A spokesman says: "We stand by the decision we took at the time We never said the accusations of abuse were false We said the pictures were fakes. They cost the newspaper three per cent of its circulation." Since then circulation decline has slowed. For six months the Mirror's share of the newspaper market has been constant at about 19.5 per cent.Morgan's successor, Richard Wallace, might take some comfort from this. But it cannot disguise the truth that the Daily Mirror lost twice as many sales in the past 12 months as its main competitor The Sun (200,000 against 100,000), or that with its December 2004 ABC down to 1,700,902 the title is perilously close to falling below 1.7 million.Some City analysts believe that time is running out for Sly Bailey.
Others point out that the national titles continue to make healthy profits for TM and that recent circulation decline has coincided with slightly increased profitability.The bottom line is not yet in crisis, but the identity and mood of a once-great campaigning newspaper is. The argument about the fate of the Daily Mirror is the debate about the future of newspapers in microcosm. Are they sponsors of debate, essential to the democratic health of the nation? Or just businesses like any other? The Mirror may be proving that they must be both and that the business side can only thrive when editorial tradition is protected against commercial vacillation. Or, as one former editor puts it, "Piers Morgan was utterly wrong to use those pictures but right about what the Mirror is for.
Sly may come to regret not understanding that sooner."40 YEARS ON THE SLIDE1965: THE GLORY YEARSFounded in 1903, 'Mirror' tops 5m sales. Hits all-time high of 5.2m in 1967 under editor Hugh Cudlipp1969: PROOPS'S PARTY IS POOPEDMarjorie Proops reigns supreme as agony aunt. But Rupert Murdoch's 'Sun' signals start of 'Mirror' decline1984: PROPRIETOR FROM HELLThough a bully, Robert Maxwell temporarily lifts the paper. His tenure ends in 1991 with his death, and a financial scandal is exposed1992: MONTY'S SHADOWDavid Montgomery arrives as chief executive of Mirror Group.
Presides over era of cost-cutting - and gets through four editors in seven years1995: PIERS IN HIS PRIMEPiers Morgan is made editor at 30. Restores paper's campaigning edge, introduces the 3am Girls, opposes war in Iraq, but sales still slide2004: FRONT-PAGE INFAMYPhotographs of British soldiers' abuse of Iraqis are fakes, and Morgan has to go Seven months later circulation is down to 1.7m. The good news for Ron Atkinson is that few people believe his latest remarks - in which he insulted Chinese women - are racist. The bad news is that the disgraced former football manager and television pundit has been described as a sexist bigot, and any hopes he had of reviving his lucrative TV career are almost certainly over. That remark, broadcast live to the Middle East, cost Atkinson his television pundit's job and column in The Guardian, and earned him a new nickname, Ron the Racist.Yet on Friday, speaking to more than 250 people at a fund-raising event at Sheffield Wednesday, one of his many former clubs, he said: "I can't understand why there is such a population problem in China as they have the best contraception going: Chinese women are the ugliest in the world."The reaction has been mixed. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, was not inclined to take Mr Atkinson's comment too seriously.He said: "If he would like, I will personally take him to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, both of which star probably the most beautiful film actress in the world, Zhang Ziyi, and I'll defy him to tell me Chinese women are ugly. Ron Atkinson just needs to get out more."Christine Yau, vice-chairman of the London Chinatown Chinese Association, said: "Ron Atkinson is hardly a Tom Cruise or Prince William - if he was, then perhaps Chinese women would be upset.