This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
A long-simmering feud between the Daily Mail and the New York Post has reached its apex with both outlets apparently instructing editors to avoid mentioning, attributing, or linking to the other, Confider has learned.
The two wildly popular tabloids have long competed over the same stories, and have often resisted acknowledging rivals. But their beefing heated up last month, four people familiar with the situation said, when the Post initially failed to credit the Mail as having first reported a lawsuit claiming pro-golf star Greg Norman and his wife hosted a boozy party where an underage girl was sexually assaulted.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Post later added a credit, but hard feelings lingered, with Mail leaders quietly directing news staff to stop linking to the Post.
Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to the Confider newsletter here and have The Daily Beast media team’s stellar reporting sent straight to your inbox every Monday night.
The cold war turned hot again last week, however, when the Mail then didn’t credit the Post for its interview with the wife of a Long Island man who stripped naked at a Vegas casino and danced on a poker table after punching a one-legged gambler.
The Mail later added a credit after annoyed Post brass reached out, but the paper ultimately decided to issue a similar edict to its editors.
On Friday, the Post’s managing editor Lia Eustachewich made the policy overt in a memo emailed to staff and obtained and reviewed by Confider: “Going forward, we will NOT be attributing or linking to the Daily Mail in our stories,” she wrote. “Any issues, please come to me directly. Thanks.”
A Mail insider told Confider: “Story crediting goes both ways. The Greg Norman story was the final straw inside the Mail because there wasn’t even attribution let alone a hyperlink.”
Neither the Post nor the Mail responded to requests for comment, but Confider is happy to hold a peacemaking summit so these two tabloids can kiss and make up.
Subscribe to the Confider newsletter here and have The Daily Beast media team’s stellar reporting sent straight to your inbox every Monday night.
