Born in Glasgow, "K.J." was educated at a local high school before leaving at the age of sixteen to start a career in journalism. He worked as a reporter and sub-editor for local newspapers, including The News and the Evening News. Moving south in the late 1880s, he worked for papers in Leicester and Birmingham before moving to London in search of employment there. Though his contribution to starting a new newspaper, The Evening, in 1892 proved futile, he remained convinced that a halfpenny morning daily would be economically viable.
Work with Northcliffe
After working for a time for The Sun as chief sub-editor, in 1894 he took a gamble along with The Sun's assistant editor, Louis Tracy and acquired an option to purchase the Evening News. Though enjoying a circulation of 100,000, the newspaper was running at a loss, and Jones and Tracy both hoped to sell the paper quickly to Alfred Harmsworth, who was looking to purchase his first London daily. In August the three signed an agreement in which Jones and Tracey each received 7½ percent of the profits generated by the newspaper. Jones soon took over as editor, remaking the paper with new typography and a greater emphasis on sports coverage, competitions, serialized fiction, and attention-grabbing feature articles, at which Jones excelled. This was a new style of journalism which proved enormously profitable. Jones's gruff, abrasive manner soon helped established him as Harmsworth's business manager, and Harmsworth gave him considerable freedom in making decisions. In 1895 Jones acquired the Glasgow Daily Record, as part of a plan to acquire a chain of provincial dailies. This plan was abandoned the following year with the launch of the Daily Mail, which embodied Jones' vision of an halfpenny paper marketed to the middle class and produced in London for a nationwide market. Though not the editor, Jones was in charge of the style and content, and his instinct for what his readers wanted helped make the Daily Mail a runaway success, growing from an initial planned run of 100,000 to over 500,000 copies in circulation within three years of its launch. Though he seemed to enjoy his hard-nosed reputation as Harmsworth's business manager, Jones was capable of acting with more subtlety, as he did in 1908 when he served as an intermediary for Harmsworth's ultimately successful negotiations to purchase The Times. Though Jones introduced many of his innovations, he was not elected to the paper's board of directors and was denied the editorial influence he expected. After an intestinal operation in 1912, Jones sold his shares in the newspapers at a handsome profit, retaining a chairmanship of Waring & Gillow until 1914.
