Category Archives: Media

Telegraph suitor to buy Traitors and Fleabag maker All3Media for £1.15bn

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RedBird IMI, which is majority-owned by the UAE vice-president, has invested in five media firms since its launch a year ago

The Abu Dhabi-backed company that is trying to take over the Telegraph newspapers has announced a £1.15bn deal to buy the production company behind Fleabag and the Traitors.

Under the deal, RedBird IMI, which is headed by the former CNN president Jeff Zucker, will take over London-based All3Media with the agreement of its owners Warner Bros, Discovery and Liberty Global.

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Putin says he prefers Biden to Trump and mocks Tucker Carlson’s questions

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Russian president says Biden is ‘more predictable’, in remarks likely to be attempt to make mischief in US election

Vladimir Putin has said he would prefer a Joe Biden presidency to a Donald Trump one and mocked the former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson for a “lack of sharp questions” during their interview at the Kremlin last week.

Asked by a Russian state journalist on Wednesday to choose between Biden and Trump, Putin said without hesitation that the current US president was “more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician”, but added: “We will work with any US president who the American people have confidence in.”

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Steve Wright, BBC Radio presenter, dies aged 69

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Broadcaster worked at BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 for more than 40 years, garnering millions of devoted listeners
• Tribute: so much more than a DJ

Tributes have been paid to the DJ Steve Wright, for decades the voice of the BBC on afternoon radio, who has died at the age of 69.

He joined the broadcaster in the 1980s and went on to host shows on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2. The cause of death has not been disclosed. A statement shared with BBC News by Wright’s family on Tuesday said: “It is with deep sorrow and profound regret that we announce the passing of our beloved Steve Wright.

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French regulator to look into CNews channel after ‘opinion media’ allegation

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Court orders regulator to examine balance and independence of CNews, described by critics as ‘French Fox News’

France’s highest administrative court has given the country’s media regulator six months to examine whether the television channel CNews is conforming to rules on balanced and independent journalism.

Tuesday’s ruling was a victory for the press freedom organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), which had asked the state council to overturn the regulator Arcom’s refusal to investigate the channel, described by critics as the “French Fox News”.

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Al Jazeera reporter and camera operator seriously hurt in Israeli airstrike in Gaza

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Correspondent Ismail Abu Omar and photojournalist Ahmad Matar allegedly targeted by IDF

An Al Jazeera correspondent and a photojournalist working with him have been seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted the pair while they were working in Gaza.

According to the Doha-based news network, Ismail Abu Omar, one of its correspondents as well as his camera operator, Ahmad Matar, were in northern Rafah where they were documenting the living conditions of displaced Palestinian families when they were directly targeted by a missile fired by a drone.

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Brianna Ghey’s mother warns tech bosses more children will die without action

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Exclusive: Esther Ghey says she believes social media use left her daughter vulnerable, while killers were able to access violent content online

The mother of Brianna Ghey has called for her murder to be a “tipping point” in how society views “the mess” of the internet, warning that a generation of anxious young people will grow up lacking resilience.

Esther Ghey said technology companies had a “moral responsibility” to restrict access to harmful online content. She supports a total ban on social media access for under-16s – a move currently under debate in certain legislatures, including Florida in the US.

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Return of the zing: Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show, amid a changed world

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Will Stewart’s satire still cut through in a post-pandemic world of disinformation, polarisation and fragmented media?

Barack Obama was US president. Britain was a lynchpin of the European Union. Harvey Weinstein was a powerful movie mogul. Meghan Markle was starring in Suits. “TikTok” did not mean anything and fake news meant a satirical TV program with pretend reporters.

That was the world Jon Stewart left behind when he hosted his last episode of The Daily Show on the Comedy Central network on 6 August 2015, denying a legion of fans his lacerating take on the election, presidency, impeachment, defeat, impeachment again and comeback of Donald Trump.

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‘Talkshow or a serious conversation?’ Tucker Carlson’s interview of Putin offered neither

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Wide-eyed former Fox host tagged along as Russian president steered the conversation through Russian history and justifications for war

“Are we having a talkshow or a serious conversation?” Vladimir Putin asked Tucker Carlson at the start of their interview on Thursday.

By the end of the two-hour conversation, the answer was clear: neither.

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Putin says release of US journalist Evan Gershkovich may be possible

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Russian president suggests detained Wall Street reporter could be freed in prisoner exchange

Vladimir Putin has said he believes “an agreement can be reached” to free the imprisoned US journalist Evan Gershkovich, hinting he would trade him for a Russian killer serving a life sentence in Germany.

Speaking on Thursday to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Putin said he did not rule out the possibility of Gershkovich returning “to his motherland”.

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Nationwide’s Dominic West ad prompts complaint from rival

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Watchdog receives complaint, reportedly from Santander UK, that advert paints misleading picture of bank branch closures

Dominic West’s portrayal of an arrogant, smoothie-drinking, branch-closing banker has landed Nationwide in potentially hot water, with the building society now facing a formal complaint over its TV advert from a rival lender.

Santander UK is understood to have lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the television commercial, on the basis that it “discredits and denigrates” Nationwide’s rivals and paints a misleading picture about bank branch closures.

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Sunak ‘out of touch’ for betting £1,000 on Rwanda plan’s success, says Labour

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PM also criticised for saying ‘the facts speak for themselves’ when asked if Keir Starmer was a terrorist sympathiser

Rishi Sunak has been called “out of touch” after taking a £1,000 bet with Piers Morgan on whether deportation flights to Rwanda will take off before the general election.

Morgan said to the prime minister on TalkTV: “I’ll bet you £1,000 to a refugee charity you don’t get anybody on those planes before the election. Will you take that bet?”

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Comments on Weibo giraffe post bemoan state of Chinese economy

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Social media users get around government crackdown on negativity via US embassy conservation update

A social media post about giraffe conservation has become the latest place for people in China who are unhappy about the economy to vent their frustration, as the Chinese government increasingly cracks down on negative commentary.

On 2 February, the US embassy in China posted an update on its Weibo account about tracking giraffes in Namibia using GPS technology. As of Monday afternoon local time, the post had received approximately 166,000 comments, many of them about China’s economic pains.

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CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

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Insiders say pressure from the top results in credulous reporting of Israeli claims and silencing of Palestinian perspectives

CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinians perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza.

Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza.

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Spotify signs new deal with Joe Rogan reportedly worth up to $250m

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Rogan’s podcast has been exclusive to the app since 2020, with the firm saying its revenue grew by 80% last year compared with 2021

Spotify Technology announced a new multi-year deal with the comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, in a bid to tap into the popularity of his show to drive its advertising revenue.

The multi-year deal with Rogan, which is estimated to be worth as much as $250m, involves an upfront minimum guarantee, plus a revenue sharing agreement based on ad sales, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The company declined to comment on the terms of the deal but in an email response said the estimated value of the deal mentioned in the WSJ report was incorrect. It did not provide a figure for the contract, however.

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Mark Zuckerberg to receive $700m from Meta dividends

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Facebook’s parent company to pay out to shareholders as it reports $40bn revenues for final quarter

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is expected to receive $700m (£549m) a year in dividends.

On Thursday, Meta announced it would pay its first-ever quarterly dividend to investors since Facebook floated on the stock market in 2012, after beating Wall Street expectations with $40bn in revenues for the final quarter last year.

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‘I just got laid off’: news startup the Messenger abruptly shutters after a year

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Employees blindsided by news that company blew through $50m investment, will offer no severance and will cut off healthcare

The Messenger, a news startup launched last year with a $50m investment and a nonpartisan perspective, is shutting down, according to multiple news reports.

In a staff email, the publication’s founder, Jimmy Finkelstein, wrote that the company had pursued all options “over the past few weeks, literally until last night” but made the “painful” decision to shut down the site effective immediately after failing to raise “sufficient capital to reach profitability”.

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Telegraph takeover decision put back by fresh inquiry into Barclay family’s UAE-backed deal

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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.

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Palestinian journalist leaves Gaza after 108 days chronicling war

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Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza says he left ‘with a broken heart’ and hopes to return to help rebuild Gaza

The Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, a key chronicler of the war in Gaza, has been evacuated from the strip and found refuge in Qatar.

Azaiza, 24, who has 18.5 million Instagram followers, said in a video posted to the platform this week that he had been able to secure passage out of the blockaded coastal territory after documenting 108 days of the impact on civilians of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.

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Virgin Media is most complained about UK broadband provider

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Ofcom figures show Virgin attracted about 32 complaints per 100,000 customers compared with 18 for Now Broadband

Virgin Media is the UK’s most complained about broadband provider according to the latest figures, compounding woes for the firm, which is already under investigation by the communications regulator.

Figures released by Ofcom on Thursday showed that the number of complaints made about Virgin’s internet services between July and September were nearly double that of the next-most complained about provider, with Virgin attracting about 32 complaints per 100,000 customers compared with 18 for Now Broadband.

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The Telegraph hopes to reshape Tory party in its own image

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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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