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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think the Daily Mail has gone totally downhill?

45 replies

NameChangeMay2026 · 20/05/2026 20:57

Yes, I know it's always been a right-wing rag, but it used to be a lot more fun and interesting for stories about people I had actually heard of, royals, health stuff, and human-interest stories.

However, these days I find very little I want to click on. The royal coverage is all "Kate, saint who walks on water" and "Meghan, bad witch who should be burned at the stake." I also like Kate better than Meghan, but their coverage is a joke. The sycophancy over Kate is to such a degree that surely it must be written ironically.

I look at the home page and the sidebar, and 90 percent of the people named, I have never heard of.

The health stuff is all warnings about dire conditions that are really rare in the real world. It used to be useful information, but now it's just endless scaremongering. I see the headlines and I just roll my eyes.

The really interesting human-interest stories have gone. Now the stories are all about someone I've never heard of snubbing someone else I've never heard of on social media. Really inconsequential stuff.

My bar for mindless scrolling really isn't high, but the DM has managed to bore me into not really reading it anymore. I used to read many of their articles. Nowadays, i look at the front page still, but less, and don't find much I want to click on. I expect the next stage will be just not ever looking at it.

Also, much of it's behind a paywall with really misleading headlines to get you to sign up. There's no way I'm paying for that trash, so I use an archiving site, but often it doesn't work. And less and less can I be bothered to go through the process anyway.

If you used to enjoy the site, do you also find that it seems to have gone so downhill that it's almost as if they don't want readers anymore?

OP posts:
NameChangeMay2026 · 21/05/2026 02:10

canuckup · 20/05/2026 22:20

To be fair you're not missing much @NameChangeMay2026 😂

Tyson Fury's daughter (16) got married

I have no idea who Tyson Fury is 🤣

Maybe it's just geared to a younger readership these days who know who all these people are.

OP posts:
Zanatdy · 21/05/2026 02:59

NameChangeMay2026 · 21/05/2026 02:10

I have no idea who Tyson Fury is 🤣

Maybe it's just geared to a younger readership these days who know who all these people are.

And you read the DM? The DM run a lot of stories on him, and his family. They have a big netflix show.

TempestTost · 21/05/2026 03:09

I think some of your complaint is across a lot of papers, especially the entertainment stuff. It's all spats of minor stars played out in Twitter. That seems to be the entertainment world these days

Mylittlepea · 21/05/2026 03:37

I voted YABU because it’s always been a shit paper & I’m surprised so many people read it.

PollyBell · 21/05/2026 03:40

Has it ever been uphill?

EmeraldShamrock000 · 21/05/2026 03:46

Indeed. Not forgetting about the mob fan crowd who leave a comment wondering why the mail is interested in whichever celebrity, yet they’ve read the story and choose to add a comment. The same tripe.

Moulook31 · 21/05/2026 06:52

I think a lot of people just look at the DM for the comments after the articles. Most are hilarious.

ImWearingPantaloons · 21/05/2026 06:54

Downhill?

Was it ever UPHILL?

Figcherry · 21/05/2026 06:59

Moulook31 · 21/05/2026 06:52

I think a lot of people just look at the DM for the comments after the articles. Most are hilarious.

This. It’s like a barometer of how misogynistic, racist and uneducated the British population is.

Gillydoller · 21/05/2026 07:04

I used to read the online mail and guardian, mainly as they were the only free papers. If just don’t follow any celebrities so don’t know who any of these people are so fave up with the mail (and their ‘news’ articles seemed designed purely to get the gullible boomers all riled up). The guardian always used to be overly piously woke but has lost the plot over that recently. Can’t stand either now.

JimBobsWife · 21/05/2026 07:07

Totally agree, OP.

I think it’s the move to digital where there’s a need to churn out way more content than was required for a physical newspaper. It’s inevitable the quality goes down when the quantity goes up so rapidly.

MrsShawnHatosy · 21/05/2026 07:37

How can something go downhill when it is already in the gutter?

Freysimo · 21/05/2026 07:51

I presume you're referring to the on line version? The printed newspaper has a different editor and I find lots to read. Yes, it's very much a right wing paper, but it often has articles by ex Labour politicians. I never look at the on line version, mainly dross.

OvernightBloats · 21/05/2026 07:56

They are catering more and more for the US market now. Using American words so much that it seems their focus is not here.

The aim is to get as much money as possible by writing sensationalist headlines which get the clicks. The articles usually don't match up to the headlines. It's all clickbait rubbish. There are some well written articles but they are hard to find now!

The Mail's obsession with using 'flaunting' describing women is so misogynistic. It has definitely got worse. Used to be a guilty pleasure but their worldview as a whole is depressing so I spend very little time on there now.

LeedsLoiner · 21/05/2026 08:05

You can’t go downhill when you’re already in the gutter…

fairislecable · 21/05/2026 08:06

I read the Daily Mail online after I have looked at the BBC webpage and the Guardian.

If there was a specific news story the DM would have much more detail and would fill in lots of areas not covered by the other two.

You are right, lately I look on the DM site and can go from top to bottom without clicking on ANY story.

I find the constant headlining of Trump Putin and any other warmongers so depressing.

MikeRafone · 21/05/2026 08:07

Perhaps it’s you that’s changed

TheoriginalMrsDarcy · 21/05/2026 08:12

It was never uphill to start with... 😂.... most of it is full of nonsense and propaganda. You just have to know what bits are worth reading.

DrEmilyCrabtree · 21/05/2026 08:20

It has always been horrendous. This is the paper that was happy to support Hitler in the 1930s. Jan Moir is lower than low. The disgraceful piece she wrote about Stephen Gately just after his death should have been the end of her career. The fact that she still works for them says it all, about both parties

CaesarAugusta · 21/05/2026 08:39

It's always been bad, and inevitably it loses readership as time goes on as it appeals to an older demographic. It also suffered from its whole-hearted support of the likes of Johnson and Truss, and its attitude to Trump now is not helping it. Paying a fortune to Johnson to write boring bollocks hasn't helped, either.

So I think it's gone into a bit of a downward spiral. Because it's losing readers, it's losing advertising remedy, so it's laid off a lot of staff which means it just hasn't got the necessary editorial material to draw people in - the ones left are resorting to plagiarising and taking the easy route of lifting stuff off social media. So that means it loses yet more readers. God knows what the thinking was behind putting in a paywall, because that loses even more and there's even less incentive for advertisers to place ads with them. Couple that with its bewilderment that it no longer has the political influence it once did, and it's just not worth clicking on.

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