Daily Mail editor Geordie Greig steps down as Ted Verity takes charge of seven-day operation

Daily Mail editor Geordie Greig is leaving his role this week, with the Mail on Sunday’s Ted Verity stepping up to take charge of a new seven-day operation.

Verity will take on the role of Mail Newspapers editor with responsibility for the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and You magazine. He was previously deputy editor at the Daily Mail before taking on the Sunday editorship in 2018.

No separate editor for the Mail on Sunday will be appointed. Martin Clarke remains publisher of DMG Media, which gives him oversight of the two Mail print titles as well as Mail Online and Metro.

Greig (pictured), who became Mail on Sunday editor in 2012 and took on the Daily Mail from Paul Dacre in 2018, is to become consultant editor.

Mail owner Lord Rothermere said: “Under Geordie’s leadership, the Daily Mail has continued to inform and entertain millions of readers with the very best journalism, becoming the biggest-selling newspaper in the UK and winning multiple prizes for Daily Newspaper of the Year.”

He added that Greig masterminded Mail Force, the campaign that raised more than £25m during the pandemic that started with flying in PPE for healthcare workers. The campaign won the inaugural Public Service Award at the 2020 British Journalism Awards.

Lord Rothermere added: “I know that Ted, who has been an exceptional editor of The Mail on Sunday, is a Mail journalist to his core and uniquely placed to oversee the next chapter for our newspapers.”

Greig said: “I am grateful to Lord Rothermere for ten extraordinary years
as editor of his newspapers. I thank everyone who has worked with me; my colleagues have been heroic and inspiring. I wish my successor Ted Verity good luck and also continued good fortune to the Mail.

“I look forward to new opportunities ahead and will bring the best of what
I learnt from my years at the Mail on which I first joined in 1983 as its most junior reporter on the graveyard shift.”

The move to a seven-day operation follows other national newspapers such as The Sun, where a new editor was not appointed for The Sun on Sunday after Victoria Newton moved to the daily in 2020. The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People restructured under editor-in-chief Alison Phillips, in 2020 but the Sunday titles do still have their own editor – Gemma Aldridge. The Times and Sunday Times also still have different editors.

The Mail titles had until now kept a separation between the daily and Sunday titles including differing editorial lines on subjects such as Brexit. The print titles have also stayed largely separate from Mail Online.

Under Greig, the Mail has changed its tone on Europe, moving away from a hard Brexit stance to support compromise with the EU. Greig had previously opposed Brexit as editor of the Mail on Sunday in opposition to Paul Dacre, his predecessor at the Daily Mail.

Dacre left the roles of editor-in-chief and chairman of Associated Newspapers two weeks ago, three years after he took them on when he stepped down as Daily Mail editor.

In a rare interview, Greig told Press Gazette earlier this year that the Mail brand is “a trusted brand and it’s a force for good in holding up the powerful to scrutiny”.

The Daily Mail is the UK’s biggest national newspaper and has used its clout in recent weeks to criticise the government over its handling of allegations of sleaze.

The editorial shake-up follows a reorganisation of the executive team this week as DMG Media chief executive Kevin Beatty announced his plan to step down.

Mail Online chief operating officer Richard Caccappolo will replace Beatty as chief executive while DMGT’s deputy chief financial officer will be deputy chief executive.

It also comes as Lord Rothermere works towards taking DMGT private after nearly a century on the stock market. A takeover plan has been agreed and shareholders have until 16 December to approve the deal, which values the company at £850m.

Picture: Daily Mail