EXCLUSIVE: The Telegraph and the "hypocrisy" of Andrew Neil
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2024
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
There is fury surrounding a bid by the former head of CNN to buy The Telegraph and The Spectator due to the involvement of the Abu-Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI investment group
In an exclusive interview, media executive, Jeff Zucker - who is leading that group - tells us about a "serious campaign" against his bid, and that the Chair of The Spectator Andrew Neil, is a "hypocrite" in his opposition to the takeover bid, because he says Mr Neil wanted to be at the heart of the deal.
In response, Andrew Neil refuted Mr Zucker's claims about him, saying "his memory is playing tricks on him." He added: "I have made it clear I will have nothing to do with [the group] and will walk away in the unlikely event [Mr Zucker] succeeds in acquiring The Spectator.
Editor: Tom Hughes
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Production: Shane Fennelly
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.8 | We know there is fury about the bid by a former head of CNN, backed by money from one of the |
| 0:19.9 | shakes in Abu Dhabi to buy the Daily Telegraph and |
| 0:23.9 | the spectator. The conservative firmament has been in a state of rage. But what we haven't heard |
| 0:31.2 | from until now is from Jeff Zucker himself, the former head of CNN, who is leading the bid to take over the |
| 0:39.1 | telegraph and take it to America, and that his rival bidder, Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, |
| 0:45.8 | is not a fit and proper person to own the newspaper group. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 0:55.6 | The Newsagents. The Newsagents. |
| 0:57.4 | It's John in Washington. |
| 0:58.8 | And it's Lewis in Newsagents HQ. |
| 1:00.8 | And in a way, the interview that you're about to hear, which John has done with Jeff Zucker, is kind of a continuation of the story. |
| 1:08.8 | You might remember our exclusive story that we did about Paul Marshall, who, as John said, is one of the rival bidders for the Telegraph and Spectator. He's one of the big investors in G.B. News. Paul Marshall, as you remember, we reported along with Hope, not hate, is a pretty controversial figure. Why? Well, one of the reasons why, not only because |
| 1:29.2 | of his big investments in GB News, which is itself controversial, but because as we reported, we found that |
| 1:34.3 | he had been retweeting material, which was extremist, which was far right, which was Islamophobic, |
| 1:40.4 | and which was homophobic as well. So we have been reporting on this story for a while on the news agents because it matters so much, really. |
| 1:48.0 | Who owns the Daily Telegraph and the spectator? |
| 1:50.1 | You might be thinking, who cares? |
| 1:51.6 | It matters because it is not only one of the biggest newspaper businesses in Britain, but also because it is perhaps the most influential stable of conservative publications in the UK, |
| 2:02.7 | and enormously influential, in particular, over the future direction of the Conservative Party. |
| 2:08.2 | Yeah, and Geoff Zucker has kept very quiet until now. |
| 2:13.9 | And I think actually, largely, because of Lewis, your reporting on Paul Marshall, he decided, |
... |
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