Jeff Zucker accuses rival Telegraph bidders of ‘slinging mud,’ offers guarantees to UK

Ousted CNN boss Jeff Zucker lashed out at rival bidders for a conservative British publication of “slinging mud” and assured the UK government he would guarantee the newspaper’s independence, according to a report.

Earlier this week, Zucker’s Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI group agreed to pay about $750 million to the Barclay family — owners of the Telegraph newspaper and Spectator magazine — that would allow them to repay their nearly $1.4 billion debt to Lloyds Banking Group.

Zucker questioned the motivation of rival media CEOs whose outlets were warning of the threat to media freedom from his proposed deal while also mounting their own bids.

“There’s a reason that people are slinging mud and throwing darts — [it’s] because they want to own these assets,” Zucker told the Financial Times on Friday. “And they have their own media assets to try to hurt us.”

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Other bidders for the Telegraph include hedge fund billionaire and GB News co-owner Paul Marshall, as well as two other newspaper owners, Rupert Murdoch’s News UK and Lord Rothermere’s DMGT.

Zucker said that some of the “people throwing stones now tried to approach us before to see if we would work with them on this bid. So let’s just be clear about that. We were fine in the eyes of our competitors before we were trying to do this on our own.”

The sale to Zucker — who has been widely viewed as moving CNN to the left — sparked concern among Conservatives in Parliament over the Telegraph’s future editorial direction, which has been traditionally aligned with their party.

Some Parliament members and rival media outlets also raised red flags that Zucker’s links to Abu Dhabi could “pose a risk to the Telegraph’s editorial independence and threaten national interests,” the FT reported.

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Zucker said he would “make sure that [the UK government] understand that we’re prepared to make commitments that should assuage anyone’s concerns,” according to FT.

Zucker, the CEO of RedBird IMI, promised to create an “editorial advisory board” that would uphold the independence of both the Telegraph and the Spectator magazine, adding that there are no plans to change the management of the editorial teams at either publication.

“We feel confident that with those moves that there should be no question about the editorial independence of the Telegraph or Spectator,” said Zucker, who ran CNN as well as the “Today” show and NBC News in the US. 

He continued: “I’ve spent 35 years running or supervising news organizations, and there’s nothing I understand more than editorial independence. I have staked my reputation and legacy on not allowing editorial interference.”

Redbird IMI is a joint venture between the US private equity firm run by former Goldman Sachs partner Gerry Cardinale and Zucker, alongside International Media Investments, which is controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who also owns Manchester City football club.

Zucker said that IMI would have no say in the running of its businesses, and was only involved “in the entrance and the exit” of a transaction as an investor in the fund.

IMI would “remain a fully passive investor” and would “not exercise any control of the Telegraph or the Spectator,” Zucker said, while adding that he sees “real potential” to establish the Telegraph as a “more global media brand.”

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Lloyds seized the publications in June from the the Barclay brothers — Sir David and Sir Frederick — who bought the titles from Conrad Black in 2004 for $1.3 billion.

The bank launched an auction for the business, which includes Telegraph newspaper and Spectator magazine, after the Barclay family failed to pay debts of nearly $1.4 billion.

RedBird IMI interrupted the auction by agreeing to provide funding to the Barclays to repay the loans “in full” and then take over the media group. Lloyds is now assessing RedBird IMI’s proposal.

If Lloyds agrees to the proposal, the deal will mark the end of the Barclay family ownership of the Telegraph, a conservative broadsheet founded in 1855, and The Spectator, which has been published weekly since 1828.

Cardinale, founder of RedBird Capital, told the FT that “as a private equity investor, we’re not focused on influencing editorial or content curation.”

Cardinale has a reputation of partnering with celebrities who want to build their own businesses. “We don’t tell Ben Affleck or Matt Damon what movies to make at Artists Equity; and we don’t tell LeBron James and Maverick Carter what projects to take on at The SpringHill Company,” Cardinale said, referring to RedBird’s other investments.