London Daily News
Encyclopedia
The London Daily News was a short-lived London newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 owned by Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...

.

1987

The London Daily News was published from 24 February to 24 July 1987. It was intended to be a "24-hour" paper challenging the local dominance of the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

."For the city that never sleeps, the paper that never stops", ran the slogan. The Standard’s owners, Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...

, responded by re-launching the defunct Evening News
Evening News (London)
Evening News, formerly known as The Evening News, was an evening newspaper published in London from 1881 to 1980, reappearing briefly in 1987. It became highly popular under the control of the Harmsworth brothers. For a long time it maintained the largest daily sale of any evening newspaper in London...

at a lower price to squeeze the London Daily News out of the market. A price war ensued finishing with the London Daily News selling at 10p and the Evening News at 5p.

Maxwell was dismissive when he heard about the cut-price Evening News. He told the BBC: "The Evening Standard and Lord Rothermere are so worried about their monopoly - which the London Daily News is finally breaking - and so scared about the huge demand for our paper, that they've brought out a cheapo Evening News, which is really a joke." After the London Daily News collapsed, The Evening Standard 's publishers, Associated Newspapers, saw that the Evening News had done its job and then re-absorbed it into Evening Standard. The London Daily News was the first home of the Alex cartoon, later published by The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

and the Daily Telegraph.

Maxwell had conceded defeat on 25 July 1987 an hour after paying undisclosed damages to Associated Newspapers for accusing it of lying about the Evening Standard 's circulation figures. Starting the London Daily News, which published four editions a day, had cost him $40 million (about £ 24.96 million), the New York Times estimated. His paper was “selling less than 100,000 copies, when minimum sales targets were 200,000 by this time".

Exclusives

The paper famously exposed a scandal relating to war crimes in Sri Lanka when it revealed and confirmed the presence of British mercenaries of the secret KMS unit working with Sri Lankan troops, and the subsequent termination of this following the discovery of atrocities committed against the Tamil population. The KMS mercenaries walked out after complaining that the Sri Lankan Special Task Force "was running out of control and was indiscriminately killing and torturing Tamil civilians". Noted Human Rights Lawyer Karen Parker
Karen Parker (lawyer)
Karen Parker, is an attorney based in San Francisco specialised in human rights and humanitarian law.She participated to the evolution of international law in the field of economic sanctions, weaponry, environment as a human right, and the rights of disabled persons. She is also an expert witness...

 cited the news article in one of her NGO interventions criticizing the Government of Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
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