Who’d want to be a newspaper proprietor these days? A couple of decades ago print owners (or “barons” to give them their tabloid name) must have felt as though they were printing money alongside the evening news. Then along came the internet and the rest is history.
It certainly is history for Evgeny Lebedev’s Evening Standard, which printed its final edition on 19 September after 197 years (it will continue online and as a new weekly print title). Meanwhile, a bidding war continues for the Telegraph, involving Paul Marshall (who last week bought the Spectator), Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, David Montgomery’s National World and the former Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s rumoured band of billionaires.
For while the cash rewards of news ownership may be diminishing, the political rewards are as dazzling as ever. The rutting stags of publishing are less interested in pound signs and more in power. But what happens when an owner remains secret?
It is such lack of transparency that has caused crisis at the Jewish Chronicle. As Josh Glancy writes on page 12, the JC has pulled a series of innacurate reports about the war in Gaza by the freelance “journalist” Elon Perry. One told how “intelligence sources” had revealed Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, was planning to smuggle himself out of Gaza through the Philadelphi corridor. Yet Israel Defense Forces sources said they knew nothing of the plan. Inconsistencies also emerged in Perry’s credentials.
For four years, contributors and readers have been pushing for an answer to who owns the JC. It was rescued from liquidation in 2020 by a secret consortium fronted by one-time Theresa May spin supremo Robbie Gibb. Readers soon noticed a change in editorial policy. A former JC insider told me: “It had always been a hugely trusted newspaper which served the entire breadth of opinion in the Jewish community. But then Gibb got involved and everything changed… It felt like we were no longer serving the entire Jewish community, just one part of it.”
On 15 September JC editor Jake Wallis Simons wrote on X: “Obviously it’s every newspaper editor’s worst nightmare to be deceived by a journalist.” Indeed it is. But then, isn’t it every reader’s worst nightmare to be deceived by a publication it trusts?
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Huw Edwards has walked away with a six-month suspended sentence after admitting accessing indecent pictures of children as young as seven. He’s also walked away with £200,000 of licence fee payers’ cash, which the BBC paid him despite bosses knowing he’d been charged with serious offences. In mitigation a psychiatrist told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that Edwards suffered with low self-esteem and felt inferior about not getting into Oxford, “and being therefore something of an outsider at the BBC”. What an excuse! They must sort that diversity drive at the BBC…
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The future of the Murdoch dynasty is being thrashed out in the Western Nevada city of Reno. The battle centres on 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch’s decision to change the terms of a trust fund. (Let’s take any Succession comparisons as read.) At present, control of Fox Corp and News Corp would be split between his four eldest children: Prudence, James, Elisabeth and Lachlan. But concerned some of his kids have gone a bit woke (with James even donating to Kamala Harris’s campaign and dreaming of Fox as “a force for good”) he now wants voting power to go solely to Lachlan. To have any chance of winning, Murdoch must prove change is in the best financial interests of News Corp. And to be fair, it probably is: being a force for good in the US may be commendable, but it’s a whole lot less commercially viable.
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Rumours continue to swirl around the Express newsroom that editor Gary Jones has parted ways with owner Reach. Staff say he hasn’t been seen in the office since 9 September. If Jones (a friend from our Sunday Mirror days) has gone, it will be a huge loss. When he took over the Express six years ago it was famed for Islamophobia, a curious fascination with Princess Diana and weather stories. Under Jones, the title was removed from Stop Funding Hate’s hit list as he set about restoring journalistic rigour. There’s a lot the Express writes that I don’t agree with. But we must value journalism we don’t agree with as much as that we do.
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The Guardian has worked out what to do about its sister Sunday title, the Observer: sell it. Talks are ongoing about paper’s takeover by Tortoise Media, the “slow news” digital start-up launched by former head of BBC News and Times editor James Harding. The Observer has long felt squeezed out by the Guardian, unable to define itself digitally. But staff this week were worried about losing content from Guardian reporters, particularly in sport, finance and foreign. Its editor, Paul Webster, had already announced his intention to retire this autumn.
It is interesting that Tortoise, so focused on audio and digital output, is flirting with print. One media insider said the attraction was scale and the possibility of unlocking advertising as a revenue stream. (At present, Tortoise is dependent on membership and brand partners.) With a renewed interest in print titles that offer readers long-form analysis and a sense of “digital detox”, it could be that the future is weekly…
[See also: The Huw Edwards crisis reveals the failures of BBC governance]
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This article appears in the 18 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, What’s the story?