The Daily Telegraph

One of Britain’s most prolific broadsheets, the Daily Telegraph and its sister titles the Sunday Telegraph and the Telegraph Weekly World Edition are operated by the Telegraph Media Group Limited. Its operating profit totaled £54.9 million (US$83.2 million) in 2014, down from £61.2 million in 2013.

The Telegraph Media Group was acquired in 2004 by billionaire twins David and Frederick Barclay.

Hollinger International Inc. sold the group to the Barclays’ Press Holdings Limited and Holyrood Holdings Limited, affiliates of Press Holdings International Limited. Under the terms of the agreement, Press Acquisitions Limited, a subsidiary of Press Holdings Ltd established for the purpose of acquiring the Telegraph Group, purchased all of the group’s outstanding shares.

Press Holdings Ltd is registered in Jersey, Channel Islands. British Crown Dependency Jersey has long been criticized over its culture of financial secrecy. It is one of a global web of tax havens, supported by Britain, whose «trusts and shell companies hold many trillions of dollars’ worth of assets,» according to a Tax Justice Network (TJN) report. Other noteworthy secrecy jurisdictions linked to the British state are Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda. In April it was revealed that Prime Minister David Cameron’s late stockbroker father Ian Cameron managed funds in Jersey in his heyday, after ex-Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher abolished capital controls in 1979.

The Daily Telegraph was founded in 1855 and was originally titled "The Daily Telegraph and Courier". It was London’s first penny publication. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of Britain’s weekly market share of national newspaper circulation and 14.1 percent of its combined print, online and mobile readership.

The multi-media news publisher has links to high finance and the British aristocracy. TMG board members include advisors Viscount Cranborne and Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea. Viscount Cranborne is the son of the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, who headed the House of Lords in the 1990s and was dubbed the last great Tory aristocrat. His family is reputed to have dominated British politics throughout the 20th century. In addition to his role as TMG advisor, Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea is the president of center-right think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. He is also director of the Jerusalem Post, and sits on the European Advisory Board of private equity firm Investcorp Bank B.S.C.

Britain’s "most private" twin brothers, tycoons David and Frederick Barclay became leading figures in the newspaper industry after purchasing the TMG for £665m (US$1 billion) in 2004. After acquiring the firm, they appointed David’s eldest son Aidan Barclay as its chairman.

The Barclay brothers have long shunned publicity, dividing their time between a secluded castle on the 80-acre Island of Brecqhou, in the English Channel, and their home in Monaco.

They were estimated by Forbes to be worth at least US$5.2 billion in November 2015. Their business empire spans media, property and retail. Given the brothers’ business interests in Britain, their foreign residency led the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s (BIJ) Nick Mathieson to describe them as "tax exiles" in 2010.

In 2012 a BBC Panorama investigation revealed the Barclays’ lavish central London hotel, the Ritz, had paid zero corporation tax over a 17-year period by using a series of tax reliefs. The BBC admitted that the scheme is legal, though.

The Barclay brothers insisted that they have not run their UK companies since retiring to Monaco. "We have not attended office, management or board meetings in the UK since leaving the country," Sir David Barclay said in a statement, as cited by the BBC. "My brother and I have no editorial, political or economic power in the UK."

He also said: "We have always acted in a responsible way with regard to taxation and have never been involved in any tax avoidance scheme. We are not responsible for corporate taxes in the UK and are unaware what tax is paid on the Ritz."

The brothers purchased the Ritz hotel in 1995. Margaret Thatcher, to whom the brothers were reportedly close, stayed there before she died. The suite in which she spent her last months reportedly would have cost £3,660 per night. It was reported that the brothers had told Thatcher she could stay in the five-star hotel for as long as she liked, though it remains unclear whether she opted to pay for her stay.

The Barclay brothers have a history of suing media outlets. In 1996 they sued the Observer journalist John Sweeney over an interview on BBC Radio Guernsey in which he alleged that the brothers had been involved in corruption. Both Sweeney and the BBC reportedly apologized to the brothers in 2011 and were forced to pay about £15,000 to their favorite charity.

The tycoons also launched legal proceedings against the Times in 2005 over claims about their business dealings that the Barclays considered defamatory. The Times’ then-editor Robert Thomson branded the Telegraph owners’ decision to wage a criminal lawsuit against his paper "a sad day for British journalism."

"If newspaper proprietors such as the Barclay Brothers think it is appropriate to launch this extraordinary case, what signal does it send to more vexatious litigants who would seek to silence the media?" he said. The Barclay brothers reportedly dropped the lawsuit in 2007 after the Times issued an apology.

International Business Editor of the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who has reported on global affairs for 30 years, is respected by left and right-leaning readers for his searing analysis on Europe. Being a vocal opponent of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and European project as a whole, he has long denounced austerity policies implemented across peripheral EU states. His commentary on Greece’s economic crisis, in particular, sets him apart from many British journalists. When it became clear the Greek government intended to default on a €300m ($US318 million) payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in June, Evans-Pritchard’s appraisal of the technocratic forces at the heart of Europe was scathing. Echoing Greece’s then-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and other economists worldwide, Evans-Pritchard said "draconian austerity," backed by the IMF, was underpinned by a self-defeating logic.

While acting as the Sunday Telegraph’s Washington D.C. bureau chief in the 1990s, Evans-Pritchard gained notoriety for his controversial portrayals of ex-US President Bill Clinton. The Cambridge-schooled reporter’s disclosures about the First Family, detailed in his book, ‘The Secret Life of Bill Clinton,’ proved unpalatable for many. Published in 1997, the book was riddled with allegations that had failed to penetrate America’s mainstream media.

Evans-Pritchard’s claims were so contentious that investigative journalist Michael Isikoff accused him of entertaining "conspiratorial fancy" based on uncorroborated allegations.

Perturbed by the unsavory press attention Clinton had been receiving, the White House’s legal office produced a scathing 331-page report attacking journalists whose unfettered gaze on scandal was compromising the president’s reputation.

In particular, the report decried "right-wing" think tanks and British newspapers for feeding "conspiracy theories and innuendo" to British reporters based in America. Evans-Pritchard was singled out as particularly troublesome and was accused of being part of a "media food chain." But the British journalist defended his journalistic integrity in an article for the London Telegraph in 1998 titled, ‘Why is Clinton persecuting me?’

The sharply worded piece accused the White House of propagating "outright lies" and running a "smear campaign against journalists and political opponents."

Evans-Pritchard’s coverage of the inner workings of Capital Hill phased the Clinton administration to such an extent that his departure from Washington in 1997 reportedly prompted the White House to tell George magazine: "That’s another British invasion we’re glad is over. The guy was nothing but a pain in the ass."

Although The Telegraph’s content is widely respected, its claim of delivering "trusted insights" came under scrutiny in February after its chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, resigned over alleged censorship grounds and accused the Telegraph of a "collapse in standards" under the Barclay brothers.

Oborne claimed that the paper had censored negative stories about one of its major advertisers, HSBC. The disgraced bank had come under intense global scrutiny that month, after it emerged its Swiss arm had aided wealthy clients in evading tax.

In an article for website Open Democracy, Oborne attacked the paper’s editorial integrity, saying its coverage of the scandal was so scant one "needed a microscope" to uncover it.

"The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers," he wrote.

Oborne alleged the Telegraph’s own investigation conducted in 2012 into HSBC’s activities in Jersey had been axed when "lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved." He insisted critical articles about the bank were discouraged from early 2013 as a result of the paper’s advertising contract with HSBC. Oborne went on to quote an unnamed ex-Telegraph exec as saying HSBC was "the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend."

The Telegraph called it "an astonishing and unfounded attack."

Roughly one month after Oborne’s allegations against the Telegraph were published, the Financial Times revealed a business owned by the brothers had restructured a £1.25 billion debt with HSBC’s help. The debt restructuring reportedly took place between October 2012 and September 2013 — approximately the period when Oborne alleged the Telegraph’s editorial policy on HSBC had changed.

Analysis conducted by the Media Standards Trust researcher Dr Gordon Ramsay after Oborne’s resignation concluded that the paper had published "far fewer articles" on the tax dodging scandal than other rival UK publications .

Professor of journalism at City University Roy Greenslade described Oborne’s criticisms of the Telegraph as "dynamite" in an article for the Guardian. Greenslade credited Oborne with regularly opposing the paper’s "large-C Conservative line on many subjects," noting he had called for Britain to back a Palestinian state in 2014 and had shone a light on Britain’s Israel lobby in 2009.

The Daily Telegraph also came under scrutiny in January 2014 after its editor Tony Gallagher was fired. Gallagher, who had presided over the paper’s coverage of Britain’s MPs’ expenses scandal, was let go after senior management reportedly decided he wasn’t the man to pioneer the paper’s path from print to digital.

Technology writer Sophie Curtis vented her shock and disgust at his sudden departure on Twitter, saying he had been "banged out of the newsroom" with little notice. Ultimate power was given to digital guru Jason Seiken, who had formerly worked at US broadcaster PBS.

Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher has just been banged out of the newsroom. Everyone in shock.

— Sophie Curtis (@scurtsy) January 21, 2014

Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher has left. Newsroom in shock. Some in tears

— Ben Bryant (@benbryant) January 21, 2014

City University Professor of journalism Roy Greenslade, who is a widely respected British media commentator, was astonished by TMG’s decision to fire Gallagher, insisting it was "a big mistake."

"We know, of course, that the future is digital. But it does not mean that the future is devoid of journalism," Greenslade wrote. Gallagher was the fourth editor to depart from the Telegraph since the Barclay brothers bought TMG in 2004. At the time of his departure, editors averaged less than 36 months in the role, compared to a former average of roughly 13 years, according to the FT.