We are on the cusp of tumultuous change in the ownership of the UK national press and most of the key conversations that will determine it are taking place in America.
As these private negotiations are conducted, a new cast of moguls is stepping onto the media stage, though they shun the spotlight. Little is known of Dovid Efune, the 39-year-old Manchester-born New Yorker who is now favourite to take control of the Telegraph titles, house journals of the Conservative Party.
Efune owns the New York Sun, an online conservative outlet whose star columnist is Larry Kudlow, former chief economic adviser to Donald Trump. Efune was previously editor-in-chief of New-York based Algemeiner Journal, which covers “the Middle East, Israel and matters of Jewish interest around the world”. His bid for the Telegraph group is being supported by LionTree, a New York investment bank led by prolific media dealmaker Aryeh Bourkoff.
Pitted against them in the Telegraph auction is Ken Griffin, chief executive of Citadel, a Miami hedge fund managing $63bn (£47bn) in assets. Griffin, who is backing a consortium bid for the Telegraph led by the GB News funder Sir Paul Marshall, has spent US$74m (£55m) this year bankrolling Republican politicians, although he is not a Trump supporter.
Even if Marshall loses out on the Telegraph, he has a broadcast-to-text media empire that can shape British right-wing politics, having this month acquired The Spectator for £100m. Michael Gove, the former education secretary and Times journalist, was promptly installed as editor. Marshall helped fund Gove’s bid for the Tory leadership. Bids for the Telegraph were due by Friday. The seller is Redbird IMI – a consortium led by United Arab Emirates vice-president and Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, which paid £600m for the Spectator and Telegraph titles early this year but was blocked by the Government over press freedom and competition concerns.
Marshall appeared determined to add the Telegraph to his portfolio – and sources said that his bid was “still in the process” – but he was not at management presentations recently held at the paper and attended by Efune and David Montgomery, owner of the publisher National World.
Efune has criticised newspapers being ”deployed as ideological playthings”. But he takes close interest in the editorial of the New York Sun, which he describes as “values-based, principled and constitutionalist”. The paper’s motto is ‘It Shines for All”, although all 32 people on its masthead – including columnist and former Telegraph owner Conrad Black – are white.
Faith is important to Efune and Marshall. The New Yorker left secular education at the age of 11 to attend Jewish academies where he studied the Torah and rabbinic traditions. Marshall is a philanthropist and “committed Church of England Christian” who attends Holy Trinity Brompton evangelical church in London.
Few media owners are agenda-free. Both of these have shown interest in culture wars. Marshall – whose son Winston left the band Mumford & Sons after a left-wing backlash over a social media post – funds UnHerd, an opinion site that challenges consensus thinking and cancel culture.
Out in Reno, Nevada, the silverback of an outgoing generation, Rupert Murdoch, has been in a courthouse with his children, determining the succession of his empire. If he gets his wish and his first son Lachlan gets control of the dynasty then it will be business as usual for The Times and The Sun. But if probate commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr rules that younger son James and his sisters Elisabeth and Prudence keep their stake in the family trust, the UK stable – which James miserably oversaw during the hacking scandal – is more likely to be sold off.
There is turmoil too on the liberal side of the news-stand, with Britain’s oldest newspaper, The Observer (first published 1791), facing a takeover bid by Tortoise Media. The digital group, known for its podcasts, is offering £25m investment but furious journalists at Guardian Media Group, which owns the title, claim its future is being jeopardised.
Former Observer editor Roger Alton told me he thinks it will be hard to produce a multi-section paper without the resources the Sunday title shares with The Guardian. “My feeling is that this probably would mean the end of The Observer as is.”
Outside The Guardian, The Observer might enjoy greater online brand visibility. But in a magazine format it would lose impact.
What does all this upheaval mean? The balance of the UK press already tilts rightwards. Without influence from America, the Telegraph is already a relentless culture wars combatant and a firm supporter of Israel. But as the Tory leadership contest heads to its climax, the prospect of the party moving closer to the political centre grows ever less likely.