I write for the Daily Mail. AMA.

[Mailista]

Specifically, Femail. AMA.

goingagain - when they commission something but don't use it; they don't pay the full whack, but (when I was in journalism) did pay a really good amount so that you couldn't take it to a competitor.

Why is so much DM copy so badly written? The typos and mistakes, the caption fuck ups etc. Not to mention the overuse of certain terms and words. For example, 'hilarious hacks', 'dangerous curves' etc?

The sidebar of shame is a guilty pleasure of mine but I often roll my eyes at how bad the writing is.

Does it make your heart sink every time you have to write about some 'displaying their cleavage' And 'showcasing their shapely pins'.

Why don't you write more feel good articles?

Do the people who write the health scare stuff a) have any clue what they studies they’re sensationalising actually imply and b) believe their own hype?

Do you read the DM? Do you have any qualms/crises of confidence over their editorial approach or does money override them?

Knowing, as we do, that the DM read Mumsnet, what would happen if this thread was noticed by 'them'? Also, who is 'them' exactly?

Just place marking to hear the response to babelfish.

Personally I’d like you to nick stories from FWR if you’re going to lift articles from here

You should be ashamed of yourself and tell the lazy fail journos to stop nicking stories from here

Do you post any online articles ? What’s the pay for those ?
Are you meant to pay if you feature a blogger, for example - if they write a viral post and you want to ‘cover it’

How many of the following phrases have you used?
Burgeoning bump
Blossoming bump
Shapely curves
Ample assets

And why are there so many misspellings and misprints in your paper? Have you no proofreader can can your journalists not spell?

What is a kill fee??

It’s what a newspaper or magazine pays a freelance writer when they’ve commissioned a story, the writer delivers it, but then the publication decides not to print it, aka “kills it”.

The “kill fee” is an acknowledgment of the writer’s effort, and is usually only a small portion of the original fee agreed for the piece. The writer is then free to try to sell the piece to another publication (though they may not be able to find anyone who wants it).

I’d be interested to know what constitutes a “huge” kill fee. In my experience it’s around 20 percent of the original rate.

Id love to write an article for the Femail or You. How would i go about this?

Have you no shame?

I know a lady you work with and she’s awful. I actually thought you might be her but her family aren’t manufacturers and she’s so nasty that she would have looked down on you for having relatives in a “trade”. Do you despise all your colleagues?

Have you ever read an article in You magazine? Some of them a very good.

Do you work in an office with all the other journalists or do you work from home?

How did you get this job? Did you have connections?

The Hodgeofthehedge beat me to it, but:

How do you sleep?

You must be clever, and educated and have choices, but you’re giving your working life to an evil thing, to sonething that makes the world colder and harder and meaner.

How do you live with yourself?

Please please answer Babel's question above

My question is what other publication or news site would you most like to write for? What is your career dream?

And how many hours work do you do a week?

We met a journalist on holiday who told us that the editor of the daily mail is one of the most overall people he had ever met.

Is this true?

I don't read the Daily Mail, because when I have read it it seems full of shite. I'd write 'full of Schadenfreude ' but I'm probably a Labour-voter who isn't Oxbridge educated so wouldn't be able to spell it).
I quite like Rachel Borissister even if her novels were a bit crap and Sarah Vile though.

Apologies, punctuation bit messy there. Can I have a job with the Mail please. I can read Mumsnet and come up with stories from it. I had a stray ) and there should be a couple of commas in the last sentence. Sister of Boris's novels weren't Sarah Vile even if they were a bit crap.

Oh wow. So many. Can't answer all immediately, but Babel:

How much are you plugged into/aware of those sorts of decisions on editorial tone?

If you are, are you at liberty to say more about this (how/why it’s happened.)?

I have absolutely no input or insight into those sorts of decisions, so sadly can't tell you how/why. I, too, am glad in the particular instance you mention, though.

Andinshort, I have never written, or been asked to write, anything racist.

To answer those who ask why the DM steals things from MN... I have certainly never been involved in quoting MN, or lifting anything from threads on MN. MN does sometimes give you ideas for features (if something is interesting enough to get 1,000 comments on MN, then it's likely to be of interest to a newspaper features dept) - but it's very rare that these sorts of things can be used because they're too obviously taken from MN (and in some cases it would be hard to find a case study as good as an OP on MN).