In 1928, Ruth Synder was the first woman to be executed by electric chair, at the momen of her execution, a Daily News reporter posing as a witness took a picture with a hidden camera.
The next day the Daily News ran the headline ‘DEAD!’ with a full page image of the charred remains of Synder. With this issue the paper broke all records with over 300,000 extra sales proving the appeal of raw, shocking images complimented by a large, bold, black headline.
Following his take over of the Daily Mirror in 1934, Harry Guy Bartholomew immediately planned to change the paper into a New York style tabloid such as the Daily News and its rival the Daily Graphic he had always so admired.
The Daily Graphic and Daily News focused on sensationalist stories, images of nude or semi-nude girls with stories of scandal to match. In contrast Rothermere had demanded the Daily Mirror remain focused on right wing politics such as ‘Imperial Tariff Protection.’
Before Bart could transform the Mirror into a tabloid in similar vein to the aforementioned he had to first deal with the conservative men who dominated the board of directors. Bart made an ally of King who controlled the board whilst Bart worked on the editorial side.
The hiring of Basil Nicholson brought radical changes to the Mirror, including a page and a half of comic strops which helped to increase circulation figures for the first time in years.
However Nicholson unfortunately had no sense of tact and quickly found himself on the wrong side of Bart, he was promptly sacked and replaced by the younger, ambitious Hugh Cudlipp, 22 years old coming straight off the Sunday Chronicle. Aon the Christmas of 1935, Cudlipp became the features editor of the Daily Mirror.
Bart’s aim was to make the paper non-political and instead appeal to the young working class men and women of the day. There was no sense continuing to preach right wing politics to a generation hit hardest by the economic depression of the thirties.
By 1937 Bart had transformed the paper from a bastion f right wing politics, into a ‘daily affront to bishops, magistrates, schoolmasters, the retired elite and the combined forces of the officialdom and respectable society.’
The paper focused on human interest stories with little to know politics or foreign news. Cudlipp used reader’s letters as a cheap source of material and valuable market research which revealed that the paper was now appealing to thousands of working class women whom the paper was able to thus target specifically with such campaigns as to improve the conditions of secretaries.
Dorothy Dix was the psyedonym of American writer Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer who provided female readers with an agony aunt feature. Complimenting this was freelance writer Godfrey Winn’s entertaining feature about his life.
Meanwhile Bart and Cudlipp catered to the male audience with more pictures of girls for whatever reason they could.
With such sensationalist stories and expert catering to their audiences the paper began to make strong profits for the first time in a decade.
In 1938 after Bart turned down the job, Cecil King became editorial director of the Pictorial.
Bart, whilst having needed King’s support to become editorial director of the Mirror now began to plot against his former ally.
King needed an editor to work under him at the Pictorial and Bart garaciously allowed him to take anyone he wanted. However he had already told all potential candidates that if they were to join King they would have their careers destroyed. Whilst many turned King down due to the overhanging threats issued by Bart, Cudlipp jumped at the chance much to Bart’s utter outrage.
On the Pictorial Cudlipp pushed the sensationalism and sex even further than before to compete with the News of the World. However Cudlipp also introduced a sharp political edge which was to attack the Conservative government at the time, chastising it and other papers for their lack of backbone in standing up to Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
In July of 1938 King and Cudlipp visisted CHurchull at his home and planned out a political campaign against appeasement, instead demanding the creation of a large army, air force and navy to be ready to fight Germany if the need arose. Churchill was signed up as a columnist for both eht eMirro and the Sunday Pictorial.
When war inevitably broke out the following year Cudliipp was conscripted into the army and the Mirror was almost shut down due to the charges of undermining public morale and thus the war effort.
During the war the paper seeked to emulate I’s status and popularity it had become known for during the First World War. It did this by being a ‘soldiers paper.’ Patriotic, sharing news from home for the troops and news from the front for families.
Dudlipp meanwhile edited the Union Jack, the British Army’s own paper to boost morale and spread propaganda in the same way the American Army’s own The Stars and Stripes did.
Following the death of the Chairman of the Mirror’s board of directors a brief power struggle had ensued. Bart had secured the position of chairman whilst King become the head of advertising and finance director.
The Mirror had a decisive impact on the general election of post WW2 Britian. By focusing on the wives left at home they created a landslide win for Labour, ousting Churchill and the conservatives as wives believed they would be voting the way their husbands wished whilst many soldiers voted Labour as well.
Bart planned to get rid of both Cudlipp and King. He sacked Cudlipp after goading him into a drunken argument . Fortunately for Cudlipp, the Mirro’s greatest rival at the time The Express was ready to take him on at once.
King moved to get rid of Bart, he managed to turn the board against him and in a unanimous vote Bart was forced out. Bart retired to a a cottage in Norwolk where within a few months he had drank himself to death.
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