The Daily Telegraph

Lore & Background

Founded in 1855 by Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh, The Daily Telegraph, often called The Telegraph, is a British daily broadsheet newspaper with a conservative stance, published in London by Telegraph Media Group and available both in the UK and abroad. Its emblem, used for over a century from 1858, bore the motto "Was, is, and will be." In 2013, The Daily Telegraph merged with The Sunday Telegraph, which had launched in 1961, though the Sunday edition kept its own editor. Both papers are politically conservative and back the Conservative Party, though The Daily Telegraph was moderately liberal until the late 1870s. The paper is known for several major scoops: Clare Hollingworth’s eyewitness report on the outbreak of World War II, called "the scoop of the century"; the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, which forced high-profile resignations and earned the paper the 2009 British Newspaper of the Year award; a 2016 undercover investigation into England football manager Sam Allardyce; and the 2023 Lockdown Files.

In May 2025, investment firm RedBird Capital Partners planned to buy the paper’s publisher for £500 million (around US$674 million), but the deal fell through in November 2025. In March 2026, German company Axel Springer SE announced it would acquire Telegraph Media Group for £575 million, with CEO Mathias Döpfner calling it a long-standing goal and promising to preserve the paper’s editorial character. The acquisition was completed in June 2026.

Reader's Guide

The Telegraph was headlined by the BBC in 2004 as the UK's 'other paper of record' and mentioned in the Broadview Guide to Writing in 2017 as a newspaper of record among others.

Did You Know?

• During the Second World War, The Daily Telegraph covertly helped in the recruitment of code-breakers for Bletchley Park.