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EU referendum: Daily Mail front page says Leave, Mirror backs Remain – weight of Fleet Street coverage favours Brexit

By Dominic Ponsford

The Daily Mail used its front page and 13 inside pages to make the case for leaving the EU today.

With one day to go until the EU referendum vote, the Mail said on its front page today: “If you believe in Britain vote Leave.”

There was no surprise at the Daily Mail’s editorial position. Press Gazette analysis shows that 18 of the paper’s last 27 front pages have favoured the Leave campaign. It has published no front-page stories favouring Remain.

The Daily Mail sells an average of 1.5m copies per day. According to the National Readership Survey its print edition reaches 10m readers over the course of a month.

The latest opinion polls suggest the UK is evenly split on Leave versus Remain.

The Daily Mirror today urged its readers to vote to stay in the EU with a front-page story that urged its readers to vote Remain.

mirror_stay

Overall, the weight of UK national press coverage has been biased in favour of the Leave campaign with The Sun, Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph all favouring Brexit.

Press Gazette’s Brexitometer tracker chart (at the top of this page) tots up the total circulation of newspapers each day with front-page stories favouring Remain, versus those with front-page stories favouring Leave.

For the last three days, the Sun, Mail, Telegraph and Express titles have all published pro-Leave front pages, they have a combined circulation of 4.2m.

Today, the Daily Mirror, Times and Guardian all had stories backing remain on their front pages, a combined circulation of 1.4m. Titles with front-page stories favouring neither side had a total circulation today of 2.1m.

This gives us today’s national press Brexitometer reading (22/6/2016):

dial_8

 

The following chart totals up national newspaper front-page stories favouring either Leave, Remain or neither since 23 May.

The Daily Express, Sun, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have all strongly favoured Leave in their front-page editorial coverage over the last month of the campaign.

Other titles have been more even in their coverage, with The Guardian and Times swinging squarely behind Remain in their front page coverage over the last week.

Newspaper front pages 23 May – 22 June 2016 favouring Leave, Remain or neither:

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Press EU referendum endorsements at a glance:

Leave:

The Sun titles
Express titles
Telegraph titles
The Sunday Times
Daily Mail
The Spectator

Remain:

Mail on Sunday
The Times
Daily Mirror
The Economist
The Guardian
The Observer
New Statesman
Financial Times
Manchester Evening News
Liverpool Echo
The Journal (Newcastle)
Daily Record
Sunday Mail

Topics in this article :

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