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The Times

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File:The Times.jpg
The current front page layout of The Times
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatCompact (Tabloid)
Owner(s)News International
EditorRobert Thomson
Founded1785
Political alignmentCentre-right
HeadquartersWapping,
London
Websitewww.timesonline.co.uk

The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. Although it was printed in broadsheet format for 200 years, it switched to compact (tabloid) size in 2004. Its cover price in the United Kingdom is 60p on weekdays, and £1.10 on Saturday. The Times' Sunday sister paper is The Sunday Times, a broadsheet. Its cover price is £1.60.

The Times is published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of News International, itself wholly owned by the News Corporation group, headed by Rupert Murdoch. For much of its history, the newspaper was regarded as without rival, Britain's newspaper of record. It has played an influential role in politics and shaping public opinion about foreign events. Some claim that, more recently, it has reflected the conservative views of Mr. Murdoch,[1] despite showing support for the Labour Party in the two last elections.[2]

The Times is sometimes referred to by people outside the UK as the London Times or The Times of London in order to distinguish it from the many other Times papers such as The New York Times. However, it is the original "Times" newspaper. It is also the originator of the ubiquitous Times New Roman typeface, originally developed by Stanley Morison of The Times in collaboration with the Monotype Corporation.

History

The Times was founded by John Walter in 1785 as The Daily Universal Register. Unhappy with Universal being universally omitted by the public, Walter changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January, 1788 to The Times. John Walter was also the first editor of the paper. He resigned in 1803, handing ownership and editorship to the second John Walter. The first John Walter had already spent sixteen months in Newgate prison for libel printed in The Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain European 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. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted hacks 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 special correspondents abroad, and it was the first 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 19th Century, The Times opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws until the number of demonstrations convinced the editorial board otherwise. 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. Its support of individual politicians was internally driven and did not pander to public opinion.

The third John Walter had succeeded his father in 1847. Though the Walters were becoming more conservative, 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.

In 1922, John Jacob Astor, a son of the 1st Viscount Astor, bought The Times from the Northcliffe family 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.

In 1967, members of the Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate Roy Thomson, and in the same year 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, to November 12, 1979).

Rupert Murdoch

In 1981 The Times and 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. His most important change, however, 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 nineteenth 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 from 375 to 186. 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. [3]

In June 1990, The Times abandoned its policy of using courtesy titles on first reference ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes for living persons) but continue to use them on subsequent references. The more formal style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms" is now acceptable in that section.

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.

Whilst the newspaper published dual editions, some claimed that more sensationalist stories appear in the tabloid than appeared in the broadsheet, such as celebrity features on the front page. This was denied by management at News International.

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.

Future competition may come from The World, an upmarket newspaper to be launched by Stephen Glover. In September 2005 the cover price of the Times was raised to 60p, the same as the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, and 5p less than the Independent. It is the first time in 12 years that the cover price of the Times has matched that of its rivals, a clear indication that News International is no longer prepared to fund the price war launched in September 1993, when they shocked the industry by cutting the price of the Times from 45p to 30p.

The Times Today

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 current Editor, Robert Thomson, and ensured that the newspaper remained ahead of The Daily Telegraph in terms of full rate sales, although The Telegraph remains the market leader for broadsheets, with a circulation of 905,955 copies, allegedly owing to over 300,000 discount subscribers each day. The circulation of both papers is dwarfed by that of The Sun (3,274,855) and other tabloids.

Image

Long considered the UK's newspaper of record, The Times is seen by some as a serious publication with high standards of journalism. Its 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: by way of example, Robert Fisk[4], seven times British International Journalist of the Year, resigned as foreign correspondant in 1988 over what he saw as political censorship of his article on the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 in July of that year.

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 is 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.

Supplements

Times 2 / T2

T2 is The Times's main supplement, featuring various lifestyle columns. On 5th September 2005 it relaunched as Times 2, and it is expected to move upmarket and aim to become more appealing to women.

Crème

Crème is the newspaper's supplement for "PAs, secretaries, executive assistants and anyone who works in administrative support."[5] It is read by more secretaries than The Guardian and The Evening Standard[6].

The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine accompanies the newspaper on Saturday, and 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

London Film Festival

The Times, along with the British Film Institute, sponsors the London Film Festival (or more specifically, The Times bfi London Film Festival). It is as of 2005 Europe's largest public film event.

The Cheltenham Festival of Literature

The Times also sponsors the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.

Owners

Editors

Current columnists

Miscellaneous

  • During the time Ian Fleming was writing his Bond books, Fleming had established that James Bond often is a reader of The Times.
  • In George Orwell's classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four (written in the 1940s), the main character, Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to edit reportings in previous issues of The Times in order for the government's targets to appear upheld.
  • A Punch cartoon once featured a butler ushering into his master's presence "Three reporters, m'lud, and a gentleman from The Times".

Footnotes

  1. ^ Material Which Never Made It To Publication
  2. ^ FT.com / News in depth / UK Election - Election 2005: What the papers said
  3. ^ 'The Times bids farewell to old technology', by Alan Hamilton. The Times, 1/5/82, pg. 2, col. C.
  4. ^ The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, pp329-334. ISBN 184115007X
  5. ^ NRS, April 04 – March 05
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