Joining the Mail’s Tamara Cohen at the soon-to-be-bolstered Sky News is the Times‘ Beth Rigby, who has been appointed senior political correspondent. Beth is back on the politics beat after six months as media editor at the Times. Good few weeks for Sky…

Last Thursday, before the EU council meeting, the Telegraph had a briefing that “more than 80 FTSE 100 firms” were about to support Dave’s deal and back Remain:

Yesterday, after the deal, the FT reported that only 50 FTSE bosses were going to sign the letter supporting Remain:

As Guido revealed, the stunt had been drafted and orchestrated by Downing Street civil servants, and was lined up to appear in today’s Times. Sure enough, here it is in this morning’s paper:

Yet just 36 FTSE 100 bosses have signed…

Five days ago, journalists were being briefed that No.10 and Remain had 80 FTSE bosses backing them. Since the EU council meeting and the deal, more than half no longer fancied giving their support. Just 36 names for the letter backing Dave’s deal is positively paltry… 

H/T @suttonnick

Aging left-wing pin-up Owen Jones tells Richard Bacon “there might come a time” when he runs for parliament, but “I wouldn’t end up as a minister”. No chance of the latter happening in the next 15 years, by which time he’ll be nearing 50.

Accosted by fans, the left’s poster boy was then intriguingly asked if he had a poster of Stalin on his bedroom wall. Laughing nervously, Owen half-jokingly replied that it “got taken down for some reason”. Teenage Owen was a Stalin fanboy, after all…

Murdoch-hating coke and hookers aficionado Steve Coogan has an impressive record of slagging off Rupe while taking his money. Coogan has banged on about “Rupert Murdoch’s toxic legacy” and the “News International protection racket” for years, all while selling his shows Places of My Life and Mid Morning Matters to Sky for top whack. What do you know, Coogan has just agreed to trouser even more of the ‘Murdoch shilling’:

“Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are taking their fine dining, gentle bickering, ruminations on getting old and endless impersonations of Michael Caine to Sky TV. After two highly successful series of The Trip on BBC2, the third series will be broadcast on Sky Atlantic.”

Back in 2012, Guido bumped into Coogan at a Hacked Off rally and asked him if he thought the deals made him a massive hypocrite. He comically disagreed:

“I am aware of it but I see a flipside, I think it makes me even braver. It would be even more hypocritical if I took his money and didn’t criticise him. What I’m doing puts me in even more danger.”

Congratulations Steve on your bravery and your pay cheque!

Look out on this morning’s Sunday Politics for the launch of their new manifesto tracker analysing how well the Tories are doing at keeping their election promises. It’s a pretty hefty piece of work, recording progress on each of their 161 pledges over the next four years. George Osborne’s section will be worth keeping an eye on:

• Eliminate the deficit entirely and start running a surplus in 2018-19

• Cut government waste; plan a further £10 billion of annual savings by 2017-18 and £15-20 billion in 2019-20

• Continue to control government spending in 2018-19, no longer cutting it in real terms, but instead growing it in line with inflation. From 2019-20, after a surplus has been achieved, spending will grow in line with GDP

• Britain to become the most prosperous major economy in the world by the 2030s

Red lights appearing against these policies will highlight the Chancellor’s squandermania and properly hold the government to account on some of their more unrealistic promises. Well, Labour are hardly in a position to do it…

Evgeny Lebedev is expected to close the Indy and Sindy print editions as soon as tonight. Of the 150 full-time staff, just 20 or so look like they’ll moving over to the i paper. It will not be difficult for the owners to find voluntary redundancies. Many journalists at the Indy will be loathe to work for the much-derided, clickbait-obsessed online offering.

Meanwhile the Guardian is imposing 20% cuts, with staff warned in an email this morning that “As our staff costs are by far our biggest overhead, one outcome of the budgeting process may be that redundancies are proposed”. They are looking at 100 redundancies, and according to Beth Rigby they want to start with their “on leave” columnist Seumas Milne. He is in line for a £90,000 payout.

Media sources tell Guido that the Telegraph is set to announce a jobs cull next week. Print journalists there are furious at the dumbing down of content for their own ‘digital first’, Indy-style clickbait-based website. You will often find the exact same traffic-farming stories on the Telegraph site as you will on the Indy online. See the Telegraph’s “Man with two penises writes tell-all memoir” and the i100’s “The man with two penises has now written a tell-all memoir”. 

The FT have some killer numbers:

“Fleet Street’s large newsroom may be unsustainable. The Times had 454 editorial staff at last count, The Sun 525, the Daily Telegraph 662 and The Guardian, following expansion overseas, 925.”

Online-only is the only option. The question now is how proprietors and executives will reconcile the trend for traffic-driving churnalism to the pay the bills with actual, old-fashioned journalism in the digital age. The future of journalism is specialism, the most profitable online media operations have focus, that generates specific audience demographics that can be packaged for advertisers at premium prices.