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...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...Prince says private sector needs to lead with green investments towards sustainable economy
Prince Charles has called on the City of London to help protect the environment by investing trillions of pounds into green investments which help create a sustainable economy.
In an interview with the Evening Standard the heir to the British throne said big businesses and City investors must drive a rapid decarbonisation of the economy before the environmental crisis becomes “a total catastrophe”.
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.
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