Express line
Sir: I sometimes grow a little weary over the continuing love affair of your 'Media studies' correspondent, Stephen Glover, with the Daily Mail.
Certainly, it is a commercial success. Yet how has this been achieved? Its circulation is little more than it was 30 or 40 years ago. It has held its position less by intelligence, good writing and enterprise than because of the decline of its direct opposition.
There was a time when the Daily Express was an infinitely superior product. It declined because of the death of a com- manding proprietor and the departure of an outstanding editor. Its mournful declin- ing years were the fault of a predatory own- ership and a succession of self-serving, self- regarding but incompetent editors.
The Sunday Express suffered because it had the misfortune to be run for two decades by John Junor whose clock stopped around 1956. It is to the credit of the Rothermere press that they descried an opportunity for a Sunday rival. Its commer- cial success does derive at least from enter- prise and skill rather than mere good for- tune.
Fortunately, the signs are that, at last, in the Express, the Mail papers are being chal- lenged by an ownership and an editorial team that are their match in energy, ambi- tion and enterprise and certainly superior in culture and intelligence.
Ronald Spark
19 The Rotyngs, Rottingdean, East Sussex
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