Daily Record
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The Daily Record is a Scottish tabloid newspaper, based in Glasgow. It is the best-selling daily paper in Scotland, with average sales of 451,672 as of December 2004 [link]. It was founded in 1842 and is now owned by Trinity Mirror.
While its no-nonsense approach makes it immensely popular among its mainly working class readership (ironically, many of its journalists are from middle class backgrounds & public school educated — eg. columnists Johnny McKie & Joan Burnie both went to Glasgow's Hutchesons' Grammar), it is seen by many to be no more than a mouthpiece for the Scottish Labour Party, to whom it is extremely faithful (it even had its weekly agony aunt column written by Joan Burnie recommend to all its letterwriters to vote Labour as a solution to their various problems on the day of the 1997 General Election — a copy of the relevant edition — 1st May 1997 — are available for perusal at Glasgow's Mitchell Library archives).
This, combined with its crude sensationalistic journalism (the paper has a particular fascination with Glasgow gangsters and the private lives of Old Firm footballers), 'moral crusades' (which tend to involve the threat of constant negative publicity to inflame the public against their target) & gullibility of its readership (likened to comedian Jasper Carrott's lampooning of "Sun readers") has earned it the unflattering nickname of "the Daily Retard" (
Controversy
The Daily Record [link], along with Brian Souter [link], spear-headed the "Keep the Clause" campaign which aimed to prevent the Scottish Parliament from repealing Section 28. This law prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality" but in effect barred them from distributing any material which did not portray gay relationships as anything but abnormal. The campaign ended in failure when, in 2000, Section 28 was repealed by 99 votes to 17 against, with 2 abstentions.
Following many editorial changes throughout the 1980s and the 1990s the newspaper took on a campaigning stance highlighting such modern menaces as knife culture and 'devil dogs' encouraging a sense of moral panic among its readership.
See also
External links
- *Nickname of "Daily Retard"
[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]
- *The McIlwraith Affair [Meet the real Sir Walter Mitty],
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