The New European is closing a £500,000 funding round at a £5 million valuation. It boasts a number of rich, big name remainer celebrity backers like Lionel Barber (ex-FT) and Mark Thompson (ex-BBC). They reckon the investment will help it make a profit next year after consistently losing hundreds of thousands a year. Guido is not convinced this will be a profitable investment.
It seems fashionable for rich remainers to own their own loss-making publication, the hardline-centrist to soft-left, loss-making media space is well-funded and crowded; Prospect, Tortoise, Byline Times, New Statesman and The New European. They somehow give themselves multi-million valuations and raise investment on the back of it. Would you buy shares in a magazine on the back of a recommendation from Alastair Campbell? It seems “mission” investors will.
Over on the right-of-centre side of the political media, The Spectator booked over £2 million in profits last year, Guido is pleased to say we did well too. Are we doing something wrong consistently making actual profits?
It seems to Guido that everyone on Twitter could do with being a bit nicer to each other. Take this almighty brouhaha between Owen Jones and Matt Kelly, editor of the Remoaner newspaper The New European. The paper’s front page depicted OJ in tears, imagery Owen denounced as homophobic:
But of course the only one crying on this cover is the gay guy, in no way is the overly emotional / hysterical gay man one of the oldest homophobic tropes in the book https://t.co/amxKQ9fD45
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) August 15, 2018
He accused his Remainer critics of Trumpian rhetoric:
Finally, I genuinely don’t give a toss how @TheNewEuropean portray me, fill their boots, about 85 people read that magazine anyway, but it’s important not to let this sort of Trumpian stuff get normalised.
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) August 15, 2018
The New European responded by doubling down and issuing this statement insisting Owen “often acts like a tantrum throwing cry baby”.
In response to those on Twitter claiming our cover is homophobic: pic.twitter.com/URm8MmQIyR
— The New European (@TheNewEuropean) August 15, 2018
Before editor Kelly called top Corbynista Aaron Bastani a “pr*ck” and accused the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush of “bullsh*t”, and locked his account. Time for this lot to take a couple of weeks off and come back in September relaxed and refreshed…
After being criticised for its lack of female contributors, The New European anti-Brexit whinge fest has been taken over for one edition only by Caroline Criado Perez and rebranded The New Feminist. MediaGuido hears that, in order to end the gender pay gap at the paper, the one male writer who features in this week’s issue has received an 18.4% cut to his word rate. The one time in his career James Ball isn’t being paid more than all his colleagues…
The king of spin is back in newspapers: Bad Al is the new editor of the New European. Tony Blair for a column?
The New European newspaper has been a forum for Remain ultras to grieve – it is the Alastair Campbell / Eddie Izzard version of bonkers Scottish fake newspaper The National. This week it publishes an article by Cambridge University professor Nicholas Boyle branding all 17 million Leave voters “lager louts” and “ruffians”.
“The referendum vote does not deserve to be respected… Like resentful ruffians uprooting the new trees in the park and trashing the new play area, 17 million English, the lager louts of Europe, voted for Brexit in an act of geopolitical vandalism.”
The professor is mistaken on his statistics as well. While 17 million British people did vote for Brexit, only 15 million of these were in England. 52% of Welsh voters backed Brexit, as well as 40% in Scotland. Today’s Order of the OTT is awarded to another academic who proves you can be very clever and also very stupid…
