Press Owners (other than the Murdoch)

CARF 55 (April 00)

In the UK, the principal generators of inflammatory material on race and asylum are the politicians and the media. Particularly virulent is the influence of the rightwing tabloids like the Sun (owner: Rupert Murdoch) and the Daily Mail (owner: Lord Rothermere), both billionaires. They can target Afghan hijackers one day, Roma beggars the next, vilify asylum seekers tirelessly, divide communities and create a climate of intolerance and hate. As a result, there have been appalling attacks by racists (usually packs of youth) on blacks, Asians and anyone perceived to be different. A more recent tabloid to join in the racist campaign are the Express and the Daily Star, under a new owner, Richard Desmond, a millionaire porn merchant from November 2000. The Star carries several semi-nude photos of starlets, including the front page. Race & sex make a potent combination. 

The government of the day, New Labour, is afraid of the popular press and usually gives in to their agenda. No establishment figure (whether government, police or church spokesman), will publicly defend the asylum seekers or denounce the racist press. The rest of the press remains silent too. No public figure will attend the funeral of victims of racist attacks. So the rightwing press is left free to weave its racist fabric. Xenophobia does not arise from an inborn fear of strangers but rather from this section of the press manipulating people prejudices. Xenophobia has become a fundamentalist crusade against difference. This xenophobia easily spills over and mixes with the colour-based racism that established minorities have put up for decades. 

Socialist Worker (19 Dec 1998)

Daily Mail & Evening Standard

Both these papers are part of the Rothemere Family’s media empire. The ‘ultimate holding company’ is Rothermere Continuation Ltd based in Bermuda.

[From Socialist Worker (18 March 00): The late Lord Rothermere dodged paying taxes by spending only 80 days a year in Britain – instead living in his luxury homes in Paris and New York.]

Paul Dacre, editor of Daily Mail is a Director of the Rothermere’s Associated Newspapers Ltd. He has more than one home and his closely guarded salary exceeds £750,000. By the end of 1997, he had received share options worth £365,600.

Max Hastings, editor of the Standard, is also a director of Associated Newspapers Ltd which made £35.7 million in 1997. His share options at the nd of 1997 amounted to £600,000 on top of his 6-figure salary. The highest paid director of the company is on £1.4 million. There are other directors paid by the secretive company which owns Associated Newspapers & and a host of other companies in the Rothermere empire.

Founded in 1896 by two brothers, Alfred and Harold Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe and hereditary Viscount Rothermere), the Daily Mail soon became an establishment paper ready to take on erring government officials, no matter how senior. It gloried in the Empire and the monarchy but increasingly found little time for the poor and disadvantaged.

In recent years the Mail has created a fantasy world of its own. Its inhabitants are exclusively white, rich, employed, home-owning and contented. They have children within marriage, abide by family values (most Victorian) and respect the royals. But this cosy utopia is under constant threat by undesirables - gays, the unemployed, ‘scroungers’ of state benefits, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, multiculturalists, teachers who fail to discipline, modern artists, ... Hardly a day goes by without one or other of this group being lectured to or roundly abused. Stories about ‘floods’ of illegal immigrants and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers entering Britain have become an obsession.

The Mail peddles a lethal brew of patriotism, xenophobia and hypocritical moralising. Readers are treated to episodes of the Empire days, warned that British values are under threat while resident pundits lament the widespread moral decay in their midst. The Daily Mail together with two other rightwing dailies, Daily Telegraph and the Sun virtually dictate political debate in Britain and can intimidate politicians into going for tougher policies than their natural instincts would favour. These papers have fuelled prejudices, dulled people’s sensitivities to suffering of the less fortunate and generally injected a hardness and meanness into British public life.

Said the Daily Express (the Mail’s competitor):

“For decades the Daily Mail has piously preached about patriotism and family values but what of the aristocrats behind it?” The first owner was an avid supporter of Hitler, his grandson kept a mistress in Paris for 15 years and drove his wife to drink. The current Lord Rothermere has an illegitimate child.

Michael Grade, head of Pinewood Studios and formerly of TV Channel 4 said: “The Daily Mail has had its way too long. It is the voice of Little England.”

Stephen Fry (writer & actor) said: “It typifies everything that is most shameful about this country in terms of its xenophobia...”.

Sir Richard Branson (transport & tourism) said: “The one paper that most people find pretty loathsome is the Daily Mail.”

[More recent stuff on Mail in file – Express comments on advertising prostitution services in loot.]

The most pernicious trend (esp in broadcasting media) is the decline in depending on so-called local channels. Consolidation has occurred in print as in TV and radio. In 2000, Bristol’s Venue listings mag was taken over by the Northcliffe Groups – part of the Daily Mail empire. Only the Big Issue remains. Clearly in the electronic age, history is being written by the financial winners, the owners.

Richard Desmond (Express)

[S Worker 23 Nov 02] He has amassed around £250 million from his porn mags and trashy papers (Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star)
[Daily Mail, 13 May 02] Desmond made the gift to Labour in Feb 2001, just days after the then Trade Sec Stephen Byers cleared his company’s takeover of the Express Group. Byers could have intervened and halt the deal if he felt Desmond was not a ‘fit & proper person’ to run such a newspaper.

Mirror, 13 & 14 May 02 [with additions from M Star 23 July 02]

Defiant Blair last night rejected charges of sleaze over a £100,000 donation from porn mag baron Richard Desmond. His own MPs as well as Tories said the cash was ‘tainted’.

Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers + the Fantasy Channel + mags like Asian Babes, made the donation 15 months ago in the run up to the gen election but it was kept secret from the NEC.

Conrad Black

He owns the right-wing Daily Telegraph in UK, unofficial organ of the Conservative party and the Jerusalem Post in Israel. He also owns Hollinger International, whose board includes Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle. He has built his empire from a $7 million inheritance left by his father. His salary: $4.6 million a year.
More On Conrad Black
by Dan Milmo April 3, 2003 The Guardian

Lord Black's sprawling publishing empire, ranging from the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph & Spectator in Britain to the Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times, is under financial pressure and has had to pledge most of its assets to lenders, according to regulatory filings in Washington. The Hollinger group, which has long-term debts of $500m (£317m) and has run up pre-tax losses of $573m over the past two years, reveals in its annual report that meeting "substantial" debt service obligations is dependent on cash from US and foreign subsidiaries, provided by dividends and other payments. Yet the company admits that these businesses face restrictions on payment of dividends to Hollinger and that the majority of shares in subsidiaries have been assigned to lenders as collateral.

"Our subsidiaries and affiliated companies are under no obligation to pay dividends and, in the case of Publishing [a Hollinger subsidiary] and its principal domestic and foreign subsidiaries, are subject to statutory restrictions and restrictions in debt agreements that limit their ability to pay dividends," says a report filed with US regulator the securities and exchange commission. "Substantially all of the shares of our non-Canadian subsidiaries have been pledged to lenders of the company."

In a stark admission to shareholders, the report says: "Lord Black is our controlling shareholder and there may be a conflict between his interests and your interests." The Conservative peer, who owns 72.8% of voting shares in the company, controls Hollinger through the Ravelston Corporation, a vehicle owned by Lord Black and seven current or former Hollinger executives, including vice-chairman Dan Colson. Ravelston Management, a subsidiary of Ravelston, provides consultation and administrative services to Hollinger, charging it $23.7m in 2002. The report admits that some deals between Hollinger and Lord Black's other interests may be less favourable than agreements with independent companies.

According to the document, Hollinger has service agreements with Black-Amiel Management, a company which links the names of the Hollinger chief executive and his wife, Daily Telegraph columnist Barbara Amiel. She is a director on the Hollinger board and vice-president of editorial. During 2002, Hollinger paid Ravelston executives remuneration of just under $2m.

Details of Lord Black's total pay are not available but the report states that the peer and three unnamed Ravelston executives received almost $28m after signing a "non-competition" deal with Canadian publisher CanWest. The company bought most of Hollinger's Canadian newspapers in 2000 and its 50% share in Canada's National Post in 2001. Subsequently Ravelston agreed to provide management services to CanWest for an annual fee of $4m. Ravelston was paid a total $53m after agreeing not to compete against CanWest for five years.

Lord Black and three senior executives received $5.1m in a similar agreement with Canadian media company Osprey, whose chief executive is a shareholder in Hollinger. Osprey bought a group of Canadian newspapers from Hollinger in 2001 in a $166m deal. The non-competition payments were approved by Hollinger's independent directors, who include former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. The report goes on to state that Ravelston has loaned funds to Hollinger to help cover its operating costs and dividend payments.

Elsewhere in the report, the Telegraph newspaper group, which includes the daily and Sunday titles as well as the Spectator magazine, reported a slide in revenues last year, as both advertising and circulation continued to drop. Turnover fell from £337m to £321m, advertising revenues, which account for two-thirds of group income, were down 7.7% to £211m. Circulation revenue fell 0.9% to £93.6m.