martin clarke, the publisher of mailonline, has announced that he will be leaving the website amid ongoing turmoil at the top of parent company dmg media.
The journalist will step down after 13 years in charge of the outlet, having built it into one of the world’s largest news websites. He took a small site that republished the content of the daily mail and the mail from the Sunday print newspapers and turned it into an aggressive global tabloid with a huge audience drawn to stories of celebrities and scandals.
The news of his departure shocked mailonline staff, who only two weeks ago assumed that clarke had emerged as one of the victors in an internal power struggle. The past month has seen the promotion of Clarke’s right-hand man, Richard Caccappolo, to the role of CEO of the broader media business, the departure of Daily Mail publisher Geordie Greig, and the return of former Daily Mail publisher Paul Dacre in an advisory role.
In a statement, Clarke said he was leaving “to pursue new challenges” but will “remain available to the company until the end of 2022,” meaning he cannot join another publisher until then.
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There have been persistent rumors that Clarke was approached by Rupert Murdoch to join his UK news team, but multiple industry sources strongly denied this is in the cards.
Instead, a source claimed that despite his large salary, Clarke had become increasingly ambitious and wanted a larger personal financial stake in whatever media business he ran. this would never be possible at mailonline, which is run by majority shareholder lord rothermere, who is in the process of delisting the company and returning it to family ownership.
In this story, Clarke decided some time ago to leave the company to seek autonomy and a big financial payday, either running her own media business or as part of a larger technology company.
this led rothermere to believe he needed a strong editorial voice within the company, which led him to retain the services of dacre, who then publicly ruled himself out of the race to become chairman of media regulator ofcom. One source suggested that this cascading chain of events, beginning with Clarke’s resignation from MailOnline and the creation of a new role for Dacre, contributed to the decision to remove Greig as editor of the Print Daily Mail.
The rapid series of changes has surprised many executives at the company’s headquarters in West London, where staff have also been dealing with a high-profile legal case against Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
The latest announcement comes just over a fortnight after changes to the daily mail appeared to point to closer cooperation between the daily, its sister Sunday paper and the website. As part of the changes, Ted Verity, the editor of the Sunday Mail, was also put in charge of the paper.
Clarke will not be universally missed within the mailonline office, where he was known as a short-tempered workaholic. even staff who respected his eye for tabloid news describe how he regularly yelled at staff. many other employees who felt unable to keep up with the demands for a quick response to stories ended up leaving the outlet.
In response to Clarke’s departure, Rothermere said: “I had to reluctantly accept Martin’s resignation, as he is without a doubt one of the best editors of his generation; and I am eternally grateful to him for all of his immense hard work and genius over the years.
“daily mail is great because of the hard work of many, not just a few. Martin leaves behind a legacy of an impressive number of highly talented and committed people across the company who will continue to build on what he has created and keep the Daily Mail a huge success around the world.”