When Is The Daily Mail Not The Daily Mail?

If you’ve ever been outraged by the Mail Online’s sidebar of shame or the questionable comments made by some of its equally questionable columnists and poured scorn on Paul Dacre and The Daily Mail, you might just owe them a big apology.

Apparently, the Mail Online and The Daily Mail are “totally separate entities” with completely different world views and very different readerships. This was highlighted in a recent argument between The Daily Mail and The Guardian.

The Daily Mail accused The Guardian of lying when it suggested that controversial hack Katie Hopkins worked for The Daily Mail.

The piece in The Guardian followed the news that Hopkins had been reported to the police for stirring-up anti-Muslim sentiment by calling for a “final solution” following the Manchester bombing.

In reply, a column in The Daily Mail stated: “Earlier this week, a Guardian writer attacked the Daily Mail for carrying comments by the controversialist Katie Hopkins. That was a lie.”

The column continued: “The Guardian and its writer know that Ms Hopkins has nothing to do with the Daily Mail, but works for Mail Online – a totally separate entity that has its own publisher, its own readership, different content and a very different world view.”

An article in the online edition of The i suggests the column is the “authentic voice” of The Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and highlights a growing “schism” between the print edition and the online publication.

The column, which was not published online, suggests that readers of The Daily Mail are “small-c conservatives” with no ill-feeling towards Muslims or immigrants.

The two questions I would like to ask Paul Darce are: Is he suggesting that readers of The Mail Online hold somewhat more extreme political views?

And: If The Daily Mail and Mail Online are completely separate entities why does the front page of the print edition promote the web address of the online edition so prominently?