KGB spy to buy English newspaper

[Robbien]

Source: Canberra Times

MOSCOW: The billionaire and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev is due to buy London's Evening Standard in a move that will make him the first Russian oligarch to own a major British newspaper.

Mr Lebedev will purchase 76 per cent of the newspaper, with the Associated Newspapers group retaining 24 per cent. His son Evgeny, who lives in London, was due to sign the deal with Daily Mail and General Trust last night.

The purchase will be the first time a former member of a foreign intelligence service has owned a British title.

Mr Lebedev said he had read the Evening Standard and other British newspapers when he was a young spy at the Soviet embassy in London in the late 1980s.

"I had to read every newspaper. I was there for that," he said. "I had to read the FT , the Guardian , Standard and the Daily Mail ." The Standard was "a very good newspaper" with some "brilliant journalists", Mr Lebedev said

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/world/world/general/kgb-spy-to-buy-english-newspaper/1408737.aspx

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A paper owned by KGB ex-spy or Rupert Murdock

the news would be horribly reported either way.

[Ghost Dog]

1. So bring back the London Evening News, anyone? n/t

[dipsydoodle]

3. Memories of another day

I can remember as a kid the streetcorner newspaper sellers bawling out "Star, News, Standard" :)

[dipsydoodle]

2. I very much doubt

that those who buy the Evening Standard really give a shit who owns it. It's not like our nationals which are printed the night before ready for distribution by the following morning. First edition is printed early morning ready for commuters etc. From memory it don't exactly contain a lot of news. Of late they've lost a lot of their readership to the freebees like Metro.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Metro will still be owned by the Daily Mail group

The Evening Standard is facing a combination of the industry-wide downturn in advertising, the shift of readers to the internet and a war of attrition in London with rival News International. The two publishing companies have waged a bitter loss-making battle since launching their respective free afternoon papers, London Lite and the London Paper, in 2006.

Associated Newspapers, the DMGT subsidiary that also publishes the morning fresheet Metro, launched London Lite partly to protect the Standard against the London Paper. In November it emerged that DMGT had sought a truce of some kind with News International, an offer that was rebuffed. It has instead looked at a range of radical options for the Evening Standard – which now include its sale to a cash-rich Russian businessman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/14/russian-oligarch-alexander-lebedev-buy-london-evening-standard

So London Lite will now compete with the Evening Standard (though free, like the London Paper).