The Times
The Times is a national
newspaper published daily in the
United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. For much of its history it has been regarded as Britain's
newspaper of record and preserved in the British Library's newspaper library in that capacity.
The Times is published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of
News International, itself wholly owned by the
News Corporation group, headed by
Rupert Murdoch. It has played an influential role in politics and shaping public opinion about foreign events. Some claim that more recently it has reflected Murdoch's neo-conservative views.
[Material Which Never Made It To Publication] It has supported the
Labour Party in the two last elections
[FT.com / News in depth / UK Election - Election 2005: What the papers said], and Murdoch has allied himself with Labour Prime Minister
Tony Blair, often meeting with him
[David Rose, "Government refuses to reveal details of Murdoch meetings. In Press Gazette, December 15, 2005.].
Outside the UK,
The Times is sometimes referred to as "The
London Times",
[" Website Requires Payment to View Article", WantToKnow.info. URL accessed on 10 June 2006.] or
"The Times of London"
[Murdoch's Times of London to launch US edition, a May 26, 2006 Reuters article] in order to distinguish it from the many other "Times" papers such as
The New York Times and
The Times of India. It is also the originator of the ubiquitous
Times New Roman typeface, originally developed by
Stanley Morison of
The Times in collaboration with the
Monotype Corporation.
The Times, printed in
broadsheet format for 200 years, switched to
compact size in
2004, in an attempt to appeal to younger readers
. In May 2006, it announced plans to launch a United States edition
; it began publishing on
June 6 of the same year.
The Times was founded by
John Walter in 1785 as
The Daily Universal Register. Unhappy with
Universal being universally ignored by the public, Walter changed the title after 940 editions on
1 January,
1788 to
The Times. John Walter was also the first editor of the paper. He resigned in 1803, handing ownership and editorship to the second
John Walter. The first John Walter had already spent sixteen months in
Newgate prison for
libel printed in
The Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain European news, especially from
France, helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.
The Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its early life, the profits of
The Times were very large and the competition minimal, so it could pay far better than its rivals for information or writers.
In 1809,
John Stoddart was appointed general editor, replaced in 1817 with
Thomas Barnes. Under Barnes and his successor in 1841,
John Thadeus Delane, the influence of
The Times rose to great heights, especially in politics and amongst the
City of London. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted hacks and gained for
The Times the pompous/satirical nickname 'The Thunderer' (from "We thundered out the other day an article on social and political reform.").
The Times was the first newspaper to send special correspondents abroad, and it was the first to send
war correspondents to cover particular conflicts.
W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the
Crimean War, was immensely influential with his dispatches back to England.
In other events of the
19th century,
The Times opposed the repeal of the
Corn Laws until the number of demonstrations convinced the editorial board otherwise, and only reluctantly supported aid to victims of the
Irish Potato Famine. During the
American Civil War,
The Times represented the view of the wealthy classes, favouring the secessionists, but it was not a supporter of slavery. Its support of individual politicians was internally driven and did not pander to public opinion.
The third
John Walter had succeeded his father in 1847. Though the Walters were becoming more conservative, the paper continued as more or less independent. From the 1850s, however,
The Times was beginning to suffer from the rise in competition from the
penny press, notably
The Daily Telegraph and
The Morning Post.
In 1922,
John Jacob Astor, a son of the
1st Viscount Astor, bought
The Times from the
Northcliffe family estate. The paper gained a measure of notoriety in the 1930s with its advocacy of German
appeasement; then-editor
Geoffrey Dawson was closely allied with those in the government who practised appeasement, most notably
Neville Chamberlain.
In 1967, members of the
Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate
Roy Thomson, and in the same year it started printing news on the front page for the first time. (Previously, the paper's front page featured small advertisements, usually of interest to the moneyed classes in British society.) The
Thomson Corporation merged it with
The Sunday Times to form
Times Newspapers Limited.
An industrial dispute left the paper shut down for nearly a year (
December 1,
1978â€"
November 12,
1979).
Rupert Murdoch
In 1981,
The Times and
Sunday Times were purchased from Thomson by Rupert Murdoch's News International.
Murdoch soon began making his mark on the paper, replacing its editor,
William Rees-Mogg, with
Harold Evans in 1981. His most important change, however, was in the introduction of new technology and efficiency measures. In Marchâ€"May 1982, following agreement with print unions, the hot-metal Linotype printing process used to print
The Times since the 19th century was phased out and replaced by computer input and photo-composition. This allowed the staff of the print rooms of
The Times and
The Sunday Times to be reduced by half. However, direct input of text by journalists ("single stroke" input) was still not achieved, and this was to remain an interim measure until the
Wapping dispute of 1986, which saw
The Times move from its home at New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road (near
Fleet Street) to new offices in
Wapping[Alan Hamilton, "The Times bids farewell to old technology". The Times, May 1, 1982, pg. 2, col. C.].
In June 1990,
The Times abandoned its policy of using
courtesy titles on first reference ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes for living persons) but continue to use them on subsequent references. The more formal style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms" is now acceptable in that section.
In November 2003, News International began producing the newspaper in both broadsheet and
tabloid sizes. On
13 September 2004, the weekday broadsheet was withdrawn from sale in
Northern Ireland. Since
1 November 2004, the paper has been printed solely in tabloid format. Whilst the newspaper published dual editions, some claimed that more
sensationalist stories appeared in the tabloid than appeared in the broadsheet, such as celebrity features on the front page. This was denied by management at News International.
The
Conservative Party announced plans to launch
litigation against
The Times over an incident in which the newspaper claimed that Conservative election strategist
Lynton Crosby had admitted that his party would not win the 2005
General Election.
The Times later published a clarification, and the litigation was dropped.
On 6 June 2005,
The Times redesigned its Letters page, dropping the practice of printing correspondents' full postal addresses. According to its
leading article, "From Our Own Correspondents", this was in order to fit more letters onto the page.
In September 2005, the cover price of
The Times was raised to 60
p, the same as
The Daily Telegraph and
The Guardian, and 5p less than
The Independent. It is the first time in twelve years that the cover price of
The Times has matched that of its rivals, a clear indication that News International is no longer prepared to fund the price war launched in September 1993, when they shocked the industry by cutting the price of
The Times from 45p to 30p.
The newspaper's cover price in the United Kingdom is 60p on weekdays (20p for students, at some university campus shops), and
£1.20 on Saturday.
The Times' Sunday sister paper is
The Sunday Times, a
broadsheet. Its cover price is £1.80.
Circulation
The certified average
circulation figures for November 2005 show that
The Times sold 692,581 copies per day. This was the highest achieved under the current editor,
Robert Thomson, and ensured that the newspaper remained ahead of
The Daily Telegraph in terms of full rate sales, although
The Daily Telegraph remains the market leader for broadsheets, with a circulation of 905,955 copies, owing to over 300,000 discount subscribers each day. Tabloid newspapers such as
The Sun at present outsell both papers with a circulation of around 3,274,855, with their far broader appeal and content.
Image
Long considered the UK's newspaper of record,
The Times is seen by some as a serious publication with high standards of journalism. Others feel it has gone downmarket since being acquired by Murdoch; they cite its coverage of celebrities as evidence, though this increased coverage of and emphasis on celebrity- and sports-related news is rarely given prominence on the front page. It is not without trenchant critics, however:
Robert Fisk[Robert Fisk, 2005. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Fourth Estate, pp329-334. ISBN 184115007X], seven times
British International Journalist of the Year, resigned as foreign correspondent in 1988 over what he saw as political censorship of his article on the shooting down of
Iran Air Flight 655 in July of that year.
Readership profile and image
The British Business Survey 2005 named
The Times as the UK's leading daily newspaper for business people. This independent survey was sponsored by
The Financial Times,
The Guardian,
The Daily Telegraph,
The Economist, and
The Times.
The latest figures from the national readership survey show
The Times to have the highest number of
ABC1 25â€"44 readers and the largest numbers of readers in London of any of the quality papers.
Times 2 / T2
T2 is
The Times's main supplement, featuring various lifestyle columns. On
5 September 2005, it relaunched as
Times 2 and is now and aimed at
women, describing itself as
The thinking woman's daily supplement. It has an image of the day and a modern morals column, where people ask
Joe Joseph if they lead moral lives. However, the supplement continues to be popular with male readers, it containing a
sudoku puzzle and a simpler, concise
crossword.
Crème
Crème is the newspaper's supplement for "PAs, secretaries, executive assistants and anyone who works in administrative support."
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,8247,00.html] It is read by more secretaries than
The Guardian and
The Evening Standard[NRS, April 04 – March 05].
The Times Magazine
The Times Magazine accompanies the newspaper on Saturday, and features columns touching on various subjects such as celebrities, fashion and beauty, food and drink, homes and gardens or simply writers' anecdotes. Notable contributors include
Gordon Ramsay, one of Britain's highest profile
chefs, and
Giles Coren, Food And Drink Writer of the Year in 2005.
The Times, along with the
British Film Institute, sponsors the
London Film Festival (or more specifically, The Times
bfi London Film Festival).
As of 2005, it is Europe's largest public event for
motion pictures.
The Times also sponsors the
Cheltenham Festival of Literature.
*
John Walter (1785â€"1803)
*
John Walter, 2nd (1803â€"1847)
*
John Walter, 3rd (1847â€"1894)
*
Arthur Fraser Walter (1894â€"1908)
*
Lord Northcliffe (1908â€"1922)
*
Astor family (1922â€"1966)
*
Roy Thomson (1966â€"1981)
*News International, run by
Rupert Murdoch (1981â€" )
*
John Walter (1785â€"1803)
*
John Walter (1803â€"1809)
*
John Stoddart (1809â€"1817)
*
Thomas Barnes (1817â€"1841)
*
John Delane (1841â€"1877)
*
Thomas Chenery (1877â€"1884)
*
George Earle Buckle (1884â€"1912)
*
George Geoffrey Dawson (1912â€"1919)
*
Henry Wickham Steed (1919â€"1922)
*
George Geoffrey Dawson (1923â€"1941)
*
Robert McGowan Barrington-Ward (1941â€"1948)
*
William Casey (1948â€"1952)
*
William Haley (1952â€"1966)
*
William Rees-Mogg (1967â€"1981)
*
Harold Evans (1981â€"1982)
*
Charles Douglas-Home (1982â€"1985)
*
Charles Wilson (1985â€"1990)
*
Simon Jenkins (1990â€"1992)
*
Peter Stothard (1992â€"2002)
*
Robert Thomson (2002â€" )
*
Rachel Campbell-Johnston*
Sam Coates*
Ben Hoyle*
Hugo Rifkind*
Anthony Browne*
Hugh McIlvanney*
Richard Ford*
Martin Samuel*
Simon Barnes*
Graham Stewart*
Frances Gibb*
Benjamin Cohen, e-business columnist
*
Adam Fresco*
Alan Coren*
Ruth Gledhill*
Giles Coren*
Andrew Pierce*
Robert Crampton*
Nigel Hawkes*
Dan Sabbagh*
Michael Gove*
Philip Webster*
Tim Hames*
Stewart Tendler*
Anthony Howard*
Philip Howard*
Mick Hume*
Anatole Kaletsky*
Magnus Linklater*
Anthony Loyd, war correspondent on retainer
*
Ben Macintyre*
Caitlin Moran*
Richard Morrison*
Kate Muir*
Matthew Parris*
Libby Purves*
William Rees-Mogg*
Peter Riddell*
Nick Robinson*
Mary Ann Sieghart*
Andrew Sullivan*
Janice Turner*
Ann Treneman*
Aki Riihilahti*
Gordon Ramsay*During the time
Ian Fleming was writing his
James Bond books, Fleming had established that James Bond often is a reader of
The Times.
*In
George Orwell's classic,
Nineteen Eighty-Four (written in the 1940s), the main character Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to edit reportings in previous issues of
The Times in order for the government's targets to appear upheld.
*A
Punch cartoon once featured a butler ushering into his master's presence "Three reporters, m'lud, and a gentleman from
The Times".
*In the Monty Python sketch
Ministry of silly walks, the lead character played by
John Cleese purchases a copy of
The Times before going to the ministry.
In his book
Notes From a Small Island,
Bill Bryson writes that when he was deputy editor of the business section at
The Times, he was often unable to gain access to the day's
stock exchange values, mainly because a co-worker often refused to give them to him. As a result, and for more than a year, he used the market values from the early edition of
The Financial Times.
*
Official website, including a
Style Guide*
Driving section including news, reviews and
opinion from Jeremy Clarkson.
*
Wapping: legacy of Rupert's revolution,
January 15,
2006 -
The Observer - Three views of the industrial dispute twenty years on.
