The Independent

The Independent, its sister titles the Independent on Sunday and the i newspaper, and the related website www.independent.co.uk, are published by Independent Print Limited (IPL) — a subsidiary of Lebedev Holdings Limited, owned by the Lebedev family. Russian media mogul and former politician Aleksandr Lebedev bought the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers in 2010 from Independent News & Media (INM) for a nominal £1 fee with INM assuming a commitment to pay Lebedev £9.25 million (US$13.9 million) over the next 10 months, while IPL would assume "all future trading liabilities and obligations." The Lebedev family also has a controlling interest in the London Evening Standard and owns the London Live TV channel, launched in March 2014.

With relatively flat profits and steadily increasing production costs, the publishing of the Independent and its sister papers has consistently been a loss-making business. In early 2014, the Lebedevs reportedly authorized Andreas Whittam Smith, the paper’s founder and board member of the Independent Print Ltd, to look for a potential buyer. However, the Independent has recently made "a dramatic improvement in its financial position," announcing a trading loss of £4.6 million for the year up to September 2014 compared with a loss of £9.1 million in the previous year and £22.6 million in 2010/11. London Live TV made an operating loss of £11.6 million in the 12 months to the end of September 2014, but losses almost halved in the following year. It is targeting breakeven in 2017.

Nicknamed ‘the Indy’, the Independent is one of the youngest British dailies. It was founded in 1986 by three former Daily Telegraph journalists — Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds.

The paper was redesigned after its purchase by the Lebedev family, defining itself as "free from party-political ties" and "free from proprietorial influence". The Independent is believed to be one of the major British daily newspapers, although its average print circulation is significantly less than those of the other national quality dailies, and only amounted to about 58,000 copies in June 2015. Its online version www.independent.co.uk also lags behind other national dailies in terms of readership, being ahead only of the Times website. In 2015, the Independent opened a "web office" in the US.

Aleksandr Lebedev is a Russian businessman turned UK media mogul. In partnership with his son, Evgeny, he owns the Independent alongside with its sister papers the Independent on Sunday and the i newspaper, the London Live TV channel and a majority stake in the London Evening Standard. In Russia, he is a majority shareholder of the critical Novaya Gazeta newspaper. In March 2015, Lebedev told the Times he had stopped financing Novaya Gazeta because of the expense and the strain.

A former KGB agent in London, Lebedev also owns holding company National Reserve Corporation (NRC), which has diverse business interests. In 2012, Forbes put Lebedev on the list of the world’s wealthiest tycoons, with an estimated fortune amounting to $1.1 billion, however, in 2013, with his fortune declining, he dropped off the list.

Lebedev was a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament — the State Duma — between 2004 and 2007, but is now out of politics, concentrating instead on business. Aleksandr Lebedev also contributes articles on different topics to the Independent and to Novaya Gazeta.

Lebedev was charged with hooliganism after he punched another Russian tycoon, Sergey Polonsky, during a heated debate on a Russian TV show in September 2011. He was eventually given 150 hours of community service for the incident.

Aleksandr Lebedev’s eldest son, Evgeny, is the chairman of Evening Standard Ltd and Independent Print Ltd, which he owns together with his father. He also contributes articles to the Independent as well as other newspapers.

Apart from media assets, Evgeny Lebedev owns several restaurants in London, among them the Grapes pub, which he co-owns with Ian McKellen and Sean Mathias.

Just enjoying a pint a the Grapes (Sir Ian Mclellan's pub) - look what's behind the bar pic.twitter.com/xFNcm2CwpP

— Arona St James (@Arona_StJames) December 5, 2015

Lebedev’s friends include ex-Labour MP and policy wonk Peter Mandelson, British actor Hugh Grant and musician Elton John, whose elder son Zachary is Lebedev’s godson.

Lebedev, who was born in the USSR, moved to London at the age of eight. He took art history classes at the Royal Academy of Arts and gained a Masters in the History of Art from the London School of Economics. The Guardian described him as an unconventional businessman and compared him to characters from "Chekhov or an Evelyn Waugh novel."

Robert Fisk is the Independent’s legendary Middle East correspondent. He has worked for the newspaper for more than 20 years. A winner of multiple British and international journalism awards, Fisk has been called "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain" by the New York Times.

Before joining the paper in 1989, he worked for the Sunday Express and the Times. To name but a few, Fisk reported on the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran—Iraq War, the (first) Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the Kosovo War, the international intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and the Arab Spring — as well as the ongoing Syrian conflict. He was one of the few Western correspondents to interview Osama Bin Laden) — and the only one to do it more than once.

However, Fisk is no stranger to controversy — in particular, over his article on the alleged use of depleted uranium weapons in Lebanon and a libel case involving a Saudi prince (see Controversies section).

In October 2006, Robert Fisk posed the question of whether the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had used uranium-based weapons during the 2006 Lebanon war. Writing in the Independent, he said scientific evidence gathered from bomb craters in southern Lebanon suggested that the IDF had used uranium-based munitions during the conflict.

Fisk’s article referenced a report conducted by radiation expert Dr. Chris Busby and independent weapons researcher Dai Williams. Williams had collected soil samples from a number of craters created by missiles or bombs in Lebanon and brought them back to Britain. A soil sample from close to one crater in the Lebanese district of Khiam was found to have «elevated radiation signatures,» prompting Williams and Busby to send it to a distinguished laboratory in Oxfordshire for further examination. The laboratory found that the soil sample contained enriched uranium. After his controversial report was published, Busby argued that there was «no way the signs of uranium found in Khiam were the result of natural or industrial materials.»

In his article, Fisk said William and Busby had concluded the contamination was caused by a «small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon» or a «conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium.»

A week after Fisk’s report was published, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a statement declaring that there was «no evidence» of radioactive residue in Lebanon.

As part of a post-conflict assessment, the body had analyzed smear, dust and soil samples taken from 32 sites across Lebanon. The samples were gathered in September and October 2006, and analyzed in a lab in Switzerland. The UNEP concluded that no residue of depleted uranium or other radioactive material was apparent.

In February 2007, a panel of experts from the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other agencies unanimously announced that no evidence of depleted-uranium weapons use had been uncovered in Lebanon.

Fisk was also involved in a libel scandal in 2011, in which the Independent was accused of publishing a false story written by him. The article claimed that then-Saudi Arabia Interior Minister and Crown Prince Nayef Bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud had issued an order for police to gun down unarmed demonstrators during that year’s Arab uprisings.

The order was later proved to be a forgery. The prince was awarded "substantial" libel damages by London’s High Court while Independent Print Ltd and Robert Fisk expressed "sincere apologies" for the "damage and distress caused by the article and the inevitable coverage it received," with the paper publishing a correction and an official apology for the incident.

Also in 2011, a then-columnist of the paper, Johann Hari, was accused of plagiarism over articles and interviews in which he used unattributed quotations from previously published stories and interviews. Initial allegations of plagiarism against Hari were brought by the British satirical magazine Private Eye as early as in 2003, but were left unattended.

In 2011 the issue evolved into a big scandal as Deterritorial Support Group (DSG) bloggers and Brian Whelan (editor of Yahoo! Ireland) compared Hari’s interviews with previous articles written by other journalists as well as with works written by his interviewees, and found that Hari had been copy/pasting quotes and not attributing them. The scandal was then reported by the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Washington Post. Political blogger Guido Fawkes (real name Paul Staines) even dubbed the journalist ‘Dirty Hari.’

Hari tried to defend himself both in his blog and in the Independent, but was eventually suspended from the paper, pending the outcome of an internal investigation by Andreas Whittam Smith.

Additionally, in July 2011, Private Eye and Telegraph columnist and blog editor Damian Thompson accused Hari of inventing quotes and facts for his Orwell Prize-winning story about Central Africa.

Hari returned the Orwell Prize that he had received in 2008, although he claimed he did it because he repented of mistakes "made elsewhere" in his interviews.

Johann Hari apologises over plagiarism and hands back Orwell prize http://t.co/FdFYlkQmZz The not so funny man behind Russel Brand #UKIP

— K Leeson (@twitttertwatt) December 12, 2014

Later, the Council of the Orwell Prize said it would have withdrawn the prize from Hari if he had not returned it, as the Council concluded that the article submitted by Hari in 2008, ‘How multiculturalism is betraying women’, "contained inaccuracies and conflated different parts of someone else’s story (specifically, a report in Der Spiegel)."

"The Council ruled that the substantial use of unattributed and unacknowledged material did not meet the standards expected of Orwell Prize-winning journalism," their statement said.