62 Facts About Paul Dacre

Paul Michael Dacre is an English journalist and the former long-serving editor of the British tabloid the Daily Mail.

Paul Dacre is editor-in-chief of DMG Media, which publishes the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, the free daily tabloid Metro, the MailOnline website, and other titles.

On 1 October 2018, Dacre became chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, and stood down as editor of the Daily Mail in the following month.

Paul Dacre briefly left Associated Newspapers in November 2021, but rejoined just three weeks later following his withdrawal from the race to become Ofcom chairman.

Paul Dacre was born and grew up in the north London suburb of Arnos Grove in Enfield.

Paul Dacre's father, Peter, was a journalist on the Sunday Express whose work included show business features.

Joan, his mother, was a teacher; the couple had five sons, of whom Paul Dacre was the eldest.

Paul Dacre was educated at University College School, an independent school in Hampstead, on a state scholarship, where he was head of house.

Paul Dacre introduced a pin-up feature in the newspaper called "Leeds Lovelies".

On his graduation in 1971, Paul Dacre joined the Daily Express in Manchester for a six-month trial; after this he was given a full-time job on the Express.

At the Express, Paul Dacre was based in Belfast for a few years before being sent to the office in London.

Paul Dacre was sent to Washington DC, in 1976 to cover that year's American presidential election, remaining there until 1979, when he moved to New York as a correspondent.

Adrian Addison found opinions differed as to whether Paul Dacre was an English protege when he was conducting research for Mail Men.

Paul Dacre succeeded Sir David English as editor of the Daily Mail in July 1992.

Paul Dacre had turned down an offer from Rupert Murdoch to edit The Times believing that Murdoch "would not accept my desire to edit with freedom".

Paul Dacre was known in the summer of 1992 to be against Britain's membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Maastricht Treaty.

Paul Dacre apparently ceased publishing a page on World News and an American diary as soon as possible after he took over.

Paul Dacre eventually used the headline "MURDERERS" accusing the suspects of the crime on 14 February 1997.

On other occasions, the Mail under Paul Dacre has been criticised for an alleged racist attitude towards the stories it chooses to cover.

Paul Dacre is "highly influential politically", in the opinion of the journalist Simon Heffer.

Paul Dacre stated at a meeting of the Select Committee on Public Administration in 2004:.

Paul Dacre later wrote in 2013: "for years, while most of Fleet Street were in thrall to it, the Mail was the only paper to stand up to the malign propaganda machine of Tony Blair and his appalling henchman, Campbell".

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday came into direct conflict with No 10 in 2002 for their pursuit of Cherie Blair's connection to the conman Peter Foster, although Paul Dacre denied any "agenda apart from good journalism".

In 2002, while Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Paul Dacre commented about his high admiration for him: "I feel he is one of the very few politicians of this administration who's touched by the mantle of greatness".

Paul Dacre said during a talk given to students in January 2007, that the Conservative Party could not be guaranteed the Mail's support at the 2010 general election, and he queried whether the party was still conservative.

Nick Davies, in his book Flat Earth News, writes that Paul Dacre's staff call his morning editorial meetings the "Vagina Monologues" because of his habit of calling everybody a "cunt".

Paul Dacre, he commented in 2007, is the only "British newspaper editor who stamps himself on his newspaper every morning" reflecting "his unique blend of libertarian-authoritarian Conservatism".

Some years later, at the Leveson Inquiry in February 2012, Paul Dacre rejected the idea that he imposes his will on the paper.

Paul Dacre commented that some issues contain opinions which "make my hair go white" and asserted that some journalists "would resign if I told them what to write".

Owen Jones in The Establishment wrote that Paul Dacre "is the epitome of the privileged and powerful journalist who has convinced himself that he's the voice of the little man, the ordinary Brit".

Paul Dacre has pursued a strategy of appointing star columnists established at other newspapers at significantly raised salaries, including in 2006, Peter Oborne and Tom Utley.

Paul Dacre has a low opinion of "celebrity editors" such as the editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan.

Paul Dacre became chairman of the PCC's Editors' Code of Practice Committee in April 2008.

On 9 November 2008, Paul Dacre gave a speech to the Society of Editors Conference in Bristol in which he was critical of the emerging pressures for privacy laws following the conclusion of the Max Mosley libel case against the News of the World and Mr Justice Eady's closing remarks.

Paul Dacre had said this "one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media", which is "surely the greatest scandal".

Paul Dacre himself appeared on three occasions at the Leveson Inquiry, which had been set up by the Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Paul Dacre gave a speech at a Leveson seminar concerning press standards on 12 October 2011.

The BBC's Newsnight programme reported in January 2017 that Paul Dacre refused to take David Cameron's telephone calls for months after the launch of the Leveson inquiry in 2011.

Paul Dacre was critical of Cameron who "in a pretty cynical act of political expediency has prejudiced the outcome of this inquiry by declaring that the" Press Complaints Commission, "an institution he'd been committed to only a few weeks previously, was a 'failed' body".

Paul Dacre claimed legislation passed in the last 20 years already helped stop necessary journalistic enquiry, and meant that the press was "already on the very cusp of being over regulated".

Paul Dacre said he banned the use of all "Whittamore inquiry agencies" in 2007.

The actor Hugh Grant had accused the Mail of using phone hacking to report on his private life, he told the Inquiry "voice messages on my mobile" could be the only source for a February 2007 Mail on Sunday article, although Paul Dacre himself made "extensive enquiries" to establish his newspapers had not used phone hacking.

Paul Dacre accused Grant of indulging in a "mendacious smear" in a November 2011 statement for his comment about voice messages.

Paul Dacre refused to retract his response to Hugh Grant at both appearances at the hearings, unless Grant withdrew his statement.

Paul Dacre was quickly recalled on this specific issue, and again on 9 February 2012, he rejected calls that he should retract his allegation that actor Hugh Grant lied.

DMGT had paid damages to Grant for a false February 2007 story in The Mail on Sunday, but Paul Dacre accused Grant of being "obsessed with trying to drag the Daily Mail into another newspaper's scandal".

In successive appearances at Leveson, Rupert Murdoch and then Paul Dacre accused the other of having acting unethically in their respective business interests.

The "draconian inquiry", Paul Dacre said of Leveson in a 2014 speech, was "a kind of show trial in which the industry was judged guilty and had to prove its innocence".

In late September and October 2013, Paul Dacre became the subject of criticism across the UK media and political spectrum after the Daily Mail published a piece on 28 September maligning Ralph Miliband, a deceased Marxist academic and father of Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour opposition at the time.

Paul Dacre was given a right of reply by The Guardian a fortnight later: "As the week progressed and the hysteria increased, it became clear that this was no longer a story about an article on Mr Miliband's Marxist father but a full-scale war by the BBC and the left against the paper that is their most vocal critic".

Paul Dacre told Cameron he had been a Eurosceptic for a quarter-century, and thought his readers were too.

Paul Dacre was reputedly "incandescent" in March 2016 when told by a Westminster source of Cameron's approach to Rothermere, and this strengthened his Brexit convictions.

In contrast, the editor of sister title The Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig, backed the 'remain' option in the referendum, although Paul Dacre is formally his superior.

Paul Dacre was the only media figure in May's first six months as PM to receive hospitality at No 10 in the form of a private dinner in October 2016.

Paul Dacre has been editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers since 1998 and would retain that title; he would be giving up his seat on the board of the holding company "prior to the end of the financial year".

The editor of The Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig, was appointed to succeed Paul Dacre the following day.

Paul Dacre was a member of the Press Complaints Commission from 1999 to 2008.

Paul Dacre left the PCC in order to become chairman of the PCC's editors' code of practice committee from April 2008.

In November 2021, Paul Dacre resigned as chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers.

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chair, Julian Knight a Conservative MP, said this was quite unreasonable and Paul Dacre should be excluded from reapplying.

For many years, Paul Dacre has been the highest-paid newspaper editor in Britain.

Paul Dacre has benefited from subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy from the European Union.