/site.

We can't bypass ethics, education, etc. because "people have different tastes" -- and yes, the parent comment doesn't say that, but it seems to imply it.

Are they really that successful? Total Mail Online revenue appears to be under £100m (although growing rapidly):

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/28/daily-mail-webs...

Now look at the figures for any other UK newspaper.

They're the second-biggest newspaper in the UK.

> but like every other UK newspaper they cater for their own audience

And their audience is pretty enormous. Mail Online has well over 250 million unique visitors per month, or half-a-Wikipedia and on-par with the sum of all of Yahoo's properties. It's the most-visited English-language news site in the World.

Their London-orientated Metro Online adds another 40 million per month.

Those stats are incredible. I suspect they are accurate given the sort of puff and nonsense they peddle on there. I still don't think being very successfull running a gossip site covers all of what running Yahoo! requires.

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