Category Archives: Newspapers

No more ‘basket-case Britain’: Europe welcomes Starmer reset in UK-EU ties

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PM’s promise to draw line under years of fractious relations greeted with plaudits and relief by European media

Keir Starmer’s promised “reset” of the UK’s ties with the rest of Europe has drawn a positive response in European media, with one longtime journalist rejoicing that she will never again have to cover “Britain as a basket case”.

The prime minister told leaders at a meeting of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire on Thursday that he wanted to draw a line under years of fractious relations with the rest of Europe. The relaunch was greeted with a sense of relief that after years of chaotic leadership in London a new age of cooperation was beginning.

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Wall Street Journal fires new chair of Hong Kong Journalists Association

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Selina Cheng says she believes her termination is linked to her taking up the position at the embattled union

The chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association has been fired by her employer, the Wall Street Journal, weeks after being appointed as the head of the embattled union.

Selina Cheng said she was “appalled” that her first press conference as HKJA chair was to announce that she had been “fired for taking up this position in a press union”.

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Labour donor Dale Vince has libel case against Daily Mail thrown out

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Energy entrepreneur claimed headline about different man used alongside his photograph was defamatory

The millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince’s £100,000 libel case against the Daily Mail has been thrown out after a high court judge ruled it did not have a realistic chance of success.

The green energy businessman and Forest Green Rovers chairman claimed the newspaper libelled him in a June 2023 article titled “Labour repays £100,000 to ‘sex harassment’ donor”.

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Russia bans Moscow Times in crackdown on independent media

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Move leaves anybody who cooperates with ‘undesirable’ news outlet liable to prosecution

Russia has classed the Moscow Times as an “undesirable organisation”, outlawing its activities inside Russia and leaving anybody who cooperates with it open to prosecution.

The Kremlin has escalated a campaign against independent media and reporting since Russia launched a military offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.

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UK political parties on track to spend £1m on election day online ads

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Digital campaigning gets round media blackout rule restricting broadcasters’ coverage while polls are open

The UK’s political parties are on track to spend more than a million pounds on online adverts on Thursday, circumventing a media blackout rule that forces television and radio stations to stop their election coverage when polls open.

British parties have traditionally ceased top-level campaign activity when voting began as they had no way to get out their message out. This is because of a longstanding broadcasting rule, enforced by the media regulator Ofcom, that states: “Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens.”

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US Congress faces growing calls to withdraw Netanyahu invitation: ‘a terrible mistake’

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Notable Israelis add their voices to oppose invite extended by Mike Johnson, which Democrats plan to boycott

A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.

The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.

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Closed-door trial of US journalist Evan Gershkovich begins in Russia

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WSJ reporter faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on spying charges US says are politically motivated

A Russian court has begun a closed-door trial of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges that he, his employer and the US government have all described as politically motivated.

Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, his head shaven by prison authorities, after being transferred from the Moscow jail where has been held since March 2023.

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Nigel Farage attacks Mail newspapers over ‘Putin ally’ reports

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Reform UK leader accuses group of trying to stop his party breaking through into parliament

Nigel Farage has launched a stinging attack on the Daily Mail group, accusing the newspapers of trying to stop Reform UK “breaking through into parliament” by publishing reports that suggest he is an ally of Vladmir Putin’s administration.

Farage said the newspaper, which has often been supportive of him in the past, was “collaborating with the Kremlin to protect the dying Conservative party”, also lashing out at Boris Johnson for joining condemnation of his comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Jailed US reporter to be tried behind closed doors, says Russian court

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First hearing in trial of Evan Gershkovich, who denies charges of spying, scheduled for next week in Ekaterinburg

The jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will be tried behind closed doors by a Russian court later this month in a high-profile prosecution that his employer and the US government have decried as a sham.

Gershkovich, who was arrested last March in Ekaterinburg while on a reporting trip, has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for more than a year while Russia’s FSB security service says it has been carrying out an investigation into his case.

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Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo wins Italy’s prestigious Premiolino award

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Correspondent scoops ‘Italian Pulitzer’ for ‘exceptional work’ reporting on Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflict

The Guardian international correspondent Lorenzo Tondo has been awarded the Premiolino, one of Italy’s oldest and most prestigious journalism prizes, for his reporting on the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Tondo, 42, who joined the news organisation in 2016 and covers Ukraine, the Middle East and the migration crisis around the Mediterranean, is the first Italian journalist working for a foreign publication to win the award, known as the “Italian Pulitzer”.

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Washington Post: Telegraph veteran to take over from Sally Buzbee as executive editor

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First woman in the role to be replaced by Telegraph deputy editor, Robert Winnett

A veteran of the UK’s Daily Telegraph is to become executive editor of the Washington Post, replacing Sally Buzbee, who is stepping down after three years at the top of one of the US’s most respected news brands.

Buzbee, the first woman to hold the post, will be initially replaced by the former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray, until this autumn’s presidential election. Robert Winnett, currently the deputy editor of the Telegraph Media Group, will then take over the role.

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‘Guilty on all counts’: how the world’s media reacted to the Trump trial’s historic verdict

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The former president appears on front pages across the globe on Friday, as the world’s media takes in the unprecedented outcome of the hush-money trial

“Guilty on all counts,” is the headline on the Guardian’s front page on Friday, after Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a historic criminal hush-money trial.

It took the jury less than 12 hours to reach a verdict in the unprecedented first criminal trial against a current or former US president.

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London Evening Standard to close daily newspaper and launch new weekly

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Chair Paul Kanareck says newspaper’s losses – £84.5m in the past six years – not sustainable

London’s Evening Standard has announced plans to shut its daily newspaper and replace it with a weekly outlet, bringing an end to almost 200 years of publication in the capital.

The newspaper said it has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on the London underground, a shortage of commuters owing to the growth of working from home and changing consumer habits.

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UK government was ‘scared’, says man behind failed UAE-backed Telegraph bid

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RedBird IMI deal effectively killed by new legislation blocking foreign states from owning UK newspapers

The former CNN executive who fronted a failed bid for the Telegraph newspaper by a UAE-backed consortium has suggested the government was not willing to listen to assurances about editorial neutrality.

Jeff Zucker said there were figures in the UK who were “scared” of the £600m deal, which would have seen the Abu Dhabi-backed consortium, RedBird IMI, take control of the Telegraph and Spectator.

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Two Russian journalists arrested over alleged work for Alexei Navalny foundation

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Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin face at least two years’ jail on ‘extremism’ charges, which they deny, amid continuing crackdown on dissent

Two Russian journalists have been arrested on “extremism” charges and ordered by courts there to remain in custody pending investigation and trial on accusations of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin both denied the charges for which they will be detained for a minimum of two months before any trials begin. Each faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organisation”, according to Russian courts.

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‘A lot of stories that will now go untold’: outback NSW newspaper closes after almost 130 years

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Broken Hill’s only newspaper, The Barrier Truth, closes due to cashflow problems, with staffer saying loss is ‘really sad for the community’

Broken Hill’s only newspaper has closed after almost 130 years of operation in a major blow to the outback NSW community.

The Barrier Truth’s board told staff the union-run bi-weekly paper would shut down as its final edition went to press.

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The Sun’s Hillsborough stories used to teach MPs how to recognise fake news

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Exclusive: Russian bot attempt to stir up Islamophobia also part of course on misinformation and disinformation

Fabricated stories in the Sun blaming Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough stadium disaster are among examples that will be used in a parliamentary initiative to teach MPs to recognise misinformation and disinformation.

Other examples include a Russian bot campaign on Twitter, now X, that tried to use a photograph taken in the aftermath of the Westminster Bridge attack to stir up Islamophobic hatred.

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Out of control media left Kate with little choice over opening up about health

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The Princess of Wales’s video was intended to calm the fevered speculation about her but may just spark yet more incessant coverage

When she met Prince William, the heir to the British throne, more than 20 years ago at St Andrews University, Catherine, the Princess of Wales had her first taste of the appetite for news about her life and her budding romantic involvement with the young prince.

Since their marriage in 2011, the desire for news, any news, about Catherine has only grown. Her every movement has been tracked, every outfit remarked upon, every decision – around her work, her children, the way she spends her free time, the way she moves – has been endlessly analysed, assessed, lauded or judged.

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UAE-backed bid for Telegraph group dealt fatal blow by new legislation

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Proposed law bans foreign states and government officials from holding direct stakes in UK newspapers

The UAE-backed bid for the Telegraph group appears to be dead in the water after the UK published proposed laws that ban foreign states or government officials from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets.

Foreign states and government officials will be banned from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets – effectively dealing a death blow to the £600m bid for the Telegraph group from RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by the United Arab Emirates.

The head of a foreign state.

A foreign government.

Authorities responsible for administering the affairs of an area within a foreign country.

Governing political parties.

Officers of governing political parties.

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Rupert Murdoch knew of unlawful news tactics, Prince Harry documents claim

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High court papers filed by prince and others allege media mogul was aware of unlawful news gathering at newspapers from 2009

Rupert Murdoch “turned a blind eye” to an extensive cover-up of wrongdoing at his newspapers, Prince Harry’s lawyers have alleged at the high court in London.

The direct allegations against the 93-year-old billionaire about activity at his publications are the latest stage in Harry’s war against the tabloid media, with lawyers for the Duke of Sussex and others accusing the media mogul of overseeing a “culture of impunity” at News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Sun and the now defunct News of the World.

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