The Mail has the second-highest circulation of any British paper, trailing only the down-market Sun and far outpacing liberal favorites like The Guardian, whose editorial page is sharply against Brexit.
One sign of the paper’s shift came in mid-February, when a top adviser to Mrs. May was overheard in Brussels suggesting that the prime minister could extend the Brexit deadline. The Daily Express — which has the slogan “We’re Backing Britain” on its front page — ran the story on its front page, declaring, “Secret Brexit Plot Exposed in Hotel Bar.”
The same day’s Mail placed the news on Page 10, with the relatively subdued headline “May’s Brexit Chief in Bar Blunder.” On the cover, instead, was a celebratory piece about the success of the paper’s anti-litter campaign, the Great British Spring Clean.
As the three-year anniversary of the Brexit vote looms, with no clear resolution in sight, it’s also possible that average British readers simply want to think about something else.
Over tea in the dining hall at Portcullis House, the parliamentary office building, Ian Dunt, the editor of Politics.co.uk, lamented that the marathon machinations of Brexit had left readers numb. Compared with President Trump’s tenure, Brexit “is much more boring,” he said, dryly.
And given falling circulation numbers and the mass digital migration of news, Mr. Dunt questioned if the revised tone at The Mail, or any other paper, would do much to change minds.
He may have a point. Around the corner from The Mail’s headquarters on Kensington High Street, a newsstand vendor, a man in late middle age, was asked if he had noticed anything different about the paper’s Brexit coverage.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” he replied, with an apologetic smile. “I just do the crossword.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/media/brexit-media-daily-mail.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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