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.
Continue reading...Guildford Dragon will be able to benefit from tax breaks after becoming UK’s first charitable public interest news provider
A local news website conceived over a pint and named after a mythical creature has become the first in the UK to be given charitable status, providing a “glimmer of hope” to the future of local journalism.
The Guildford Dragon has become the UK’s first charitable public interest news provider after a six-month application process that experts hope will provide a lifeline to the decimated local news industry.
Continue reading...Industrial action expected on Wednesday is largest strike to hit UK newspaper industry in decades
When hundreds of staff at the Mirror, Express and dozens of local newspapers join picket lines on Wednesday, they will be taking part in the largest strike to hit the UK newspaper industry in decades. Having spent recent months reporting on how the cost of living crisis is affecting their readers, many journalists at the media company Reach say they are struggling to meet their own bills – and management is refusing to listen.
One regional reporter described how three years of university, training and unpaid placements had secured them a job at a Reach outlet on £18,000 a year. Having only recently joined the media industry, they are already overwhelmed by the financial instability.
Continue reading...After 119 years, Portsmouth’s Saturday evening Sports Mail has printed its last issue. A dedicated reader bids this singular British institution a fond farewell
It’s been the slowest of deaths, but yesterday the “Saturday final” edition of a singular British institution will be just that. While in the last 20 years beloved pink ’uns and green ’uns (and the occasional blue ’un and buff ’un) have disappeared from towns and cities across the country, Portsmouth’s Saturday evening Sports Mail, 119 years old, held out as the last remaining dedicated matchday newspaper. It was first closed down in 2012 but quickly resurrected at the impassioned demand of fans of Pompey, the island city’s club. This time, the obituary is to be believed.
With it goes a century of a particular collective memory: that Saturday evening ritual of heading up to the local newsagent at 5.30 or 5.45 to await the mundane miracle of a stack of fat papers slung from the back of a van reporting from all across the city what had ended only an hour before, ink still smudgeable on banner headlines.
Continue reading...Not releasing MI5 advice on granting peerage makes government look like it has something to hide, Labour says
Ministers have been accused of “bending the rules to dodge scrutiny” after Downing Street missed the deadline for publishing the security advice it received about granting Evgeny Lebedev a peerage.
MPs voted last month for the material to be released after reports that MI5 raised security concerns when the Evening Standard owner and son of a KGB officer was nominated by Boris Johnson to join the House of Lords in March 2020.
Continue reading...As London’s ‘local’ paper hits troubled times, we examine the profitable past and challenging future for Britain’s provincial press
What job title did George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor of the exchequer, and the late Labour leader Michael Foot both hold? It is a pub quiz teaser, but one that becomes easier if you add the names of journalists Max Hastings and Paul Dacre to the list.
The answer is that all four of them have at one time edited the Evening Standard, the London local newspaper that has long stood alongside Britain’s major national titles, mainly by virtue of covering a vast capital city and serving a captive audience of commuters.
Continue reading...Papers lodged in high court civil case say family was put under unlawful surveillance
Private detectives were hired by the Sunday People newspaper to target the family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002, it has been alleged.
The claims are made in legal papers lodged as part of a civil action being taken by a range of claimants, including Prince Harry.
Continue reading...Newspaper defence says it could release further messages between duchess and friend
The potential perils for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in her high stakes legal battle against the Mail on Sunday have become clear after the newspaper filed a detailed legal defence hinting at the future release of royal text messages.
The case revolves around allegations of breach of copyright, invasion of privacy and misuse of personal data after the newspaper published excerpts from a letter she sent to her father complaining about how he was treating her.
Continue reading...Independent owner hosted Saudi leader in London last year
Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard, hosted a private dinner for the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, raising further questions about the media mogul’s links to the de facto ruler of the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Lebedev’s news outlets are being investigated due to public interest concerns over a mysterious Saudi investment made through a web of offshore bank accounts, with the UK government suggesting that the Independent and Evening Standard are now part-owned by the Saudi state. The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, has until Friday to decide whether or not to appeal against a court ruling that the UK government missed a deadline to intervene in the deal.
Continue reading...Was it murder? Suicide? Or just an accident? Almost 30 years before Jeffrey Epstein’s demise, Ghislaine Maxwell was caught up in another shocking and scandal-ridden mystery
At one time, everyone knew where to find Ghislaine Maxwell. The former aide-de-camp of the disgraced, now deceased, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was a fixture in Manhattan’s most fashionable salons. With an impressive list of contacts, including Prince Andrew and Chelsea Clinton, she was a regular at fundraisers, book launches and society weddings.
The last place anyone would have expected to see her was a Los Angeles shopping mall, where the 57-year-old was photographed in a burger joint last week, just days after Epstein’s suicide in a New York jail, where he was being held on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.
Continue reading...A few columns ago I cited a story often told among journalists, for fun and to caution against self-importance, usually in vain. Variously attributed to small newspapers in remote locations at some time in the 19th century, an editorial discussing Russian foreign policy is said to have thundered: “We warn the Tsar!”
Related: The Last Czars: the historical drama that the whole of Russia is laughing at
Continue reading...News outlets unsure who employs Saudi investor after fears of state interference
The Evening Standard and the Independent say they are unsure who employs the Saudi Arabian businessman who bought a substantial stake in both news outlets, amid concerns that the Saudi government could exert editorial influence over them.
The Russian oligarch’s son Evgeny Lebedev, who controls both publications, sold 30% stakes in them to offshore companies fronted by a Saudi businessman, Sultan Mohamed Abuljadayel.
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