Paul Dacre to step down as Daily Mail editor after 26 years

Paul Dacre is to step down as editor of the Daily Mail in November, ending a 26-year career running the newspaper that did more than many others to shape political debate in the UK and which was as politically divisive as it was commercially successful. 

Mr Dacre said in a note to staff that he would step back from day-to-day editing responsibilities in November by the time of his 70th birthday and would facilitate the handover to a new team.

He will become chairman of Associated Newspapers, the newspaper division of its parent company, Daily Mail and General Trust. 

Geordie Greig, the editor of The Mail on Sunday, has long been talked of as a potential successor. Tony Gallagher, the editor of The Sun, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is a former Mail journalist and is also likely to be in the frame for the job. DMGT said a successor would be announced “in due course”.

Mr Dacre’s departure will leave a void in Fleet Street, where he was renowned for his intuition and ability to strike a chord with Middle England and the Mail’s vast and loyal readership. 

“Paul is, quite simply, the greatest Fleet Street editor of his generation,” said Lord Rothermere, the DMGT chairman, hailing “the sheer power of his many campaigns, investigations and crusades that have held power to account, given a voice to the voiceless and often set the political agenda, through six prime ministerships”.

The Mail’s strident tone and polarising front pages earned it plenty of critics under Mr Dacre’s leadership.

Brian Cathcart, professor of journalism at Kingston University, and co-founder of Hacked Off, the press reform campaign group, said: “Paul Dacre has outstanding gifts as an editor, but sadly he used them mainly to promote intolerant, retrograde and destructive causes. Britain will be a better place without him at the helm of the Mail.”

Mr Dacre has vigorously opposed attempts to regulate the UK press, which gained momentum after the tabloid phone hacking scandal, which burst into public consciousness in 2011 and led to the Leveson inquiry. “The battle is ongoing and I plan to continue playing as great a part in it as ever.”

Mr Dacre joined Associated Newspapers in 1979 as US bureau chief. He joined the Mail itself in 1990, becoming editor in 1992.

Paul is, quite simply, the greatest Fleet Street editor of his generation

While in the editor’s chair he gained notoriety for his colourful language — editorial morning conference was known as “the vagina monologues” for his use of a certain expletive — and for the Mail’s populist tone, which stoked the outrage, indignation, and enduring loyalty, of its readers, targeting political correctness, government waste and celebrity misbehaviour.

In his note to staff, Mr Dacre pointed to the role the paper played in bringing the killers of the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, to justice, and other campaigns such as opposing the Labour government’s plans for resort casinos. 

Mr Dacre thanked Lord Rothermere for two things which he said were “worth more than all the riches in Araby: the freedom to edit without interference and the backing to assemble Fleet Street’s greatest team of journalists”.

DMGT Media, which includes the Mail titles, reported operating profits of £77m on revenues of £683m in its most recent fiscal year.

Revenues of Mail Newspapers were £574m for the period, while the combined daily readership of Mail print titles and its MailOnline website is 10.6m.