Daily Express
The Daily Express is a national middle-market tabloid in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1900 and made famous during World War II by Lord Beaverbrook, a foul-mouthed Canadian press baron and garden gnome look-alike. Lord Beaverbrook himself said, "I run the paper for the purpose of making propaganda and with no other motive" — at the same time an honest admission and an absolution on performing actual news coverage.
Today[edit]
Despite being substandard in all aspects, the Daily Express still pulls in a daily circulation of just under 500,000. It considers itself a rival of the Daily Mail (which sells over three times more), which it imitates in layout and contents. Recently, the front pages have gotten even more outlandish to boost its sales and close the circulation gap.
It is wholly owned by Richard Desmond, who owns extremely respectable magazines such as Big Ones and Asian Babes, as well as a successful television channel called Television X. Since Desmond's takeover in 2000, it has been involved in many controversies, libel payouts, strikes, cost cuttings and dodgy advertising. It is about as believable as its stablemate the Daily Star, though readers of the latter need not be literate but can merely gaze at the photos.
Politically, the Daily Express has always supported the Conservative Party, except for a short period during the premiership of Tony Blair when it supported Labour. This decision alienated many readers. Younger ones moved to other Tory papers, while the remainder moved to coffins. The Daily Express now aligns with the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and has supported party leader Nigel Farage to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister of Great Britain — backdating this backing to take effect around 1950.
Features[edit]
The Daily Express saves money and headcount by aiming for sensationalist headlines and news stories.
The Front Page[edit]
The Front Page is decided by the proprietor, the decision informed by a pint or two down at the pub. This decision is texted to the Editor, a hermit who never leaves the broom cupboard and has little idea about the world outside. He then has to cook up a story on limited knowledge that he's got. For this reason, the Front Page often recurs to one of the following themes:
- The amazingly beautiful and wonderful Her Royal Highness Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997), Queen of Hearts, and always in our hearts, etc, etc, etc... - The Daily Express is absolutely besotted with her and will always look for an excuse to put her in the paper, whether on the Front Page, inside the paper, or in an advert for tacky commemorative plates. Monday is given over entirely to Diana.
- The British Weather — Regular headlines with long-range weather forecasts predict heatwaves (measured in Fahrenheit), hurricanes and Arctic conditions (measured in Celsius). It will involve interviews with experts and will give people panicky advice to prepare for the apocalypse (all the while dismissing global warming as a hoax).
- Migrants (particularly Muslims) — How they are overrunning the country and set to take our jobs (and benefits), houses, and women before finally eating us.
- House prices are set to rise by at least 25% per annum for at least the next thousand years, not only entirely sustainable but a wonderful development with no imaginable downsides whatsoever.
- Cancer cures — Frequent headlines about the fight against cancer either strike an optimistic tone or preach at us to change our diet. Readers who take all the paper's recommendations drop their subscriptions shortly after due to starvation.
- Madeleine McCann — Because white, middle-class young girls who go missing while on holidays abroad are more interesting than the hundreds of other people who go missing every year.
The articles[edit]
In the press room, lobotomised baboons sit in front of old desktop computers. They are fed a diet of celebrity news (usually from OK and Hello! magazines that feature David and Victoria Beckham) and are kept from misbehaving by being force-fed with soaps such as East Enders, Coronation Street, and Emmerdale. They then rehash the headlines of Daily Star articles through the rest of the paper.
The sports section[edit]
The sports section is almost entirely about football and constitutes a digest of news that would have been read in competing newspapers the day before. Feature match reporters are those with a television who have watched the highlights. High-profile sportswriters are — well, unlike the other newspapers, There Isn't Any.
BrExit crusade[edit]
The Daily Express is on a crusade for the UK to leave the European Union. (The Express never actually "campaigns" on any issue but rather "crusades." This sounds more dramatic but, best of all, offends Muslims.) The crusade features headlines warning of a German Fourth Reich or a British bail-out of France. The Daily Express has been on this crusade to leave the Union since several decades before Britain entered it, driven by opinion articles written by celebrity has-beens, obscure business figures and UKIP. Because of the support of UKIP, various student unions have boycotted the Daily Express, pleasing no one more than itself.