The New Yorker, renowned for its impeccably researched essays, has this week published an 8,732-word account of the Daily Mail. The magazine's London correspondent, Lauren Collins, attended editorial meetings and spoke to journalists past and present, including a "courteous, if slightly brittle" editor-in-chief Paul Dacre.
In case you don't have time for all nine pages, highlights include:
▶ Editorial meetings are referred to as the "vagina monologues" because Dacre uses the c-word to describe his staff.
▶ When Liz Jones wrote a column about stealing her husband's sperm to impregnate herself, she gained the moniker Jizz Loans.
▶ Despite the burgeoning popularity of the Mail's website, Dacre doesn't have a computer in his office.
▶ One editor told Colins: "The paper's defining ideology is that Britain has gone to the dogs."
