Sydney Daily Telegraph

''The Daily Telegraph'', also nicknamed ''The Tele'', is an Australian tabloid newspaper published by Nationwide News Pty Limited (NWN), a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of News Corp. It is published Monday through Saturday and is available throughout Sydney, across most of regional and remote New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland.

A 2013 poll conducted by Essential Research found that the ''Telegraph'' was Australia's least-trusted major newspaper, with 49% of respondents citing "a lot of" or "some" trust in the paper. Amongst those ranked by Nielsen, the ''Telegraph'' website is the sixth most popular Australian news website with a unique monthly audience of 2,841,381 readers.

History

''The Daily Telegraph'' was founded in 1879, by John Mooyart Lynch, a former printer, editor and journalist who had once worked on the ''Melbourne Daily Telegraph''. Lynch had failed in an attempt to become a politician and was looking to start his own paper to reflect the opinion of the common working man. Lynch put together a large team of backers, including an old friend Watkin Wynne, who was unusual for being a very wealthy journalist, and Robert Sands, who ran the printing company John Sands. The first edition was published on 1 July 1879, costing only one penny. The first page of the first edition outlined Lynch's vision for his paper, saying:
"We wish to make this journal a reliable exponent of public opinion, which we think is hardly represented in the existing press.
"Without disparaging existing journals in Sydney, which we fully admit have many excellencies, we believe that they have missed the great objective of journalism to be in sympathy with and to report public opinion."

When sales of the ''Telegraph'' began to fall in 1882 the newspaper was taken over by Watkin Wynne. Wynne introduced shorter, punchier, stories and more sensationalism.

The ''Telegraph'' reported on various events and movements of the time. The paper was reported as being a strong advocate for Federation. In the first decade of the 20th century, the ''Telegraph'' had lost its lead in paper sales and was in a fierce circulation war with other Sydney dailies, particularly the ''Sydney Morning Herald''.

Watkin Wynne remained in charge of the paper until his death in 1921. Under his successors, the paper underwent some major changes. In 1924, the paper began running news on the front page rather than just advertising. Still a broadsheet (large format paper), in 1927 declining circulation and financial troubles forced a switch to the smaller tabloid format. In 1929, it was taken over by wealthy tobacco manufacturer Sir Hugh Denison, the founder of the Sydney newspaper ''The Sun''. In 1929, Denison formed Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) with S Bennett Ltd and media owner R. C. Packer. Denison later also acquired the ''Daily Guardian'' (which had been owned by Smith's Weekly) which he combined with the ''Telegraph News Pictorial'' to form the new ''Daily Telegraph''.

The paper returned to a broadsheet format in 1931. From 1936 until its sale to Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in 1972, the ''Telegraph'' was owned by Sir Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. Packer sold the ''Daily Telegraph'' to Rupert Murdoch's company News Limited in 1972 for $15 million.

In 1990, the ''Daily Telegraph'' merged with its afternoon stablemate, ''The Daily Mirror''. The merged entity would resume the name of ''The Daily Telegraph'' in January 1996.

Counterparts

On Sundays, its counterpart is ''The Sunday Telegraph''.

Its Melbourne counterparts are the ''Herald Sun'' and ''Sunday Herald Sun''. In Brisbane, it is linked with ''The Courier-Mail'' and '' The Sunday Mail'', in Adelaide, '' The Advertiser'' and '' Sunday Mail'', in Hobart, ''The Mercury'' and ''The Sunday Tasmanian'', in Darwin, The ''Northern Territory News'' and ''Sunday Territorian''.

Political stance

Editorially, ''The Daily Telegraph'' has traditionally been opposed to the Australian Labor Party, and is often a supporter of the Liberal Party of Australia. A 2013 front-page headline said of the second Rudd Government "Finally, you now have the chance to kick this mob out" and "Australia Needs Tony". The paper's high-profile columnists are predominantly conservative.

A Roy Morgan media credibility survey found that 40% of journalists viewed News Limited newspapers as Australia's most partisan media outlet, ahead of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 25%. The survey found that readers took a generally dim view of journalists. In response to the question "Which newspapers do you believe do not accurately and fairly report the news?", the ''Daily Telegraph'' came third (9%) behind the ''Herald Sun'' (11%) and "All of them" (16%).

At the 2007 Australian federal election ''The Daily Telegraph'' for only the second time endorsed the Australian Labor Party. At the 2010 Australian federal election the newspaper endorsed the Coalition and Tony Abbott. In the 2013 election, the ''Daily Telegraph'' ran 177 stories that were pro-Coalition and 11 stories that leaned the other way. During both the 2016 and 2019 Australian federal elections, the ''Daily Telegraph'' strongly endorsed prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison respectively, both of the Liberal Party, while attacking then-opposition leader Bill Shorten of the Australian Labor Party. The Labor party lost both elections.

Endorsements

Staff

Editors

The ''Telegraph'' is edited by Ben English. The previous editor was Christopher Dore. Dore's predecessors are Paul Whittaker, Gary Linnell, David Penberthy, Campbell Reid, David Banks, and Col Allan, who served as editor-in-chief at the Murdoch-owned ''New York Post'' from 2001 to 2016.

Circulation and readership

Readership data from Enhanced Media Metrics Australia October 2018 report shows that the ''Daily Telegraph'' has total monthly readership of 4,500,000 people via print and digital, compared to 7,429,000 people for its primary competitor, the ''Sydney Morning Herald''.

''The Daily Telegraph'' weekday print newspaper circulation fell from 310,724 in June 2013 to 221,641 in June 2017. Saturday newspaper circulation fell to 221,996 over the same period.

As of February 2019, third-party web analytics provider Alexa ranked ''The Daily Telegraph'' website as the 343rd most visited website in Australia (down from 90th in July 2015).

Criticism and controversies