Dacre’s departure from the Daily Mail “will lead into a different kind of national discourse,” says Steven Barnett in the Atlantic

This week, an article in The Atlantic, by Tom Rachman, asks if Geordie Greig, the incoming editor of the Daily Mail, might be the man to change to shape of Britain, Brexit, and the media. The article opens by noting that this is a strange time in the United Kingdom, with Brexit hurtling closer without anyone yet knowing what leaving the European Union will mean. It’s also, Rachman notes, a curious time for the press, as circulation plummets. Yet one print publication, the Daily Mail, still commands vast power, its thunderous front-page headlines all but causing the paintings to tremble at 10 Downing Street. And this the article suggests is where Greig might become one of the biggest influences on the political landscape.

The article which dips and dives through the potential future of the UK under a ‘new’ Daily Mail, reaches a conclusion, shared by CAMRI’s Steven Barnett, that whatever happens Dacre’s departure “will lead into a different kind of national discourse”.  Prof. Barnett goes on to suggest that “there will be a toned-down sense of conservatism which will be less angry, less rabid, less divisive, and perhaps more constructive.” Still though, the article concludes, in these bitterly partisan times—when “fake news” is a slur rather than a statement of fact, when “most-read” is often a way of saying “most-emotive,” and when earnest editors earn their gray hairs by worrying about virality—the question is whether “less rabid, less divisive” is a formula that can command much power.

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