The Morning Star
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- For other uses, see Morning Star.
The Morning Star is a left-wing, British, daily newspaper. It was founded in 1930 and was called the Daily Worker until 1966. Its publishers claim that it is the only English-language daily socialist newspaper in the world. Others dispute this claim.
The Morning Star is connected to and supported by the Communist Party of Britain. The editorship of the paper were part of the group that left the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1988 to found the CPB, taking the paper with them. Despite this connection, however, it is editorially independent and does not pursue any overt sectarian agenda. Features are contributed by writers from a variety of socialist, social democratic and green perspectives, and there are frequent contributions from campaigning journalists John Pilger and Uri Avnery, Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, Members of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway, and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
Unlike many socialist newspapers, it does not concentrate on politics to the exclusion of everything else. Its concise and wide-ranging reports of foreign and national news often cover events overlooked by the mainstream media, but it is entirely free of the celebrity gossip and other trivia that feature in all the other national dailies to varying degrees. There are daily sports pages, television and radio listings and arts reviews, a weekly crossword, a regular gardening column and a fortnightly cookery spot ("The Commie Chef").
It is owned and published by a readers' cooperative, the People's Press Printing Society, which depends on voluntary contributions for its income. This arrangement means that it is likely to remain a relatively minor player in the world of newspaper publishing, but gives it the advantage that its reporting can be seen to be independent and not influenced by corporate advertisers or a powerful proprietor.
It has a circulation of between 13,000 and 14,000.
An on-line version of the paper was launched on 1 April 2004. Parts of the site (including the editorial "star comment") are free, but all the actual news reporting is subscription only.
External links
- The Morning Star On-Line (http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/)
Articles
- Coughlan, Sean. Pressing On. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4361137.stm) BBC News Magazine (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/default.stm). Monday, 21 March 2005. Retrieved 24 May 2005.
- Deeson, Martin. Still flying the red flag: Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Morning Star presses are still rolling. (http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=640613) The Independent. Monday. 23 May 2005. Retrieved 24 May 2005.