Daily Mail poaches new MailOnline editor from Murdoch's Fox

The publisher of the Daily Mail has turned to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to poach a new chief editor for its websites.

Noah Kotch, the editor-in-chief of Fox News Digital, has been named the new editor-in-chief of DailyMail.com and MailOnline.

Kotch was previously the founding publisher of Heat Street – a website launched in 2016 by former Conservative MP Louise Mensch that closed in 2017 – and senior producer on NBC’s Today show for five years.

He effectively replaces Martin Clarke, who will retain his role as the publisher of the DailyMail.com/MailOnline and Metro.co.uk, while taking on additional responsibility as the publisher of DMG Media’s flagship newspapers, the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro.

“We look forward to him growing our editorial operation, particularly in the US and beyond,” said Clarke, who launched DailyMail.com in 2007 and has led the global expansion of MailOnline. “We have been very impressed with the transformation he has brought about at FoxNews.com over the past year.”

Despite enormous success in the US under Clarke, the site recently reported a fall of almost 10% in global traffic, which it blamed in part on changes to Facebook’s algorithm.

The latest shake-up followed the announcement earlier this month that Paul Dacre is to stand down in November as editor of the Daily Mail after 26 years at the helm, bringing to an end one of the most influential reigns in British journalism. Dacre had always sought to distance his print newspaper from its online stablemate.

Dacre, 69, will remain with the company as chairman and editor-in-chief of DMG Media, the publishing arm of Lord Rothermere’s DMGT.

The Mail on Sunday’s editor, Geordie Greig, has been named as the new editor of the Daily Mail, with Ted Verity, the deputy editor of the Daily Mail, taking over from him at the Mail on Sunday.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday delivered income of £219m during the first six months of 2018, despite the Daily Mail’s circulation almost halving over the past 15 years, to 1.3m copies a day.

MailOnline, which claims to be the most-read English-language news website in the world, with tens of millions of readers, brought in just £61m during the same period, albeit with a smaller cost base.