Louise Dylan speaks at Clarke’s libel case against Guardian about wrap party for 2012 film The Knot
An actor who was said to have been groped by Noel Clarke has told the high court that the incident never happened.
In a witness statement for Guardian News and Media (GNM), which is being sued for libel by Clarke, his former creative partner Davie Fairbanks said he saw the former Doctor Who star inappropriately touch Louise Dylan at the wrap party for the 2012 film, The Knot.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Paywall to return after a decade with new Sun Club offering also featuring Royal Exclusive video show
Sun readers will have to pay £2 a month to access columns by star writers including Jeremy Clarkson, popular content such as from the agony aunt Dear Deidre and some exclusive stories and investigations, as the UK’s biggest tabloid launches a paid-for content strategy.
Called Sun Club and initially priced at £1.99 a month, it launches on Tuesday and comes a decade after the Sun scrapped a subscription strategy that put all of its content behind a paywall.
Continue reading...Publisher was helped by strong digital advertising performance towards end of year, say analysts
Shares in the owner of the Daily Mirror rose more than a quarter after the publisher said it expects to beat annual profit expectations, after a strong end to the year and the benefit of deep cost-cutting in recent years.
Reach, which owns national papers including the Mirror and Express and scores of local titles including the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Echo, said the profit upgrade was because of a strong final quarter last year.
Continue reading...Forty-eight-hour strike, first at Guardian in more than 50 years, to take place on Wednesday and Thursday
Journalists at the Guardian and the Observer are holding a 48-hour strike in protest at the proposed sale of the Observer newspaper to Tortoise Media.
The strike, the first at the Guardian in more than 50 years, is due to take place on Wednesday 4 December and Thursday 5 December.
Continue reading...Police were advised there was no chance of conviction against journalist after hate crime investigation, Guardian understands
Essex police have dropped their hate crime investigation into Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph columnist visited by police after she wrongly accused people of colour of being antisemitic.
The decision followed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that there was no reasonable chance of a conviction, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...Force says Telegraph writer accused of inciting racial hatred, rather than committing a non-crime hate incident as she had claimed
Essex police have defended their decision to investigate the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson over a social media post, saying she is accused of “inciting racial hatred” not of committing a “non-crime hate incident”, as she had claimed.
The row over Pearson’s tweet has been splashed across the front pages of the Times, Telegraph and Mail this week. Leading figures on the right, including the new leader of the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch, and the former prime minister Boris Johnson, have leapt to her defence.
Continue reading...Duke is ‘one of two claimants whose claims are still live’ against NGN, court told, the other being ex-MP Tom Watson
The Duke of Sussex is continuing his lawsuit against the publisher of the Sun over allegations of unlawful information gathering, the high court has heard.
Prince Harry “is one of two claimants whose claims are still live” against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), his barrister David Sherborne said, with the other being the former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson. The court was told 39 cases had been settled since a previous hearing in July.
Continue reading...Asset manager Oaktree out of running as backer but businessman has ‘high confidence’ he will get finance
The British owner of the New York Sun has said his £550m offer to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph is still on track, despite a big potential backer not joining the bid.
Dovid Efune entered exclusive talks to buy the Telegraph titles last month after submitting the highest bid in the second round of the auction for the titles.
Continue reading...Guardian Media Group announces it is in negotiations with Tortoise Media over world’s oldest Sunday newspaper
The Guardian’s parent company has announced that it is in formal negotiations with Tortoise Media over the potential sale of the Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.
Guardian Media Group (GMG) told staff it was in negotiations with the Observer after being approached with an offer that was significant enough to look at in more detail.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...New legislation could thwart planned £600m purchase of media group by UAE-backed consortium
The UK government plans to introduce legislation that would prevent foreign governments owning UK newspapers and news magazines in a significant move that could scupper the planned £600m sale of the Telegraph to a United Arab Emirates-backed consortium.
RedBird IMI – a partnership between a fund backed by the UAE’s vice-president, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a privately owned US investment firm – is seeking to acquire one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups.
Continue reading...Marchers on Saturday came from wide range of backgrounds as rightwing press characterises city as ‘no-go zone for Jews’
As on previous Saturdays in the past six months, there were two marches taking place in London yesterday. The first, a gathering of tens of thousands of full-throated, flag-waving supporters of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza gathered at Hyde Park Corner at noon, and shuffled peaceably and patiently in the sunshine in the direction of the American embassy at Vauxhall, over the river.
The second march was taking place mostly in the imaginations of right-wing commentators and politicians who increasingly choose to see these displays of solidarity with the Palestinian cause only as a provocation and a threat. Following the prime minister’s Downing Street address on 1 March which represented these gatherings as representative of “forces trying to tear apart” our democracy, the latest figure to loud-hailer that version of reality was the government-appointed commissioner for countering extremism, Robin Simcox, who argued on Friday the marches were “a permissive environment for radicalisation”, leading to a hysterical Daily Telegraph front-page headline that read: “London is now a no-go zone for Jews”.
Continue reading...Regulators’ reports on public interest risk now due on 11 March after late change in consortium’s structure prompts further review
A second investigation has been launched into the Barclay family’s deal to transfer control of the Telegraph newspaper group, pushing the deadline for regulators’ reports on the public interest threat it poses by more than six weeks.
The UK government moved swiftly to order the second watchdog inquiry after the Barclays’ UAE-backed consortium partner revealed a last-minute corporate structure change.
Continue reading...Amid the paper’s own crises, the intent seems clear: a new leader to lower taxes and crack down on immigration
The Daily Telegraph has long been known as the Conservatives’ de facto house journal. But, with its central role in recent manoeuvrings to undermine Rishi Sunak, it seems the paper is taking this a step further, and hopes to reshape the party in its ideological image.
In the past 10 days, the Telegraph – itself experiencing flux with a takeover looming – has published not just a withering comment piece from a Tory MP calling for Sunak to go, but detailed polling seeking to explain why it would be better for the party if he did.
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