The Daily Mash - History

History

The Daily Mash was launched in April 2007 by journalists Paul Stokes and Neil Rafferty. Stokes is a former business editor of The Scotsman and has also written for Scotland on Sunday and The Daily Record. Rafferty is a former political correspondent for The Sunday Times, has also written for Press Association and Business AM and is a former spokesman for the smokers’ lobby group FOREST. The site was originally inspired by The Onion, a US satirical publication, as Stokes and Rafferty saw a gap in the market for a similar publication in Britain. Both journalists worked mainly for Scottish newspapers and The Daily Mash is sometimes aligned specifically with Scotland and its culture.

Stokes and Rafferty earn salaries from the site and lead a small team of freelance writers. The site earns revenue through advertising and merchandise and is a successful profit-making enterprise. It presents a niche opportunity to advertisers, due to its apparent target audience of procrastinating office workers (Citi employees complained to The Daily Mash and independent publications after the company banned them from accessing the site). Highlights of the publication's first year have been published in book form as Halfwit Nation: Frontline Reporting from the War on Stupid, both to acclaim and complaints of unintelligent, overly crude humour.

According to an online survey, the site's readership mainly consists of university graduates who also read newspapers such as The Independent, The Guardian and The Times. According to the same survey, 65% of its readers have incomes of more than £30,000, with 22% earning more than £70,000. 81% of the site's hits are from UK users (as of 2008), with 19% coming from the US.