The management of the UK’s third-largest regional publisher National World has hit out at a major shareholder proposing a takeover bid, accusing it of financial “irregularities”.

Media Concierge, which on Friday launched a bid for the 72.2% of National World it does not already own, rejected National World’s claims as “baseless”.

Despite the acrimony, Media Concierge revealed that “National World’s advisers have indicated that they would provide Media Concierge with access to limited and confirmatory due diligence”.

National World is the publicly-listed publisher of newsbrands including The Yorkshire Post, The Scotsman and a host of city-focused websites. It was formed by executive chairman David Montgomery in 2021 to acquire the former Johnston Press titles, assisted by investment from Media Concierge.

It is understood that Media Concierge abstained on a vote to re-elect Montgomery for National World’s leadership at its annual general meeting in May. Montgomery won regardless, and National World has since discontinued a deal that had seen Media Concierge subsidiary Mediaforce handle its national print advertising.

Media Concierge is majority-owned by founder Malcolm Denmark, who built the business providing publishing infrastructure to the news industry including newspaper inserts, leaflets, advertising and printing services.

[Read more: Battle for future of National World as shareholder launches takeover bid]

National World responds to Media Concierge takeover bid

Announcing its takeover bid last week, Media Concierge said it had not heard from National World since first proposing to buy out the remaining equity for 21 pence per share, a premium of approximately 40%, at the end of October.

National World has now “acknowledge[d] the potential merits of the possible offer”.

But the publisher claimed that on 1 October, before the takeover was first mooted, it had been “made aware of a potentially systemic pattern of historical invoicing irregularities in relation to the activities of entities affiliated with Media Concierge”.

National World went on to claim that, separately, “entities affiliated with Media Concierge are currently inappropriately withholding revenues due to [National World] totaling £4.4 million”.

The publisher said it had sought further information in order to undertake an investigation and told shareholders to “take no action at this stage”.

Media Concierge responded that the allegations are “completely baseless and are strongly denied in their entirety.

“No evidence has been provided to support them, and the timing of the emergence of these entirely unjustified allegations coincided with Media Concierge’s initial approach to National World.

“The amounts allegedly ‘withheld’ by Media Concierge are subject to Media Concierge’s substantial counter-claim, in excess of the £4.4 million amount, for a number of breaches of contract by National World.

“We have put National World on notice that Media Concierge will hold the makers of these false and misleading statements fully responsible for them.”

A spokesperson for National World told Press Gazette that it has presented “evidence” to Media Concierge subsidiary Mediaforce (London) “concerning its activities”.

“Irrespective, if Mediaforce (London) has nothing to hide then there can surely be no objection to our carrying out a forensic audit?” the publisher added.

The post National World accuses shareholder seeking takeover of financial ‘irregularities’ appeared first on Press Gazette.

Direct marketing business and Irish local newspaper publisher Media Concierge has launched a bid to take control of the UK’s third-largest regional media group National World.

Media Concierge, which also owns Irish newspapers including the Donegal Democrat and Limerick Leader through subsidiary Iconic Media Group, was one of National World’s original backers and already holds 27.8% of its shares.

Media Concierge abstained in a vote on chief executive David Montgomery’s continued leadership of the business at the company’s last annual general meeting in May, Press Gazette understands.

Since then National World has discontinued a longstanding business relationship with Media Concierge subsidiary Mediaforce, which had until then handled national advertising for the company. National World now sells its national print advertising through competitor Reach.

The group has proposed to buy the remaining equity at 21 pence per share, which it says would be “a significant premium” of 40% on its London Stock Exchange price. National World closed at 15p per share on Thursday and Media Concierge said its volume-weighted price over the preceding six months was 14.8 pence.

The bidder said the price offered represented “a highly attractive and deliverable opportunity for National World shareholders to realise their investment at a substantial premium in cash”.

National World shares leapt more than 20% on Friday morning, reaching a year-long high of 19.25 pence.

Media Concierge revealed its bid on Friday morning, saying it first made the proposal on 31 October but that it has received “no substantive engagement to date” from the National World board. Its offer values the company’s share capital at £56.2m in total, a significant increase on its last sale price of £10.2m.

National World publishes titles including The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post and eponymous national news site nationalworld.com. It was formed by career media executive David Montgomery in 2020 to take on the assets of the former Johnston Press, then named JPI Media.

Since then the company has made repeated rounds of significant job cuts, including proposed redundancies this month in Sunderland and Manchester and a voluntary redundancy round at The Scotsman.

Press Gazette calculated in July 2023 that National World had cut its total workforce by 27% since taking over JPI Media. NUJ staff members held strike action in 2023 in the company’s first-ever nationwide walkout, and a second strike a month later was approved but ultimately did not go ahead.

National World reported revenue growth of 5% in its most recent annual report, which had been bolstered by a string of acquisitions in 2023.

The post Battle for future of National World as shareholder launches takeover bid appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette is honoured to announce the finalists for the British Journalism Awards 2024.

This year’s British Journalism Awards attracted 750 entries encompassing every major news organisation in the UK.

The finalists are announced today following a three-week process involving 80 independent judges and two days of jury-style meetings.

In order to make the shortlists work has to be revelatory, show journalistic skill and rigour and serve the public interest.

The winners will be announced on 12 December at a dinner in London hosted by Radio 2 presenter and journalist Jeremy Vine.

Details here about how to book tickets.

The shortlist for News Provider of the Year will be announced following a second round of judging. The winners of Journalist of the Year, the Marie Colvin Award and the Public Service prize will be announced on the night.

Chairman of judges and Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford said: “Without journalism, Boris Johnson would still be prime minister, wronged postmasters would not have a voice and victims of the infected blood scandal would not have a chance of compensation.

“The 2024 British Journalism Awards shortlists celebrate the stories which would not be told without journalists willing to shine a light on uncomfortable truths and publications brave enough to back them up.

“Congratulations to all our finalists and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the British Journalism Awards.

“In a media world which is increasingly controlled by a few parasitic technology platforms it is more important than ever to celebrate the publishers willing to invest in and support quality journalism that makes a difference for the better in our world.”

British Journalism Awards 2024 shortlist in full:

Social Affairs, Diversity & Inclusion Journalism

Natasha Cox, Ahmed El Shamy, Rosie Garthwaite — BBC Eye Investigations

• Perfume’s Dark Secret

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• Missing from mainstream: Excluded children with nowhere to go
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision
• Hospital schools: On the mental health crisis frontline

Sasha Baker, Valeria Rocca — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• The parents group at the centre of a rollback of trans rights
• ‘One day they may thank us for that “abuse”’: Inside the Bayswater Support Group

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans, Cate Brown, Ed McGown, Tom Stone, Ed Campbell, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Mariah Cooper, Reshma Rumsey — ITV News

• Nowhere to go: Britain’s homeless emergency

Louise Tickle — Tortoise Media

• Taking the stand: Grace’s story
• Taking the stand: Emma’s story

Abi Kay — Farmers Weekly

• Level the Field
• Is there a problem with young farmer culture?
• Editor’s view: Facing hard truths about young farmer culture

Joshua Nelken-Zitser, Ida Reihani, Kit Gillet — Business Insider

• Iran will pay for gender-transition surgery, but it comes at a cost — your dignity

Features Journalism

Sophie Elmhirst — 1843 magazine, The Economist and The Guardian

• The last stand of the call-centre worker
• Chortle chortle, scribble scribble: inside the Old Bailey with Britain’s last court reporters
• Last love: a romance in a care home

Jenny Kleeman — The Guardian

• America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’
• She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
• ‘I know someone who played noughts and crosses on one’: meet the top surgeon who burned his initials on a patient’s liver

Sirin Kale — The Guardian

• ‘My child was drowning’: life and death on an English maternity ward
• The life and tragic death of John Balson: how a true crime producer documented his own rising horror
• The Russell murders: is Michael Stone in prison for a brutal crime he didn’t commit?

Zoe Beaty — The Independent

• How Nigel Farage took over my hometown – and why Keir Starmer should be worried
• My battle to bring a predatory Met Police officer from the same unit as Wayne Couzens to justice
• ‘A court packed with those who know their way around already, and jails are too full to take them’

Inderdeep Bains — Daily Mail

• My doctors insist it’s time I died – but I will fight them: Extraordinary case of 19-year-old woman suffering from Charlie Gard condition battling medics’ attempts to ‘condemn her to death’
• Sudiksha: ‘Condemned to Die in Secret’ – The Shocking Story of the 19-year-old’s fight to live

David James Smith — The Independent

• How did so many miss the sinister warning signs about James Bulger’s killer for so long?
• Is Lucy Letby innocent? I’m a miscarriage of justice investigator – and here’s what I think…
• The wife of this Murdoch executive has been missing since the Sixties – will her body now be found?

Fiona Hamilton — The Times

• Nottingham attacks: ‘We have no faith in the police. We want justice’
• ‘A horrible way to die … and no doctors can help you’
• Realising Sarah Everard got into a sex offender’s car was horrific

Barbara McMahon — Daily Mail

• Ghislaine Maxwell ‘was tortured in prison – now she’s ready for a comeback’: Jeffrey Epstein’s socialite pimp runs half marathons at low-security Florida lock-up and is now ‘focused and motivated’ for her appeal next week, her brother reveals
• ‘I shook Epstein’s hand and asked him what my daughter would be doing’: Virginia Roberts’s father describes dropping her off at paedophile’s mansion, meeting ‘despicable’ Ghislaine… and blasts Prince Andrew for showing ‘no remorse’
• Black Widow who ‘relished killing and had no regard for human life, even for children’: Griselda Blanco shot a child in the head when she was 11 and rose to be Miami’s drug kingpin. As she’s immortalised on Netflix, her son recalls his ‘fearsome’ mother

Local Journalism

Abi Whistance, Joshi Herrmann, Kate Knowles, Mollie Simpson, Jothi Gupta — Mill Media

• Special investigation: The collapsing world of Liverpool’s charity kingpin
• Investigation: The spectacular rise and sudden fall of Gurpaal Judge
• Exclusive: How did a semi in Harpurhey sell for £1.8m?

Richard Newman, Jennifer O’Leary, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight

• Katie: Coerced and Killed

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Lough Neagh has become a scene of Biblical disaster, and Stormont was central to its destruction
• Killing Edgar podcast

Chris Burn — The Yorkshire Post

• Building societies scandal: Yorkshire victims reveal shocking stories – and plead for action to be taken
• Philips Trust: FCA got ‘Ponzi scheme’ warning on firm at heart of £138m building society scandal – 18 months before collapse
• Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham Building Societies to pay tens of millions to Philips Trust victims

Jane Haynes — Birmingham Mail and Birmingham Mail/Post

• Teacher’s ‘life blown apart’ in onslaught of hate as false racism claim goes viral
• The truth exposed about ‘secretive’ council meeting on equal pay crisis in Birmingham
• ‘Like a prison’ – the tower block for homeless families that has 8pm curfew and no visitors allowed

Wendy Robertson — The Bridge

• The Bridge newsletter

Health & Life Sciences Journalism

Rebecca Thomas — The Independent

• Mental health patients ‘raped and sexually assaulted’ as NHS abuse scandal revealed
• Nicholas’s story: ‘I’ve been locked up for 10 years because I’m autistic. Is a chance at life too much to ask?’
• Revealed: NHS regulator’s ‘culture of fear’ that leaves rogue nurses free to abuse patients

Fin Johnston — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Science for sale: Philip Morris’s web of payments to fund tobacco research
• Inside the strategy doc Philip Morris never meant you to see
• Tobacco state: why Japan was the perfect testing ground for Philip Morris

Hannah Barnes — The New Statesman

• The trauma ward
• The Cass Review into children’s gender care should shame us all
• Hundreds of doctors are challenging the BMA’s stance on puberty blockers

Robbie Boyd, Eamonn Matthews, Steve Grandison, Ian Bendelow, Sophie Borland, Katie O’Toole, Islay Stacey, Ali Watt, Frances Peters — Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 Dispatches

• Undercover A&E: NHS in Crisis

Ellie Pitt, Cree Haughton, Justina Simpson, Ellie Swinton, Patrick Russell, Liam Ayers — ITV News

• The Dark Side of Cosmetic Surgery

Martin Bagot — Daily Mirror

• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth
• Urgent warning amid fears cosmetic fillers could cause immune system problems

Hanna Geissler — Daily Express

• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying ‘allowed me to mostly forget’ fears, says Aussie man hit by brain tumour
• Dame Esther’s assisted dying petition delivered to Prime Minister’s doorstep

Crime & Legal Affairs Journalism

Sue Mitchell, Rob Lawrie, Joel Moors, Winifred Robinson, Dan Clarke, Philip Sellars, Tom Brignell, Mom Tudie — BBC

• To Catch a Scorpion
• How we found Europe’s most wanted migrant-smuggler
• Why the BBC could track down a people-smuggling kingpin before the police

Gabriel Pogrund, Katie Tarrant — The Sunday Times

• Millionaire’s ‘sex worker immigration scandal’
• Hamish Ogston: millionaire accused of exploiting women ‘set up charity to help win knighthood’
• Hamish Ogston: tycoon asked Met to arrest woman who accused him of sex trafficking

Mike Sullivan, Jerome Starkey, Mike Ridley — The Sun

• ‘Distraught’ Holly Willoughby under police guard after man is arrested over terrifying ‘kidnap plot’
• Police chief faces ‘Walter Mitty’ probe after being pictured wearing Falklands medal despite being 15 at time of war

Hannah Summers — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Family Court Files: mother ‘devastated’ after rapist father granted contact with child
• Family Court Files: Psychologist’s evidence used to ‘ramp up’ allegations of parental alienation
• Kristoffer White: TBIJ wins court battle to publish name of sex offender

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans — BBC Panorama and BBC News

• Abercrombie & Fitch ex-CEO accused of exploiting men for sex
• Lawsuit accuses Abercrombie & Fitch of funding sex-trafficking operation
• FBI investigate after ex-Abercrombie boss sex claims

Isobel Yeung, Alex Nott, Esme Ash, Nick Parnes, Alistair Jackson, Matt Bardo, Sarah Wilson — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Britain’s Unsolved Crimewave: Dispatches

Comment Journalism

Daniel Finkelstein — The Times

• Israelis and Palestinians must start to listen
• Wes Streeting’s lessons from Richard Nixon and China
• Here’s the Keir Starmer I’ve known for decades

Matthew Syed — The Sunday Times

• When I was at school a teacher could call me the P-word. We’ve come so far
• The storm is gathering, and Europe is still dithering on defending itself
• Locked in by language, we are freed by music, poetry, painting … and love

Will Hayward — WalesOnline/The Will Hayward Newsletter

• The most pointless job in Wales
• The worst political leader in the UK
• Bluster, fluster and ‘word salad’ nonsense: Vaughan Gething ducks and weaves like a boxer at the Welsh Covid Inquiry

Kitty Donaldson — i

• Part political update, part group therapy: inside Starmer’s Cabinet meeting
• Grenfell is a tragic reminder to the Tories that regulation is not a dirty word
• The winter fuel row is a painful wake up call for new Labour MPs

Frances Ryan — The Guardian

• A summer defined by men killing women and girls. This can’t go on
• Think of this: a plan to ‘warehouse’ disabled people. What kind of nation is Britain becoming?
• Cropped out, banned, airbrushed: the school photos that show the ugly face of Britain today

Duncan Robinson — The Economist

• Why the next Westminster scandal is already here
• The narcissism of minor differences, Labour Party edition
• British boomers are losing out for the first time

Specialist Journalism

Peter Blackburn — The Doctor (by the British Medical Association)

• Nowhere left to turn
• Fears for patient care due to shortages of chronic alcohol misuse treatment Pabrinex
• Not the only failing

Lucinda Rouse, Emily Burt, Ollie Peart, Louise Hill, David Robinson, Rebecca Cooney, Andy Ricketts, Nav Pal, Til Owen — Third Sector

• The End of Charity podcast

Lucie Heath — i

• Revealed: Water firms dumped sewage 5,500 times in a year ‘illegally’
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• Toxic water, debt and sewage dumping: How Britain’s rivers got so bad

Deborah Cohen, Margaret McCartney — BMJ/Pharmaceutical Journal

• Inclisiran: the ‘extremely unusual’ political influence behind the novel drug’s approval
• Galleri promises to detect multiple cancers—but new evidence casts doubt on this much hyped blood test
• Inclisiran: Government’s strategy to promote cholesterol lowering drug after Brexit was “spectacular failure,” says insider

Lee Mottershead — Racing Post

• Revealed: the racehorse owner fronting an illegal bookmaker with more than 1,000 customers
• ‘People don’t want to provide bank statements. We’ve got so many people betting with us’

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• The rise of the parent activist
• AI’s allure is proving hard to resist for the UK’s learners
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision

Emily Townsend — Health Service Journal

• Over 30 sepsis deaths linked to ‘systemic’ failings, investigation reveals
• Revealed: Doubling of average waits for critical stroke treatments
• Midwives call women in labour ‘Asian princesses’ amid ‘hostile’ environment fears

Roya Nikkhah — The Sunday Times

• Prince Harry at 40: ‘All he does is spend time looking back’
• The hospital heart-to-hearts that brought Kate and King even closer
• Prince William to build houses for homeless on his land in Cornwall

Foreign Affairs Journalism

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• Gun in hand, the Israeli settler tells the Palestinian: I will kill you
• First Hamas fighters raped her. Then they shot her in the head
• ‘Who will protect us?’: Christina Lamb on the Yazidis’ dangerous journey home

Alex Crawford — Sky News

• Libya floods: Child’s voice heard under rubble as rescue teams search desperately in Derna for survivors
• Warning of Islamic State’s growing resurgence – as Sky News gets rare access to terrorists’ families
• Report from Lebanon

Kim Sengupta — The Independent

• Bombs, betrayal and burying loved ones: Plight of one Ukraine village illustrates toll of Russia’s invasion
• ‘I have buried more than 50 friends’: My life as a British soldier fighting on Ukraine’s bloody front line
• The families of hostages taken by Hamas are desperate – but can Israel get them back?

Vanessa Bowles, Jaber Badwan — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Kill Zone: Inside Gaza

Louise Callaghan — The Sunday Times

• The secret city of tunnels where hundreds live below Vegas glitz
• Claudia Sheinbaum: Meet the woman ready to be Mexico’s first presidenta
• Stand-off at Eagle Pass: welcome to the epicentre of the US border crisis

Secunder Kermani — Channel 4 News

• Palestinian detainees allege torture and sexual abuse by Israeli captors
• Myanmar military forces victims to fight in brutal civil war

Gesbeen Mohammad, Brad Manning, Nechirvan Mando, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, Esella Hawkey, Tom Giles, Hafez — ITV

• Inside Iran: The Fight for Freedom

Stuart Ramsay, Dominique van Heerden, Toby Nash — Sky News

• Haiti gang boss will take part in talks if invited – but warns foreign forces will be treated as ‘invaders’
• Aboard ‘The Beast’: What do migrants face travelling through Mexico on way to US?
• Shocking scenes in Gaza hospital as IDF moves into Khan Younis | Israel-Hamas war

Arkady Ostrovsky — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Life and death in Putin’s gulag
• Death and destruction in a Russian city
• Life and fate (podcast)

Technology Journalism, sponsored by Amazon

Alexander Martin — The Record from Recorded Future News

• Ransomware attacks hit record level in UK, according to neglected official data
• UK government urged to get on ‘forward foot’ with ransomware instead of ‘absorbing the punches’
• Exclusive: UK to propose mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks and licensing regime for all payments

Marianna Spring — BBC News

• The real story of the news website accused of fuelling riots
• Trump supporters target black voters with faked AI images
• X takes action on deepfake network smearing UK politicians after BBC investigation

Joe Tidy — BBC World Service

• ‘Pig butchering’ scammers target BBC reporter
• Sextortion warning: In six hours, my son was dead
• Stolen test data and NHS numbers published by hospital hackers

Amanda Chicago Lewis — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Secrets of a ransomware negotiator

Cathy Newman, Job Rabkin, Emily Roe, Sophie Braybrook, Guy Basnett, Ed Howker — Channel 4 News

• Deepfake Porn

Helen Lewis — BBC Radio 4/BBC Sounds

• Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat

Energy & Environment Journalism, sponsored by Renewable UK

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Apocalypse Neagh: The source of 40% of NI’s water is ‘dying’
• Watch: Sam McBride’s in-depth look at Lough Neagh’s blue-green algae crisis

Josephine Moulds — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Backroom deals, mystery companies and a ‘killer lake’: inside DRC’s gas and oil auction
• HSBC helped oil and gas industry raise $47bn despite net-zero pledge
• Barclays’ billions of ‘sustainable’ finance for fossil fuel industry is greenwash, says investor

Esme Stallard, Becky Dale, Sophie Woodcock, Jonah Fisher, Libby Rogers — BBC News

• Water firms illegally spilled sewage on dry days – data suggests
• BBC uncovers 6,000 possible illegal sewage spills in one year

Rachel Salvidge, Leana Hosea — The Guardian/Watershed

• The Watershed Pollution Map
• Landfills across England could be leaking harmful toxic ooze, warn experts
• ‘It’s a poison and it’s killing us’: the hidden dangers of old UK landfills

Guy Grandjean, Patrick Fee, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight Northern Ireland

• Spotlight – The Lough Neagh Monster
• Hundreds of environmental breaches by Moy Park

Sofia Quaglia — The Guardian

• ‘If we can’t fish any more, we’re going to die’: the volunteer sea patrols protecting precious Philippine waters
• From sea to plate … to sea! Hong Kong puts oyster shells to new use
• ‘It smells so bad’: glut of wild salmon creates stink in Norway and Finland

Jess Staufenberg — SourceMaterial

• Trojan Horsepower – Formula 1 and the Saudi oil lobby
• F1 lobbies for Saudi against EU green rules

Arts & Entertainment Journalism

Mark Daly, Mona McAlinden, Shelley Jofre, Jax Sinclair, Karen Wightman, Hayley Hassall — BBC Panorama

• The Dark Side of Ballet Schools

Jonathan Dean — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Oasis reunion and Wembley gigs next year … is that definitely, maybe?
• Ridley Scott: I didn’t need historians to make my Napoleon epic
• Olly Alexander on Eurovision: ‘I was trying not to have a breakdown’

Rachael Healy — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘At the start you get molested and by 45 you’re too old to work’ – the secret misery of women working in TV
• Fresh crisis at ‘toxic’ Strictly as ex-staff claim they faced sexualised comments and cruelty
• ‘The outrageousness of what Louis CK did is totally lost’: the film about the backlash faced by his accusers

Tom Bryant — Daily Mirror

• BBC’s Huw Edwards scandal teen breaks silence in first interview – ‘I felt groomed’
• Huw Edwards scandal teen: Why I first tried to protect BBC star but now feel shame
• Paul O’Grady’s beloved dog nuzzled star’s shoulder as devoted husband battled to save him

Lucy Osborne, Stephanie Kirchgaessner — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘I honest to God believe I was drugged’: magician David Copperfield’s alleged victims speak out
• The FBI investigated David Copperfield for two years. The claim that he was ‘exonerated’ was widely embraced. Was he?
• ‘Magic David called’: David Copperfield repeatedly contacted Jeffrey Epstein

Clemmie Moodie, Hannah Hope, Scarlet Howes — The Sun

• Strictly pro Giovanni Pernice probed over serious complaints by 3 ‘traumatised’ contestants as BBC ‘gathers evidence’
• Strictly Come Dancing bosses make huge changes to show after Giovanni Pernice quits
• Strictly bombshell as Amanda Abbington demands backstage footage of her and Giovanni as she is diagnosed with PTSD

Carolyn Atkinson, Olivia Skinner — BBC Radio 4 Front Row

• The British Museum’s missing gems
• Painting stolen in art heist more than 30 years ago returned to Glasgow museum

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• ‘I felt used and abused’ on Arthur: alleged Russell Brand victim speaks

New Journalist of the Year

Rafe Uddin — Financial Times

• Labour loses Muslim support over stance on Israel-Hamas ceasefire
• Reform UK’s unusual structure with Nigel Farage in the middle
• How Post Office lawyers pushed boundaries in UK sub-postmasters scandal

Sammy Gecsoyler — The Guardian

• ‘We’re going to see people dying on the streets’: homeless refugee crisis grips Liverpool
• ‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis
• Met police agree six-figure payout to student hit by baton at protest

Kaf Okpattah — ITV News, ITV News London

• Whistleblower reveals corruption and collusion inside Wandsworth Prison
• The fraud scammers putting people out of pocket by cloning phone numbers

Simar Bajaj — The Guardian, New Scientist

• Everyone is on their phones. But is it really phone addiction we’re experiencing?
• The surprising mental health and brain benefits of weight-loss drugs
• He was shot in the throat. Now he saves gun victims as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore

Nimra Shahid — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Santander arranged billion-dollar oil bond after making green pledge
• Santander weakened fossil fuel policy after raising billions for gas projects

Venetia Menzies — The Sunday Times

• Anxiety drug pregabalin killed my son — and hundreds more are dying from it
• The company taking refugees out of Gaza — and ‘making millions’
• After the earthquake: how Morocco is rebuilding

Oliver Marsden — The Sunday Times/Al Jazeera

• Hero taxi driver who saved scores from Hamas faces hatred from both sides
• Dodging Israeli rockets with Ghana’s UN peacekeepers
• Israeli strikes on Lebanon: Attacks are causing wildfires across south

Yasmin Rufo — BBC News

• London mayor election: Bots, misleading URLs cause voter confusion
• Ulez expansion: Contested claims examined
• Ulez: More than 300 cameras damaged or stolen in four months

Sports Journalism

Jacob Whitehead — The Athletic

• Special report: Newcastle United sponsor Noon and shocking allegations of worker mistreatment
• Saudi Arabia investigates worker mistreatment allegations after The Athletic report on Newcastle sponsor Noon
• Special report: ‘Disturbing’ safety issues at Hillsborough 35 years after disaster

Oliver Brown — The Telegraph

• Angela Carini was sent unforgivably into harm’s way by gutless IOC cowards
• After my grandfather hugged Jesse Owens, the Nazis told him: ‘Never embrace a black man again’
• Michael Vaughan: If I had gone through this racism ordeal at 80, I would have wanted to be shot

Simon Lock, Rob Davies, Jacob Steinberg — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / The Guardian

• Abramovich’s hidden football deals during Chelsea’s time at the top (TBIJ) and Chelsea FC face new questions over how Roman Abramovich funded success (Guardian)
• ‘I worked for Abramovich?’: footballers were owned by oligarch via offshore deals (TBIJ) and Revealed: Abramovich, the super-agent and the footballers owned as ‘commodities’ (Guardian)
• Leaked documents reveal Abramovich is still connected to Vitesse (TBIJ) and Abramovich loans fund owner of Dutch football club, leaked documents suggest (Guardian)

Jacob Judah — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• The strange case of the disappearing football team

Riath Al-Samarrai — Daily Mail

• Drifting through life without gold medals, tortured by his past, and now claims of bankruptcy… How did petulant Wiggins fall so spectacularly from his golden bike?
• Seb Coe explains why he’s HAPPY to break 128 years of Olympic tradition by handing out cash for gold… and reveals Roman Abramovich’s unlikely role in athletics
• The curious case of Jade Jones’ drugs test and why the Chinese might be quick to ask questions, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Ian Herbert — Daily Mail

• Looting and rioting, setting fire to police officers and hunting down English fans… fearful European clubs are turning a blind eye to shadowy leaders of their untouchable ultras
• Thirty-five years after horror of the Hillsborough tragedy, Mail Sport can reveal that incredibly the stadium is still not fit for purpose with poor stewarding, inadequate turnstiles and a problem tunnel
• Grubby, classless, the five-year legal battle over plane crash victim Emiliano Sala takes us into football’s sewers… where players are pawns and chronically inept clubs desperately try to save cash

Matt Lawton — The Times

• Man City launch unprecedented legal action against Premier League
• ‘The horror is everywhere’ – inside Lord Coe’s secret trip to Ukraine
• Russian athletes should be allowed at Olympics, says government

Um-E-Aymen Babar — Sky Sports

• How does endometriosis affect women in sport?
• USA cricket teen on tackling social media trolls, South Asian heritage and 2028 Olympic goals
• Um-E-Aymen Babar ok Tiktok

Campaign of the Year

Caroline Wheeler —The Sunday Times: Bloody Disgrace

• Thousands dead, 40 years of cover-up: time for justice for infected blood victims
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims
• Jeremy Hunt: I promised a dying friend I’d end infected blood scandal

Patrick Butler, Josh Halliday, John Domokos — The Guardian: Unpaid Carers

• Carers threatened with prosecution over minor breaches of UK benefit rules
• ‘Injustice’: 92-year-old with dementia told by DWP to repay £7k in disability allowance
• I’m under attack and fighting back: the scandal trapping carers

Computer Weekly editorial team — Computer Weekly: Post Office Scandal

• Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
• Fujitsu staff instructed how to bid for government contracts during self-imposed ban
• Post Office Horizon replacement project labelled ‘unachievable’ as taxpayer bill reaches £1bn

David Cohen — Evening Standard: Show Respect

• Boys, porn and the alarming way they talk about girls – a special investigation
• School pupils tell how they are victims of sexual harassment every day
• Show some respect: Standard launches campaign with £500k to tackle sexist abuse in schools

Lucie Heath — i: Save Britain’s Rivers

• Save Britain’s Rivers: i challenges all parties to commit to election manifesto
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• National Trust signs up to i’s Save Britain’s Rivers manifesto

Hanna Geissler, Giles Sheldrick — Daily Express: Give Us Our Last Rights

• My assisted dying petition proves Brits are compassionate – now Rishi Sunak must act
• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying debate must move on to how law will change, MND campaigner says

Amy Clare Martin — The Independent: IPP Jail Sentences

• Revealed: 16 years in prison for stealing a bike and no hope of release – as 7 trapped in jail kill themselves
• ‘He looked like a starving dog on the floor’: Prisoner trapped on indefinite jail term driven to hunger strike
• Father imprisoned for 12 years for stealing mobile phone under ‘cruel’ indefinite jail term reunited with son

Martin Bagot, Jason Beattie — Daily Mirror: Save NHS Dentistry

• Dentists warn ‘rescue plan’ will fail to end crisis as 60,000 people sign our petition
• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth

Photojournalism

Thomas Dworzak — 1843 magazine, The Economist

André Luís Alves — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Giles Clarke — CNN Digital

Nichole Sobecki — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Dimitris Legakis — Athena Picture Agency

Stefan Rousseau — PA Media

Hannah McKay — Reuters

Interviewer of the Year

Alice Thomson — The Times

• Ed Davey: ‘Being a carer is harder than being a politician’
• Peter Kyle: It was 5am. A woman said, ‘Your partner is dead ’
• Emma Barnett: ‘The pain was so bad, I was losing the will to live’

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• ICC prosecutor: UK didn’t blitz the IRA — Israel needs that restraint
• The president’s daughter (and Instagram star) wanted by Interpol
• David Cameron: ‘Why did I take the job? Rishi Sunak asked!’

Laura Kuenssberg — Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News

• Baroness Mone and the PPE Scandal
• How Can We Protect Our Children Online?
• Inside No 11 with Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Charlotte Edwardes — The Guardian

• ‘You asked me questions I’ve never asked myself’: Keir Starmer’s most personal interview yet
• ‘Dismissing global warming? That was a joke’: Jeremy Clarkson on fury, farming and why he’s a changed man
• ‘The levels of attack are extraordinary’: Gary Lineker on punditry, podcasts – and why he won’t stop speaking his mind

Nick Ferrari — LBC

• Labour leader Keir Starmer joins Nick Ferrari to take your calls
• Champagne and caviar: Esther Rantzen reveals plans for final moments as she pushes for assisted dying law change
• Nigel Farage joins Nick Ferrari

Samantha Poling — BBC

• How I confronted Emma Caldwell’s killer
• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell
• Who Killed Emma?

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey
• Kevin Spacey Breaks Down As He Faces Debt Of MILLIONS
• Piers Morgan vs Rishi Sunak Round 2 | Prime Minister Discusses Israel-Hamas War, NHS, Rwanda & More

Paul Brand — ITV News

• Interview with Rishi Sunak
• Interview with Ed Davey
• Interview with Keir Starmer

(View all three interviews here)

Politics Journalism

Jim Pickard, Anna Gross — Financial Times

• Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 of freebies including tickets to over 20 football games
• Keir Starmer faces backlash over early failure to disclose £16,200 in donor-funded clothing
• Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves declared clothing donations as office support

Pippa Crerar — The Guardian

• Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff
• Rishi Sunak aide placed bet on election date days before announcement
• Tories putting party reputation before sexual assault claim, says alleged victim

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• ‘No room for the Indians?’: Tory donor Frank Hester suggested staff climb on train roof
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Beth Rigby — Sky News

• Election exit poll
• The Battle for Number 10: A Sky News Leaders’ Special
• How Reform fares on Thursday will also determine the Conservatives fate

Caroline Wheeler — The Sunday Times

• Commons worker arrested after allegedly spying for China
• My MP husband Andrew Bridgen was captured by antivax ‘cult’
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims

Jane Merrick — i

• Thousands of disabled people died after ‘Covid treatment withheld’, inquiry to probe
• ‘My daughter was allowed to die of Covid because she had Down’s syndrome’
• Labour manifesto missing pensioners’ winter fuel and bus pass pledges

Steven Swinford — The Times

• Britain and US launch airstrikes on Houthi targets
• Jeremy Hunt looks for £9bn to balance his budget
• Teachers and nurses should get above-inflation pay rise, ministers told

Business, Finance and Economics Journalism, sponsored by Starling Bank

Simon Murphy — Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror

• Fujitsu boss lives on ‘blood money’ with £2m mansion as we suffer, says Post Office victim
• Provider boasting of ‘compassion’ threatens daughter with court action over £50k care bill for her 93-year-old amputee mother with dementia
• Mirror tracks down former Post Office IT chief that Horizon inquiry insisted couldn’t be found

Ed Conway — Sky News

• Surge in sale of UK-made cars to Russia’s neighbours shows how it’s beating sanctions
• British firms’ exports are almost certainly bolstering Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, Sky data analysis finds
• How British financial services aid sale of Russian gas on European market | Ukraine War

Tom Bergin — Reuters

• Online-gambling giants conquer U.S. with tactics deemed too tough for Britain

Gill Plimmer, Robert Smith — Financial Times

• Chinese state banks are lenders to Thames Water’s parent company
• Thames Water owners pile group with debt
• Thames Water shareholders backed away over regulator’s debt demands

Siddharth Philip, Benedikt Kammel, Anthony Palazzo, Katharine Gemmell, Sabah Meddings — Bloomberg News

• Bogus Supplier of Jet-Engine Parts May Have Faked Employees Too
• Ghost in the Machine: How Fake Parts Infiltrated Airline Fleets
• UK Fraud Cops Make Arrest in Fake Airplane Parts Scandal

Anna Isaac, Alex Lawson — The Guardian

• Sellafield apologises after guilty plea over string of cybersecurity failings
• Nuclear Narnia: why is Sellafield Europe’s most dangerous industrial site?
• Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China

Danny Fortson — The Sunday Times

• Mike Lynch: Flown to the US in chains, now he is free … and talking
• Inside Mike Lynch’s last stand as $11bn fraud trial looms
• The app that promised an NHS ‘revolution’ then went down in flames

Online Video Journalism

Alex Rothwell, Alastair Good, Yasmin Butt, Pauline Den Hartog Jager, Jack Feeney, Federica De Caria, Kasia Sobocinska, Stephanie Bosset — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse | Investigation
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation
• ‘Illegal’ conspiracy theory school exposed | Times Investigation

Andrew Harding — BBC News

• BBC tracks down smuggler behind Channel crossing which killed Sara, 7

Mohamed Ibrahim, Owen Pinnel, Mouna Ba, Wael El-Saadi, Feras Al Ajrami — BBC Eye Investigations

• Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue

Tom Pettifor, Matthew Young, Daniel Dove — Daily Mirror

• Has the man who killed Jill Dando finally been found?
• Jill Dando murder: Man wanted for questioning matches features of Serbian assassin
• Jill Dando murder: Key witness identifies Serbian assassin

Lucinda Herbert, Iain Lynn — National World Video

• Lured To Her Death: The Murder of Sasha Marsden

Reem Makhoul, Robert Leslie, Clancy Morgan, Amelia Kosciulek, Matilda Hay, Liz Kraker, Dorian Barranco, Barbara Corbellini Duarte, Erica Berenstein, Yasser Abu Wazna — Business Insider

• 4 Gazans show how war devastated their coastline

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey

Ben Marino, Joe Sinclair, Veronica Kan-Dapaah, Petros Gioumpasis, Greg Bobillot — Financial Times

• Chinese brokers launder hundreds of millions for global crime groups | FT Film

Investigation of the Year

Scarlet Howes, Mike Hamilton, Alex West — The Sun

• Ex-BBC presenter Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’
• Huw Edwards used position of power to groom young people for 6 years even sending pictures from BBC desk to impress them
• We’re still suffering, say parents at centre of Huw Edwards scandal as they slam BBC for lack of answers after he quits

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace, Paul Morgan-Bentley, Esella Hawkey, Imogen Wynell Mayow, Alice McShane, Florence Kennard, Ian Bendelow, Victoria Noble, Alistair Jackson, Sarah Wilson, Geraldine McKelvie — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions, Channel Four Dispatches Investigations Unit

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• Russell Brand: In Plain Sight

Alex Thomson, Nanette van der Laan — Channel 4 News

• Post Office Scandal

Paul Morgan-Bentley — The Times

• I worked undercover in one of UK’s most dangerous jails — without checks
• My son died in HMP Bedford. I never felt he was safe there
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation

Ruth Evans, Oliver Newlan, Leo Telling, Sasha Hinde, Hayley Clarke, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• Undercover School: Cruelty in the Classroom

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Holly Bancroft, May Bulman, Monica C. Camacho, Fahim Abed — The Independent and Lighthouse Reports

• At last! Afghan special forces heroes set for sanctuary in UK after government U-turn
• MoD accused of burying admission that UK special forces had power over Afghan sanctuary claims
• Murdered, tortured or in hiding from the Taliban: The special forces abandoned by Britain

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Isabel Alderson-Blench, John Ray — ITV News: The Post Office Tapes

• New secret tape reveals top Post Office lawyer was warned of ‘wrongful’ convictions decade ago
• Secret tape shows Paula Vennells was told about problems with Horizon and warned not to cover it up
• Paula Vennells’ ‘smoking gun’ email reveals Post Office ‘cover-up’

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• No yawning or fingerprints on doors: the strict rules at Tory donor’s firm
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Samantha Poling, Eamon T. O Connor, Anton Ferrie, Shelley Jofre — BBC Disclosure

• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell

Scoop of the Year

Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions and Channel 4 Dispatches

Huw Edwards Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’ — The Sun

Naked photos sent in WhatsApp ‘phishing’ attacks on UK MPs and staff— Politico

No 10 pass for Labour donor who gave £500,000 — The Sunday Times

Labour will add 20% VAT to private school fees within first year of winning power — i

The Nottingham Attacks: A Search for Answers — BBC Panorama

Innovation

Harry Lewis-Irlam, Stephen Matthews, Darren Boyle, Rhodri Morgan — Mail Online: Deep Dive

• Anatomy of a loveless landslide: How Labour won on apathy and division
• Hour by hour, how D-Day unfolded…
• How China could seize Taiwan and spark WW3

Laura Dunn, Katie Lilley-Harris, Ellie Senior, Sherree Younger, Scott Nicholson, Jamie Mckerrow Maxwell — KL Magazine

• Rocky Bottoms
• Johnny Cave’s Asparagus
• Archangel Distilleries

Niels de Hoog, Antonio Voce, Elena Morresi, Manisha Ganguly, Ashley Kirk — The Guardian

• How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation

Alison Killing, Chris Miller, Peter Andringa, Chris Campbell, Sam Learner, Sam Joiner — Financial Times

• FT investigation finds Ukrainian children on Russian adoption sites

David Dubas-Fisher, Cullen Willis, Paul Gallagher, Richard Ault — Reach Data Unit

• DWP Cold Weather Payment postcode checker – map shows where households are due £25, £50 or £75 boost
• Enter postcodes in this map to see average house prices in your area
• Cheapest places in Greater Manchester to buy petrol as RAC issues fuel price warning

Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo, Venetia Menzies, Darren Burchett, Narottam Medhora, Cecilia Tombesi — The Sunday Times

• The dead teenager, the lying suspect and the black box that proves it

The post British Journalism Awards 2024: Full list of this year’s finalists appeared first on Press Gazette.

GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall has successfully acquired The Spectator for £100m. Read the full story here.

Also this month the owner of The New York Sun is said to be considering a bid for The Telegraph (see more below).

Meanwhile it was reported in August that former advertising mogul Lord Saatchi had a £350m bid to buy The Telegraph rejected.

Lord Saatchi, who had put together the bid with former Economist Group director Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, has not made it into the second round of the auction process.

In a statement to Sky News they said: “We are sorry Redbird IMI overpaid with £600m for the Telegraph.

“We are offering £350m plus further payments dependent on performance.

“Our bid is not the biggest – but it is the best.

“Whatever happens, this important national asset should end up in safe hands for the long term.”

But Redbird IMI, which is leading the sale, said in response: “They never signed an NDA [non-disclosure agreement]. They never made a serious bid.

“And they haven’t been invited into the second round.

“So, with all due respect, no one takes Maurice or his views on any of this seriously.”

Belgium-based media group Mediahuis also reportedly made a bid but will not progress to the second round of the auction.

The open auction process to buy The Telegraph and The Spectator magazine restarted after a failed bid by the Jeff Zucker-led Redbird IMI, a joint investment vehicle between US private equity firm Redbird and Abu Dhabi-backed vehicle International Media Investments.

The deal, which saw Redbird IMI agree to pay off more than £1bn in debts for The Telegraph’s former owners the Barclays, was ultimately thwarted when the UK Government brought forward new legislation to ban foreign governments from owning UK newspapers and current affairs magazines amid criticism of the UAE investment.

Redbird IMI is looking to recoup at least £600m from the sale of the Telegraph and Spectator (the value of Barclays debt secured against the titles).

Press Gazette will update the following story as bids are confirmed or discarded, or new information comes to light.

Any of the people or businesses mentioned could bid individually or jointly, or not at all.

Who still wants to buy The Telegraph?

Dovid Efune

Dovid Efune, the owner of The New York Sun which he bought in 2021 to revive it as a right-leaning online brand, is reported to be considering a bid for The Telegraph.

According to The Telegraph, British-born Efune made a presentation to the newspaper’s management team and was asked to submit a second-round offer at the end of September.

Semafor reported that Efune has potential financial backers including asset managers Oaktree and Hudson Bay Capital, the family office of US hedge fund manager Michael Leffell and the investment arm of Canadian developer Beedie.

Efune is a former editor-in-chief and chief executive of New York-based international Jewish news publisher The Algemeiner.

GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall

Sir Paul Marshall, the co-founder of hedge fund Marshall Wace, was long reported to be the frontrunner to buy The Spectator ahead of his successful bid. It is unclear whether he still wants to separately buy The Telegraph.

It was previously speculated that Marshall’s Spectator deal could value the current affairs magazine somewhere between £50m and £100m, Sky News reported on 1 August. The acquisition is understood to have taken place for the top end of that range, £100m.

Last year, amid the first auction process, Sir Paul was reported to be working with the investment bank Moelis on a potential bid to buy The Telegraph and was holding discussions with US billionaire and hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, one of the world’s richest men, to potentially take part in a consortium.

Griffin is a donor to the Republican Party in the US – although he did not contribute to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign – and any potential involvement in The Telegraph would be his first personal entry into a media business. It would be in a personal capacity and not through his hedge fund Citadel, the FT reported last year.

Sir Paul has been an investor in GB News in a personal capacity since before its launch in 2021. He has since renewed his investment, saying he was proud that the broadcaster is providing a space for “genuinely independent thinking, insightful discussion, and impartial analysis” but not “groupthink”.

Politically, he is known for donating to the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Telegraph also declared for Leave and, according to Press Gazette’s ‘Brexitometer’, was the third most biased national newspaper towards Brexit behind the Daily Express and Daily Mail.

Sir Paul is also a financial backer of Unherd, the news site set up by former Times columnist Tim Montgomerie in 2017 that says its aims are “to push back against the herd mentality with new and bold thinking, and to provide a platform for otherwise unheard ideas, people and places”.

Unherd says it is not aligned to any political party and its media pack shows a split among its audience of 34% right of centre, 29% centrist, and 21% left of centre.

David Montgomery’s National World

In March, National World chairman David Montgomery claimed the Yorkshire Post and Scotsman publisher, which has made a series of smaller specialist acquisitions in the past two years, was still the “best qualified” candidate to buy The Telegraph.

Former Local World/Trinity Mirror boss Montgomery re-entered the market at the start of 2021 when he bought the former JPI Media newspaper titles through new company National World Plc.

The company first confirmed its interest last August, telling investors: “National World notes media speculation that it is a possible participant in the sale process surrounding Telegraph Media Group and its associated titles.

“As the Company has previously announced, its growth strategy is rooted in actively exploring opportunities to build its business through acquisitions and implementing its new operating model for owned assets.

“The Board continues to evaluate accretive opportunities to grow the business and will consider participating in a sale process for Telegraph Media Group as and when such a process formally commences. There can be no certainty that an acquisition will take place nor as to the terms of such an acquisition.”

Sky News subsequently reported that Montgomery is “close to appointing Cavendish Capital Markets and Peel Hunt to help raise the financing” to buy both Telegraph titles. The firms would work alongside “Rothschild, which is providing corporate finance advice to Mr Montgomery, and Dowgate Securities, its existing broker”.

Then in March Montgomery said: “In the second half of 2023 National World competed in the aborted auction for The Telegraph. The conclusion of its ownership change is still in doubt but the opportunity was in line with both the founding principles of National World – that it would be a consolidator in the sector – and its ability to leverage both its infrastructure to extract significant synergies and its proven management expertise.

“Our view remains that National World remains the best qualified among the various candidates for such a deal both in terms of industry qualification and also editorial independence, as well as the absence of any competition issues.”

Nadhim Zahawi

The former Conservative MP is reported by Sky News to be approaching billionaire backers including the Reuben brothers with a view to assembling a £600m bid for the Telegraph titles and The Spectator.

Sky News reported on 12 August that the bid is now “fully financed” but no further details have emerged.

Sky also revealed that the idea of former prime minister and Telegraph columnist and Brussels correspondent Boris Johnson as editor-in-chief was “floating around” in preparation for the eventuality that Zahawi’s bid is successful. Preliminary and informal talks are said to have been held. Zahawi was chancellor under Johnson.

News Corp

Multiple reports last year claimed Rupert Murdoch wanted to buy The Spectator, potentially to expand it further in the US where it first launched a dedicated offering in 2018 and where it could align with right-leaning News Corp brands like Fox News and the New York Post.

Murdoch stepped down as chairman of News Corporation in November.

But The Guardian spoke to a source with knowledge of the initial sale discussions who said: “People still think Murdoch is the frontrunner and can outbid everyone else. He’s got so much cash, it’s a trophy prize he’s always wanted. You can see it like the end of his career.”

Ultimately that did not happen with Marshall winning out.

Conrad Black

Conrad Black, who initially sold The Telegraph to the Barclays in 2004 for £665m, has reportedly been “approached about a potential bid”, according to Jane Martinson in The Guardian on 11 July.

Who was interested in buying The Telegraph but has pulled out or had their bids rejected?

Lord Saatchi and Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild

Sky News first reported on 6 July that former Conservative co-chairman Lord Saatchi, responsible for some of the party’s major advertising campaigns, was considering a bid alongside Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a former director of The Economist Group.

“City sources said they had approached a number of potential financial backers in recent weeks, although neither could be reached for comment, and people close to the process cautioned that it was far from certain that they would ultimately participate in an offer,” Mark Kleinman reported for Sky News.

However a month later Kleinman revealed Lord Saatchi and Lady de Rothschild’s bid had been rejected.

Mediahuis

European media group Mediahuis, which owns titles including Belgium’s De Standaard, Dutch daily De Telegraaf, and the Irish Independent, reportedly made a bid to buy The Telegraph.

However it was not high enough to progress to the second round, according to the Financial Times.

CVC

Investment firm CVC Capital Partners was considering a bid for The Telegraph, the news outlet reported on 17 July.

If any bid was ultimately successful, The Telegraph would have become the first UK national newspaper to be owned by a private equity firm.

However the FT later reported CVC was “unlikely to make a bid or participate in financing a future deal” while The Times confirmed at the end of July the firm had “walked away from the bidding process”.

Last time The Telegraph was up for sale in 2004 CVC teamed up with DMGT but they pulled out when the price went higher than they were willing to pay.

This time CVC was said to have been interested alone. DMGT has separately said it is no longer interested in taking part.

CVC has investments in a range of industries, notably in the UK in Six Nations and Premiership Rugby, but in terms of media it has Authentic Brands Group, which owns the intellectual property for Sports Illustrated.

Lord Rothermere’s DMGT

The Times reported on 10 July that Lord Rothermere’s DMGT, which owns the Mail, Metro, i and New Scientist titles, had told bankers overseeing the sale that it had decided to pull out of the race.

DMGT feared a “protracted regulatory process” amid potential competition concerns if it won the auction and said this could affect its ability to grow its own existing business.

It also warned that a ban on foreign governments investing in UK newspaper titles passed by the last government had curbed its ability to raise capital. The law was rushed through in the wash-up process before the general election and turned out to be more restrictive than had been expected, banning foreign sovereign wealth funds and state pension funds from having any stake at all in a UK newspaper business.

A spokesman for Daily Mail and General Trust told The Times: “DMGT believes the new statutory regime governing the ownership of UK newspapers is overly restrictive, and could curtail our ability to raise capital for our news publishing and other media businesses — both now and in the future.

“With a new government in place, we would face a heightened risk of a protracted regulatory process if we were to win the auction. This would cast further uncertainty over the Telegraph and could disrupt our plan to grow DMGT’s diverse stable of news titles.”

DMGT first confirmed in August 2023 it was considering a bid for the Telegraph alongside investors – but later decided to go it alone.

It said the two potential benefits of a takeover were learning from The Telegraph’s subscriptions business and the potential of growing it in the US.

A spokesperson said last year: “The Rothermere family has a unique record as a custodian of newspapers, and since Lord Rothermere took DMGT private, its focus as a consumer news business puts it in an ideal position to provide the resources, management expertise and long-term decisions the Telegraph needs for its journalism to thrive.

“The Telegraph’s success in building a subscription model will help us reinforce the strength of our existing business.”

They added: “We do believe there is a strong potential to scale the Telegraph abroad, particularly in the US, just as we have very successfully done with the Mail.”

Rothermere took DMGT private at the end of 2021, with him and his family paying close to £1.6bn for the part of the company they did not already own.

DMGT initially held talks with Middle Eastern investors, though emphasising it would only do a deal if it kept economic and editorial control. But it later decided to pursue the bid alone.

In a rare interview with The Times, Rothermere explained why: “We went down the road of talking to people both in the Middle East and in the US. In the end I just thought to myself, ‘You know, it’s just too difficult.’

“If you’re in bed with a financial investor, their normal term time frame is three to five years, they want to know how they’re going to make more money over that period. I think a lot of the fruits are going to be born over a much longer period of time.”

Rothermere described The Telegraph as “a great brand, it also attracts great journalists. And after all, that’s what a news organisation is”, adding: “The Telegraph is one of the great newspapers of the world. It is impossible for me just to walk by.”

And he said existing parts of DMGT could learn from its subscriptions business: “I think we can carry on being mostly advertising, but we can also build a premium subscription product as well.”

The size of DMGT’s existing empire would likely have meant a challenge from the Competition and Markets Authority if it attempted to buy the Telegraph titles.

Press Gazette analysis last year showed that if DMGT bought The Daily Telegraph, it would control more than 50% of the daily national newspaper market in the UK.

A takeover of the Sunday Telegraph would take it to about 32% of the Sunday market - less than the 40% controlled by News UK incorporating The Sun on Sunday and The Sunday Times.

Rothermere told The Times: “I have faith that the CMA is going to look at this in a proper way and I don’t really want to front-run their answers or make them feel in any way that I’m trying to influence their judgment." But he emphasised the independence given to his editors at the Mail, i and Metro titles, saying: "Do I want to get involved? No I don’t. I genuinely don’t. It is not my remit." i editor Oly Duff told Press Gazette last month Rothermere was "known for letting editors edit".

Rothermere previously expressed an interest in buying The Telegraph in 2004 and said of that time: "It was a complex transaction. In the end the Barclays bought it and paid a higher price than I was willing to pay anyway."

Axel Springer

German publisher Axel Springer pulled out of the running in the initial auction, according to the FT on 17 November, after deciding it was not willing to pay the likely £600m price tag.

Axel Springer had registered its interest to buy The Telegraph titles with Goldman Sachs.

The publisher previously attempted to buy The Telegraph in the 2004 race that was ultimately won by the Barclays.

Axel Springer was founded by the publisher of the same name in 1946 with ambitions to create the biggest newspaper publisher in Europe. Its biggest German titles include Bild and Die Welt but it is now active in 40 countries and major acquisitions have included Insider in 2015 and Politico in 2021. It also created curated news app Upday as part of a strategic partnership with Samsung, on whose phones the app appears.

Ex-Telegraph editor William Lewis

Ex-Telegraph editor Sir William Lewis told Bloomberg in September he had lined up funding to take over his former employer.

He said in an interview: “I love the Telegraph. It’s a fantastic journalistic organisation. I would be really interested in trying to find a way to buy it. We have the support to do it," although he added that the title "needs a digital product and services refresh".

However in November he was appointed chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post, seemingly thwarting those plans.

Lewis did not share who had been involved or how much funding they had offered, saying only he had received "significant expressions of interest from a wide range of potential backers".

He added that he would not unilaterally reject Middle Eastern support, but that there are currently no Saudi Arabian business partners involved.

Lewis edited The Daily Telegraph between 2006 and 2009 and led a major period of its digital transformation.

He was until last year chief executive and co-founder of The News Movement, a social-led start-up focusing on reaching Gen Z audiences, alongside former BBC editorial director Kamal Ahmed who is editor-in-chief.

Why is The Telegraph being sold?

In June last year Lloyds Banking Group effectively repossessed Telegraph Media Group and The Spectator over the Barclays' outstanding debts. The value of The Telegraph was put at around £600m.

The formal sale process then began on Friday 20 October. It ended abruptly after Redbird IMI made its deal with the Barclays although the transaction was put on hold by competition inquiries ordered by then-Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer. It was then ultimately stymied altogether and Redbird IMI withdrew rather than continuing to fight.

The latest financial results for Telegraph Media Group have since been published: although it is profitable, with a 35% rise in operating profit in 2023, it saw a record £244.6m loss due to mystery loans apparently extracted by the Barclay family. Turnover was up 5% to £268m.

The latest results for The Spectator, for 2022, showed revenues up 2% to £20.8m with operating profit down 10% to £2.6m, attributed to investment in the US, Australia and sister fine art magazine Apollo.

The post Telegraph sale latest: Newspaper auction continues as Paul Marshall completes Spectator deal appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette’s updated ranking of the biggest local news websites in the UK shows that most titles grew their audience in July 2024 versus the same month a year earlier.

When Press Gazette last ranked UK local news websites using Ipsos iris data just under a year ago, we found most titles were losing traffic year on year. Many local news websites have felt the impact of declining Facebook referral traffic and changes to Google’s search algorithm.

But looking at the 78 local news websites that made it into the top 2,100 UK websites list shared by Ipsos iris for July, 57 titles grew their monthly UK audience year on year last month.

On average, the 78 sites grew their monthly UK audience by 33% and grew their total monthly audience minutes by 12%.

This compares with an average rate of print circulation decline of 17% in the first half of 2024 for the 53 daily UK titles audited by ABC.

The Manchester Evening News is the largest local news website in the UK with a monthly audience of over 12 million (up 9% year on year). Its daily print circulation is 6,519 (down 22% year on year).

Nine out of the ten most popular regional press websites in the UK are published by Reach (with the third-placed Evening Standard the only exception).

The top UK local news websites have audiences multiple times bigger than the populations of the areas they cover, with many attracting readers nationally and even internationally – sometimes helped by coverage of massive football teams.

Overall 34 out of the UK's top 78 regional sites are published by Reach, with 18 published by Newsquest and a further 18 published by National World.

The only other publishers to feature in the top 78 local news websites which Ipsos iris releases data for are Iliffe Media (two titles), DC Thomson (two), City AM and Evening Standard Ltd.

Some 44 local news sites audited by Ipsos iris grew their monthly audience by more than 10% year on year.

Reach-owned Gloucestershire Live was the best-performing site, growing its monthly audience by 302% to just over four million year on year and total audience minutes by 20% to 5.5 million.

Six out of the ten fastest-growing sites were published by Newsquest: The Daily Echo in Southampton, Oxford Mail, Bournemouth Echo, Brighton Argus, Dorset Echo and Glasgow Times.

However 16 local news websites in our top-78 list lost more than 10% of their monthly audience year on year.

Seven out of the ten local news websites audited by Ipsos iris which fell fastest were published by Reach.

Newsquest's Northern Echo was the fastest faller, down 56% year on year in terms of monthly audience. But it saw a slight increase in total audience minutes by 4% to 2.9 million per month suggesting it has one of the most deeply engaged audiences among all the leading UK local news websites.

Newsquest was best performer out of big three UK regional press publishers

Despite dominating the sector in terms of overall audience, in relative terms Reach was the worst performing out of the big three UK regional news publishers.

Reach reported an average year-on-year decline in monthly audience minutes of 45% despite average growth of 13% in total monthly audience at its sites, suggesting a fall in engagement across the board for its brands in July 2024.

Newsquest was the best-performing big-three publisher with average monthly audience growth of 60% and audience minutes up 44% on average across the sites we have data for.

National World saw average audience growth of just over 9% with minutes up 42% on average.

Methodology

Ipsos iris data is partly derived from a panel of 10,000 people aged 15 and over that is designed to be nationally representative. The participants have meters installed across 25,000 personal devices to passively measure website and app usage.

This data is combined with data from participating websites that are tagged so all devices visiting the site can be identified and logged.

Publishers often have their own internal audience metrics, which can result in different figures. Press Gazette uses Ipsos for its UK news audience ranking stories to be able to compare across publishers.

For this story, 78 local news websites were isolated by Press Gazette from a list shared by Ipsos iris of the top 2,100 online brands in the UK in July 2024.

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Twenty-two print local newspapers have closed in the UK in the past two years.

Press Gazette’s latest research suggests at least 293 local newspapers have closed since 2005.

Four titles were launched in print between the end of July 2022 and the start of August 2024.

The outlook was better for local digital outlets, however, with 20 launches outweighing 15 closures over the past two years (with one title appearing in both lists).

Press Gazette has compiled a list of local launches and closures since our last update in July 2022, based on reports of launches and closures across Press Gazette and Hold The Front Page. Editions of newspapers have been treated as separate titles.

The closure of titles only tells part of the story as many titles continue but with tiny staffs. Separate Press Gazette research has found that the UK’s three leading local newspaper publishers Newsquest, Reach and National World (which publish the vast majority of titles) employ around 3,000 journalists today compared with 9,000 in 2007.

Eight print titles closed in August 2022 alone as National World, Reach, and the smaller Champion Media Group all made cutbacks – coming days after the closure of five titles by Newsquest which made it into our last update.

Reach ended the free Manchester Weekly News, which had editions covering Trafford and Salford, and said at the time it no longer needed to “flood” the city with print to guarantee advertisers had a wide reach as this role is now fulfilled online instead.

The second-biggest spate of closures in the past two years came in January 2023, with six papers ending their runs – five owned by Highland News & Media, with some merged and the coverage of others moved to Grampian Online, and one by Tindle Newspapers.

One of the Highland titles to close was the Turriff Advertiser, a weekly title founded in 1933 to cover a town in Aberdeenshire. It was affectionately known as The Squeak.

Turiff becomes town without a local newspaper voice

Turiff, a town of around 5,000, now is only covered by Grampian Online.

David Porter, who edited the Turriff Advertiser before its closure, told Press Gazette that since the title ceased printing, “they don’t look to cover the area unless it’s something big.”

Porter said the same applies to the other areas where Highland closed titles, explaining: “The Inverurie Advertiser had the same situation, the Ellon Advertiser had the same situation. Ellon and Inverurie still nominally have a print title after the Inverurie Herald and the Ellon Times integrated into a single title. It does still get produced, but it has no local reporters, and it’s literally done by a guy sitting in The Scotsman’s office in Edinburgh; there’s no input locally.”

Regarding the move to an online model, Porter said: “They tried it with us and it didn’t work, because rural Aberdeenshire, like most of Scotland, has an ageing population. There are a lot of people who come up from down south in England to settle. So we have a much older age base here, and they are print readers.”

Porter believes that the lack of established local media outlets will be damaging for any future attempt to revive the art of local reporting. He said: “There isn’t even an opening for people for people who want work experience, there are no positions for them. That route has just gone.

“If you would get a classroom of journalism students, they all want to write on sport. They don’t want to write on local news. Nobody writes about farming, there’s probably only five of us left in the whole of Scotland.”

Local councillor Alastair Forsyth told Press Gazette that, since the closure: “I regularly get complaints from constituents that they’re not aware of the things going on right under their noses, simply because there is no public discourse for that information to be distributed.”

Forsyth believes this has driven people to sites such as Facebook, which has a page called My Turriff, to find local news. While this can help to fill the void, he sees it as less reliable, arguing that “the advantage of the press is that they have methods and systems that authenticate the veracity of news media”.

Newsquest Scotland also shut down two titles in May 2023. According to Hold The Front Page, a spokesperson said: “Closing our print editions will allow us to focus our resource more on what our audience is telling us they want – breaking news, multimedia content and engaging newsletters while retaining a strong presence in our communities.” Those two titles – the Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter and the Irvine Times – continued to publish online and no jobs were lost.

UK local newspaper launches in print since August 2022

Four print titles were launched in the same period, exclusively by independent or smaller publishers, making it a net loss in print of 18 local newspapers.

Of the launches, one was weekly, two were fortnightly and one was monthly.

UK local news closures and launches in digital since August 2022

Reach's closure of 13 Live regional websites at the end of 2023 dominated digital closures in the period. All but two of the closures were in areas traditionally served by Reach's rivals Newsquest and National World.

The closures took place as part of a restructure that saw Reach cut 450 jobs.

Meanwhile Newsquest closed down The National Wales, its news website for the whole nation, in August 2022 after failing to grow its subscriber numbers to a sufficient level. It had been launched 18 months earlier.

And The QT, a subscriber-based website for the North East launched by a former Newcastle Journal editor, ceased publication in July this year just months after its launch.

However 19 other launches also took place, meaning they outweighed the effect of the closures.

Seven of those were part of an expansion of The Lead, a self-proclaimed "micro-mag" that "aim[s] to cover the sharp angles that define our life in the UK today", in the North West of England.

National World launched two local titles in the form of Nottingham World and Derby World. Leicester World was said to be planned to follow soon afterwards last year but it still does not appear to be live.

A number of titles launched via Substack in the form of newsletters of various frequency. Newsquest backed the launch of the Glasgow Wrap under editor Marissa MacWhirter in March 2024, advised by Michael MacLeod who launched his own editions for Edinburgh and London. All three are curation-based rather than primarily doing original reporting.

Also on Substack Mill Media, which has been praised for its other previous launches since 2020 starting with the Manchester Mill, went live with the Birmingham Dispatch in November 2023 while an independent group of journalists started investigative journalism-based The London Spy in May this year.

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Editor of The Scotsman Neil McIntosh has resigned from the newspaper after nearly three and a half years at the helm.

Staff at the National World-owned title, which is currently going through a round of redundancies, were informed on Tuesday that McIntosh will be replaced as editor by his deputy Alan Young, who starts on 2 September.

News of McIntosh’s resignation came hours after members of The Scotsman’s NUJ chapel wrote to National World head of HR Claire Jackson following what they described as “the refusal of The Scotsman’s editor… to agree to our request to hold a meeting with all editorial staff to explain the decision to place a quarter of the newsroom at risk of redundancy”.

[Read more: Scotsman staff lament ‘death of a thousand cuts’ – See newsroom letter to HR in full]

The email to staff said McIntosh, a former news executive at The Guardian, BBC and Wall Street Journal, had resigned “to pursue a portfolio career”. It added: “We wish Neil well for the future and thank him for his contribution to the business.”

Of his replacement, staff were told Young “began his journalism career in the North-East of Scotland, and first joined The Scotsman’s sister title the Edinburgh Evening News in 2003. Since then he has held a variety of positions including news editor, head of content, assistant editor and more latterly deputy editor”.

The email quotes Young as saying: “I am deeply honoured to be taking over at the helm of The Scotsman, a title which I love and which has been such a huge part of my life.

“Trusted, quality journalism has never been more important and I’m looking forward to working with the immensely talented team in the newsroom as we continue to grow and develop our content across all platforms.”

Head of news Dale Miller has been promoted to deputy editor below Young.

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Staff at The Scotsman have warned the newspaper is heading towards a “death of a thousand cuts”.

Five journalist jobs are being cut at The Scotsman, including the health, environment and property correspondents.

Features writers are being cut from a team of three to two, while the business desk is halving to one person, according to the National Union of Journalists.

According to the union, staff had asked for a meeting with editor-in-chief Neil McIntosh about the cuts but he said he could not as he was focusing on the redundancies and restructuring process.

A subsequent letter to National World’s head of HR Claire Jackson from the NUJ Scotsman chapel said: “These proposed job cuts – imposed from England, with no consultation with Scottish staff – threaten the future of this 207-year-old newspaper we are proud to work for… As it stands, we have no confidence in the strategy taken by National World.

“This title has so far outlived all its former owners. It cannot die a death of a thousand cuts under its current custodians.”

The letter questioned why specialist journalists are being cut when health is a devolved matter for the Scottish Parliament and consistently listed as a priority for voters, and 94% of Scots have described the natural environment in Scotland as important to its economy and national identity.

It also pointed out that Glasgow-based, Newsquest-owned rival The Herald has a business desk of four people.

The Scotsman recently launched a rebranding effort of which McIntosh said the newspaper was “aiming to offer the most authentic insight into Scottish culture, heritage, and business”.

The letter questioned the business strategy, saying the remaining newsroom will struggle to meet the target of doubling page views by the end of the year and that “readers won’t pay to read something that isn’t there anymore”.

The day after staff were told about the cuts, National World announced its latest half-year results which showed 17% year-on-year growth in revenue to £48.8m and adjusted operating profit up 62% to £4.7m.

The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post, News Letter, Express and Star and Shropshire Star brands have grown their combined subscriber base by 17% since December 2023, the results said.

Total subscribers to National World websites and apps were up by 8% since then to 20,877 – but digital subscription revenue was flat at £0.8m.

Nick McGowan-Lowe, the NUJ’s national organiser for Scotland, said: “Staff at the Scotsman have been set targets and have repeatedly been told by their editor that they have achieved them.

“Despite this, many talented, experienced and dedicated journalists are set to lose their jobs – and the real losers are the Scottish public, who look set to lose the quality, in-depth coverage and exclusives that keep readers entertained, voters informed, and holds politicians of all parties to account.”

In full: NUJ Scotsman chapel letter to National World HR

I am writing to you on behalf of the NUJ Scotsman Chapel. This follows the refusal of The Scotsman’s editor, Neil McIntosh, to agree to our request to hold a meeting with all editorial staff to explain the decision to place a quarter of the newsroom at risk of redundancy, and explain what this means for the future of the paper. If he cannot take responsibility for these cuts and look his staff in the eye, someone must. We ask that it be you.

The new advertising campaign for The Scotsman – launched a matter of weeks ago – quotes Burns in boasting that our journalists “dare to be honest”. So we will be honest with you now. These proposed job cuts – imposed from England, with no consultation with Scottish staff – threaten the future of this 207-year-old newspaper we are proud to work for.

Less than a month ago, our editor thanked us for “creating journalism that combined our traditions of quality and authority” and delivering year-on-year growth. Now we are told that isn’t enough. But we can’t do more with less, and our readers won’t pay to read something that isn’t there anymore.

These cuts would halve the number of business reporters to one. Our rival, The Herald, has four.

Health, devolved to the Scottish Parliament, is consistently listed as one of the two most important priorities for Scottish voters, with major challenges such as the ongoing impact of Covid on the NHS. These proposals would leave us without a specialist journalist, putting us, again, at a distinct disadvantage to our rivals.

At a time when 94 per cent of Scots have indicated they see Scotland’s natural environment as ‘very important’ or ‘quite important’ to both Scotland’s economy and its national identity, it makes no sense to cut that coverage either, nor our award-winning features department.

Our newspaper occupies a proud and valued role in Scotland’s social culture, and despite the challenges facing the newspaper industry, we believe there is a place for its journalism to flourish.

That takes time. We only see a short-term action that will have long-term negative implications for the business.

The day after these cuts were announced the company recorded increased profits and boasted of it being down to “expert and specialist content” and a strategy of “pivoting towards topic specialisation”. This is not the strategy we see in our newsroom. Making our colleagues redundant now and cutting our coverage surely makes it impossible for our target of doubling page views by the end of the year to remain in place.

We also have serious concerns about the redundancy process itself. Journalists were repeatedly told they did not have individual page view targets, and yet this appears to have formed part of the process. Clarity is desperately needed.

We ask that you meet with us and the union, as a matter of urgency, to explain the current business strategy, where the company sees the future of The Scotsman, and to address how these proposed cuts will affect the stress levels and mental health of the remaining staff.

As it stands, we have no confidence in the strategy taken by National World.

This title has so far outlived all its former owners. It cannot die a death of a thousand cuts under its current custodians.

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National World’s website for Manchester has rebranded “with a new purpose and ethos centred on the people of the city” in an attempt to build its own niche in the city.

Manchester World was launched in 2021 as National World created a portfolio of new city websites to go with its legacy titles like the Yorkshire Post and The Scotsman acquired when it bought JPI Media at the start of that year.

The Manchester site, which has a team of six, has now rebranded with the new tagline: “Ordinary Mancs, extraordinary stories” as well as a logo inspired by the city’s bee symbol.

Editor Adam Lord told Press Gazette the people of Greater Manchester “will be at the heart of everything we do”, telling stories “from their point of view” and “celebrating” them.

The shift in purpose takes place as Manchester World seeks to find its own niche in a local news market already dominated by the Manchester Evening News (MEN), and supplemented by long-read newsletter start-up the Manchester Mill which has been going since 2020 and has more than 3,200 paying members.

According to Similarweb, the Manchester World website received 770,230 visits in July versus 36.5 million for the Manchester Evening News.

Lord acknowledged it is a “really crowded marketplace in Manchester, and I’m not just talking about the MEN, there’s loads of lifestyle and specialist websites”.

He said: “Obviously, we want to grow the audience. I think part of that is brand awareness. What I would say is that I don’t see the MEN as a competitor. What this is about is finding our place in Manchester, and giving people something different.”

He added: “It’s all good reporting on these major events, but it’s about how it impacts people and what they think about it.”

As well as Lord, Manchester World has two news reporters, a video journalist and journalists covering Manchester United and Manchester City.

He added: “With a smaller team, we can’t cover absolutely everything, which is why I say that trying to compete with the MEN would be folly.”

The relaunch will focus on ensuring that all stories are covered from the perspective of those affected, hoping to complement reporting from other titles, he said.

While National World has given its support to the relaunch, including the new branding coming from its marketing company MNA Digital, Lord said it was a “bottom-up, not top-down” decision.

“It’s always been something I wanted to do, but it’s come from the team and worked its way up. And there’s been a lot of support across the wider National World business for it, which I really appreciate.”

This means the relaunch is not something that will be rolled out to all sister titles as although there is a “big National World umbrella… each brand is effectively its own little enterprise as well”.

Lord said: “I’m grateful that National World have allowed us to try some stuff, and we’ll see how it goes from there.”

Ultimately, Lord said, increasing the site’s brand awareness and audience will have “a commercial impact, positive ones if we get it going in the right direction. But what I would say is that I am keen to grow, potentially, a different kind of audience to what local news has been trying to… I do want to grow a more sustainable audience.”

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Five journalist jobs are expected to be cut at The Scotsman, with specialist reporters, features and business writers affected.

Press Gazette understands this could amount to a loss of approximately a quarter of correspondents and writers in the newsroom.

Staff were told of the proposals on Wednesday, the day before owner National World put out its half-year results showing 17% year-on-year growth in revenue to £48.8m and adjusted operating profit up 62% to £4.7m.

Press Gazette understands eight journalists’ jobs have been put at risk. Three features writers have been placed at risk with one redundancy expected, two business writers are at risk with one job loss proposed, and three specialist writers are at risk.

Update on 9 August: Health correspondent Joseph Anderson has revealed he is one of the specialist journalists affected, writing on X: “Bad news: The Scotsman is making the role of Health Correspondent – and therefore me – redundant. I’ve spent nearly two years in my dream job, and in that time have amassed 100+ front pages across the daily and Scotland on Sunday titles. I’m now looking for opportunities…”

The cuts would follow the loss of two football writers in January, leaving one dedicated football reporter. The NUJ noted that rival Newsquest has been recruiting football writers for Glasgow-based The Herald and has launched new football websites covering Edinburgh teams Hibs and Hearts, entering traditional Scotsman territory.

Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ national organiser for Scotland, told Press Gazette: “The Scotsman has a long and proud history. It now has a much smaller staff, albeit of experienced journalists respected by newsrooms across Scotland, but apparently not by National World’s management in England.

“These proposed cuts, following soon after the axing of two football writers earlier in the year, create more worrying gaps in the coverage. It seems National World is making rash, short-term decisions which are destroying any plan of investing in quality, long-form journalism to build up subscriptions.

“National World, under the management of David Montgomery, is a company which cuts staffing to the bone and then wonders why circulation bleeds.”

In a statement on Friday, the NUJ claimed the decision on the cuts had been made by National World executives based in England allegedly because The Scotsman had not reached its subscriptions targets.

However in National World’s half-year results on Wednesday it said that together The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post, News Letter, Express and Star and Shropshire Star brands had grown their subscriber base by 17% since December 2023.

Total subscribers to National World websites and apps were said to be up by 8% since then to 20,877.

Digital subscription revenue was flat at £0.8m, with a decline of 4% in the first quarter followed by growth of 5% between April and June.

The NUJ held a chapel meeting for Scotsman staff on Thursday at which a motion of “anger and dismay” was passed.

NUJ members are now seeking a meeting with Scotsman editor Neil McIntosh “to explain why such severe cuts were needed only three weeks after he told journalists they had achieved year-on-year growth and congratulated them for their performance, effort and hard work”, according to the union.

The NUJ said The Scotsman had a target to double page views by the end of 2024 and reported that McIntosh recently told staff the first half of the year had been a “good start”. However the union claimed the site has recently struggled in Google.

The National World results showed there was “continued volatility” in traffic across its network of sites with average combined page views of 136 million in the first half of 2024 down 4% year-on-year. The first quarter suffered more, down 8%, with 1% growth in the second quarter.

The publisher’s target is to reach an average of 150 million monthly page views in 2024 and it said it has “implemented a range of initiatives to improve page view performance in the second half”.

However it added: “The business is transitioning away from page view (PV) metrics, towards what our customers and advertisers recognise as higher value content. This is demonstrated by our 12% increase in digital revenue despite a 4% decrease in PV, and a 25% increase in video revenue despite a 24% decrease in video views.”

In print The Scotsman had a total average daily circulation of 7,710 in the second half of 2023, down 12% year-on-year, of which 3,833 were paid subscriptions.

McGowan-Lowe said in a statement released by the NUJ: “Our members at The Scotsman shouldn’t have to pay the price for the muddled mess of a business strategy from National World. They have achieved what they have been asked to do, and their editor has congratulated them for it.

“National World management claim they are trying to turn the company into a ‘premium content business’, but these job cuts fall on those same talented, award-winning journalists who consistently produce excellent Scottish journalism.

“National World CEO David Montgomery needs to be supporting the editor of The Scotsman and its journalists so they can continue to produce quality, informed journalism. You don’t attract more subscribers by offering them less content.”

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