Cudlipp, giant of the tabloids, dies

LORD CUDLIPP, the man considered by many to be the greatest ever tabloid journalist, has died after suffering from lung cancer.

His family announced that he died at home in Chichester, West Sussex, yesterday morning. He was 84.

Cudlipp remains Fleet Street's youngest-ever editor, having taken charge of the Sunday Pictorial - later the Sunday Mirror - at the age of 24. But it was on the Daily Mirror that Hugh Cudlipp really made his mark. During the 1940s and 1950s, he transformed the paper into something both popular and high-minded.

Former Daily Mirror editor Richard Stott said: "Hugh Cudlipp was one of the greatest tabloid journalists there ever was. He was the architect of the Mirror of the 40s and 50s."

Mike Molloy, editor of the Daily Mirror from 1975 to 1985, described Cudlipp as "the most exciting man you could meet in journalism".