Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a British daily broadsheet newspaper who, along with its sister edition Sunday Telegraph, consistently supports the Conservative Party, takes a conservative (duh) position, and, as a result, has earned the nickname "Torygraph". Like most newspapers, the Telegraph's circulation has fallen steadily over the past decade,[1] and it currently ranks fifth among British newspapers by circulation, first among broadsheets.

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“”The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, the Times is read by people who actually do run the country, the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country, the Financial Times is read by people who own the country, the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is."
—Jim Hacker, Yes, Prime Minister[note 1]

The Telegraph is strongly anti-Murdoch, and has the wonderful distinction of having published an article which heavily links to RationalWiki.[2]

Ownership

The paper is currently owned by identical twin brothers David and Frederick Barclay, who have an estimated net worth of £1.8bn. Although British nationals born in London, they have attracted some criticism for being tax exiles living on the Channel Island of Brecqhou or Monaco. The Barclays also own the weekly current affairs magazine The Spectator.

Investigative journalism

The Telegraph is well known for leaks and whistle-blowing, as well as "sting" operations to reveal wrongdoing. It was the main outlet for the leaked details of British MPs' expenses, which caused great embarrassment for many parliamentarians and even led to a few of them going to prison. The paper also caused huge controversy by sending journalists to flirt with members of Parliament at their constituency meetings, eventually ridiculing and embarrassing multiple Liberal Democrat MPs, most notably Vince Cable.

Columnawful

While the main reporters of the Telegraph show a candid, but restrained, support for the Conservative Party, their columnists certainly rival their counterparts at the Daily Mail for wingnuttery, with a raving disdain for the European Union and skepticism about climate change (one of their bloggers is notable denier James Delingpole). Christopher Booker, when he's not too busy ranting about the Human Rights Act, splits his time equally between denouncing climate change as a scam and denouncing the EU as, well, whatever accusations he fancies pulling out of his arse.[3]

Meanwhile, the paper's editorials are simply propaganda. Half of the time, it's aimed at the general public, trying to convince them that the Tories are the only safe option to govern Britain. The other half seems to be aimed at the party elite and hard-line supporters, being very much against "Tory modernisers" and encouraging the party to stick to Mrs. Thatcher's legacy.[4][5] Their former chief political commentator Peter OborneFile:Wikipedia's W.svg, though often quite reasonable in his predictions of what the coalition government would face, was part of the "Christianity is oppressed!" brigade, often writing columns about "Islamisation" and the role of Christianity in the state. However, he has since resigned from his post, accusing the paper of a "form of fraud on its readers"[6] for its coverage of the bank HSBC in relation to a Swiss tax-dodging scandal that was widely covered by other news media. He alleged that editorial decisions about news content had been heavily influenced by the advertising arm of the newspaper because of commercial interests.[7] Meanwhile, online Nile "Vile" Gardiner has become somewhat of a Tea Party favourite, having written anti-Obama[8] and pro-batshit[9] articles consistently since mid-'09.

The comments sections are, of course, gibberish and should not be read under any circumstances.

Notes
  1. "Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?" "Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits." Here's the clip on an official BBC YouTube channel.
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gollark: Well, yes, but before that.

References
  1. ABC: Telegraph Drops Below 700,000, Press Gazette
  2. Internet rules and laws: the top ten, from Godwin to Poe, The Telegraph
  3. There he is!
  4. "A timely lesson from history for Mr. Cameron"
  5. "David Cameron must unite his party behind him"
  6. Peter Oborne (17 February 2015). "Why I have resigned from the Telegraph".
  7. "Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne resigns over HSBC coverage". 17 February 2015.
  8. "Barack Obama is firmly on course to become a one term president" Well guess what happened with that?
  9. "The Tea Party is the movement of the decade" Well guess what happened with that?
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