The Times is a
daily national newspaper published in the
United
Kingdom
since 1785 when it was known as The Daily
Universal Register.
The Times and its sister paper
The Sunday Times are published by
Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of
News International. News International is
entirely owned by the
News
Corporation group, headed by
Rupert
Murdoch. Though traditionally a moderately
centre-right newspaper and a supporter of
the
Conservatives, it
supported the
Labour Party in the
2001 and 2005
general elections. In
2005, according to
MORI, the voting intentions
of its readership were 40% for the Conservative Party, 29% for the
Liberal Democrats, 26% for
Labour.
The Times is the original "Times" newspaper, lending its
name to many other papers around the world, such as
The New York Times,
The Times of India,
The Straits Times,
The Times of Malta and
The Irish Times. In North America,
particularly, it is sometimes referred to as the 'London Times' or
'The Times of London'. The paper is the originator of the
ubiquitous
Times Roman typeface,
originally developed by
Stanley
Morison of
The Times in collaboration with the
Monotype Corporation for its
legibility in low-tech printing.
The newspaper was printed in
broadsheet
format for 219 years, but switched to
compact size in 2004 partly in an
attempt to appeal to younger readers and partly to appeal to
commuters using public transport.
An American
edition has
been published since 6 June 2006.
Today
The newspaper's cover price in the United Kingdom is 90p on
weekdays (30p for students at some university campus shops) and
£1.50 on Saturday.
The Times's sister paper,
The Sunday Times, is a
broadsheet and priced at £2.00. Although
The
Times and
The Sunday Times are both owned by News
International, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp, they do
not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have
shared the same owner only since 1967. In November 2006
The
Times began printing headlines in its new font,
Times Modern.
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
last 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.
Tabloid newspapers, such
as
The Sun and
middle-market newspapers such as the
Daily Mail, at present outsell
both papers with a circulation of around 3,274,855 and 2,353,807
respectively.
History
John Walter
The Times was founded by
John Walter on 1 January 1785 as
The Daily Universal Register, with Walter in the role of
editor. Walter changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January
1788 to
The Times. In 1803, John Walter handed ownership
and editorship to his
son of
the same name.
John Walter Sr. had already spent sixteen
months in Newgate
prison
for libel printed in The
Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain Continental 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 journalists, 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
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 nineteenth 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. It
enthusiastically supported the
Great
Reform Bill of 1832 which reduced corruption and increased the
electorate from 400 000 people to 800 000 people (still a small
minority of the population). 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.
The third
John Walter (the
founder's grandson) succeeded his father in 1847. 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.
The Times faced financial extinction in 1890 under
Arthur Fraser Walter, but it
was rescued by an energetic editor,
Charles Frederic Moberly Bell.
During his tenure (1890-1911),
The Times became associated
with selling the
Encyclopædia Britannica
using aggressive American marketing methods introduced by
Horace Everett Hooper and his
advertising executive, Henry Haxton. However, due to legal fights
between the
Britannica's two owners, Hooper and
Walter Montgomery Jackson,
The
Times severed its connection in 1908 and was bought by
pioneering newspaper magnate,
Alfred
Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe.
In editorials published on July 29 and 31, 1914
Wickham Steed, the
Times's Chief
Editor argued that the
British Empire
should enter
World War I.On May 8, 1920,
under the editorship of
Wickham Steed,
the
Times in a front-page editorial endorsed the
anti-Semitic forgery
The Protocols of the
Learned Elders of Zion as a genuine document, and called Jews
the world’s greatest danger.
The following year, when Philip Graves, the Constantinople
(modern Istanbul
, Turkey
)
correspondent of the Times exposed The Protocols
as a forgery, the Times retracted the editorial of the
previous year.
In 1922,
John
Jacob Astor, a son of the
1st Viscount
Astor, bought
The Times from the
Northcliffe 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.
Kim Philby, a Soviet
double agent, served as a correspondent for the
newspaper in Spain
during the
Spanish Civil War of the late
1930s. Philby was admired for his courage in obtaining
high-quality reporting from the front lines of the bloody conflict.
He later
joined MI6
during
World War II, was promoted into senior
positions after the war ended, then eventually defected to the
Soviet
Union
in 1963.
Between 1941-1946, the left-wing British historian
E. H. Carr served as Assistant Editor. Carr was
well-known for the strongly pro-Soviet tone of his editorials.
In
December 1944, when fighting broke out in Athens
between the
Greek Communist ELAS
and the British Army, Carr in a Times editorial sided with
the Communists, leading Winston
Churchill to condemn him and that leader in a speech to the
House of Commons
. As a result of Carr’s editorial, the
Times became popularly known during World War II as the
threepenny
Daily Worker
(the price of the
Daily Worker was one penny)
In 1967, members of the
Astor family
sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate
Roy Thomson, and on
May 3, 1966 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, 1978–November 12, 1979).
The
Thomson Corporation
management were struggling to run a business under the grip of the
print unions at the height of Union powers. Union demands were
increasingly difficult to meet. Management were left with no choice
but to save both titles by finding a buyer who was in a position to
guarantee the survival of both titles, and also one who had the
resources and was committed to funding the introduction of modern
printing methods.
Several suitors appeared, including
Robert Maxwell,
Tiny
Rowland and
Lord Rothermere;
however, only one buyer was in a position to fulfil the full
Thomson remit. That buyer
was the Australian media baron
Rupert
Murdoch.
Both papers had their survival guaranteed and it marked a
significant own goal for the radical elements within the Trade
Union movement.
Rupert Murdoch
In 1981,
The Times and
The 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. One of his most
important changes was in the introduction of new technology and
efficiency measures. In March–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
.
In June 1990,
The Times ceased its policy of using
courtesy titles ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes for living
persons) before full names on first reference, but it continues to
use them before surnames on subsequent references. The more formal
style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms"
is now acceptable in that section, as well as before surnames in
news sections.
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.
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 a 2007
meeting with the House of
Lords
Select Committee on Communications who were
investigating media ownership and the news, Murdoch stated that the
law and the independent board prevented him from exercising
editorial control.
Controversy and image
Long considered the UK's
newspaper
of record,
The Times was generally seen as a serious
publication with high standards of journalism. However, some,
including employees of
The Times, feel it has gone
downmarket since being acquired by Murdoch; they cite its coverage
of celebrities as evidence, although 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, 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 1988.
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 25–44 readers and the largest numbers
of readers in London of any of the "quality" papers.
An analysis of "The Times" reader demographic (based on NMA
figures, news agenda and advertising in the paper) can be seen
here:
http://andrewgiddings.blogspot.com/2009/11/times-and-bbc-radio-5-live-analysis-by.html#more
Format and supplements
The main section of
The Times features news in the first
half of the paper and editorial on its second page, with the
Comment section midway through the main news, and world news
following after this. The business pages begin on the centre
spread, and are followed by The Register, containing obituaries,
Court & Social section, and related material. The sport section
is at the end of the main paper, with the
Times Crossword puzzle on the inside back
cover.
The Times Science Reviews
Between 1951 and 1966 "The Times" published a separately paid-for
quarterly science review,
The
Times Science Review; remarkably in 1953, both "The Times"
newspaper and its Science Review supplement failed to report on the
discovery of the structure of DNA in Cambridge, which was reported
on by the
News Chronicle and the
New York Times. Started in 1951, "The
Times" Science Review was discontinued in 1966.
"The Times" started another new (but free) 'Eureka' monthly science
magazine in October 2009.
times2
times2 is
The Times's main supplement, featuring
various lifestyle columns. Its current incarnation began on 5
September 2005, before which it was called
T2 and
previously
Times 2. Regular features include an "Image of
the Day" and a "Modern Morals" column, where people pose moral
dilemmas to columnist
Joe Joseph. The
back pages are devoted to puzzles and contain
Sudoku,
Killer Sudoku,
KenKen, Polygon (word search) puzzles and a
crossword that is simpler and more concise
than the main
Times Crossword.
The supplement contains arts and lifestyle features and TV and
radio listings and reviews.
The Game
"The Game" is included in the newspaper on a Monday, and details
all the weekend's
association
football activity (
Premier League
and
Football League Championship,
League One and
League Two.) The Scottish edition of The
Game also includes results and analysis from
Scottish Premier League games.
Saturday Times supplements
The Saturday edition of
The Times does not carry the
times2 supplement, instead coming with a variety of
supplements. These supplements were relaunched in January 2009 as:
Sport, Weekend (including travel and lifestyle features), Saturday
Review (arts, books, and ideas), the Magazine, and Playlist (an
entertainment listings guide). Saturday Review is the first regular
Times section published in broadsheet format since the paper
switched to a compact size in 2004.
The Times Magazine 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.
Events
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 and the Asia House Festival of
Asian Literature at Asia House
, London
Ownership
Editorship
Current columnists and journalists
Other publications
( Times Books Group Ltd)
- The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 2007 ISBN
978-0-00-780150-3
Bibliography
- Good Times, Bad Times by Harold Evans. Includes sections of black and
white photographic plates, plus a few charts
and diagrams in text pages.
In Fiction
- In the dystopian future world of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four", The
Times had been transformed into the organ of the totalitarian
ruling party, its editorials - of which several are quoted in the
book - reflecting Big Brother's
pronouncements.
- Rex Stout's fictional detective
Nero Wolfe is described as fond of
solving the London Times' crossword
puzzle at his New York home, in preference to those of American
papers.
- In the James Bond series, written by Ian Fleming, The title
character, James Bond, reads The Times. As described by Fleming in
From Russia With Love- "The Times was only paper that Bond ever
read."
Notes and references
- FT.com / News in depth / UK Election - Election
2005: What the papers said
- Fighting, fornication and fiction, Times Higher
Education, 26 May 2000
- Philip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent
as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth-maker from the Crimea to the Gulf
War II
- Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War page 217 London: Basic
Books, 1999 page 217
- Treason in the Blood, by Anthony Cave Brown,
1995.
- Beloff, Max "The Dangers of Prophecy" pages 8-10 from
History Today, Volume 42, Issue # 9, September 1992 page
9
- Davies, Robert William "Edward Hallett Carr, 1892-1982" pages
473-511 from Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume
69, 1983 page 489
- Haslam, Jonathan "We Need a Faith: E.H. Carr, 1892-1982" pages
36-39 from History Today, Volume 33, August 1983 page
37
- Alan Hamilton, "The Times bids farewell to old technology".
The Times, May 1, 1982, pg. 2, col. C.
-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23110-1969162,00.html
- Robert Fisk, 2005. The Great War for Civilisation: The
Conquest of the Middle East. London: Fourth Estate, pp329-334.
ISBN 1-84115-007-X
- Detail from a copy of Good Times, Bad Times, first
published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson London in 1983 with an ISBN 0 297 78295 9
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