Who owns what media?

To understand the position a newspaper has, it helps to know who is the owner of the newspaper. In many cases the owner will steer the newsdesk to publishing certain stories while refraining from publishing others.

What I have seen in the Western press is hardly any investigative journalism. Newsdesks like to copy breaking news from other newsdesks seen as reliable. News from Russia Today, Sputnik is by default seen as unreliable and news of these will hardly ever copied by Western press.

The Netherlands

The media is quite diverse in the Netherlands. Newspapers are being consolidated but still diverse opinions.

Telegraaf – Netherlands largest newspapers. Tendency to right wing, government critical. Owed by Telegraaf Media Group.

Metro – large free newspaper. Part of Telegraaf  Media Group. Maily publishes articles of newswire articles.

AD – more or less neutral newspaper.  Part of Belgium De Persgroep media company. At June 15 AD showed its left agenda by publishing a text ‘Don’t leave me this way’ on the frontpage of AD June 15. It requests British people not to vote a NO to the EU.

Volkrant – left wing newspaper. Anti Putin. See this article for example.  Part of De Persgroep media company. On the other hand Volkskrant was about the only Dutch media reporting about the letter sent by Rosaviatsiya to DSB.

NRC Handelsblad, nrc.nl – right wing, pro NATO and anti Putin. Part of Belgium Mediahuis.

NOS Journaal – part of the NPO (Dutch public broadcasting system). The tv news should be neutral but showed many times a left wing view and anti-Putin. (example). NPO has left wing sympathies. NPO hosts website Joop.nl. This is a website failing to mention for instance that the killer of 50 gays in Orlando was Muslim and had connections with IS.

RTL Nieuws – TV news on RTL television. More neutral view than NOS Journaal. Did many appeals on WOB (Dutch Freedom of information act)

United States

New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is the owner of many newspaper in Australia and the UK. Anti-Russia.

Wall Street Journal – Also owned by Murdoch.

United Kingdom

The online newspaper The Independant is owned by Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev is a vey rich man and anti-Putin. He also owns the London Evening Standard.

The Sun – Owned by Rupert Murdoch . 1,787,096 copies per day in 2016 . Had a big headline at July 17 stating ‘Putin’s missile‘. Had a complete cover advising the British people to vote for a leave from EU.
The Times  – Owned by Rupert Murdoch . 404,155 copies per day in 2016
Sunday Times  – Owned by Rupert Murdoch

Daily Mail – UK’s second largest newspaper in number of copies. Like to publish sensational stories which contain often mistakes. There is not a anti-Putin sentiment at the newsdesk. Published a story that BBC reveals that MH17 was shot down by a SU-25. Which was a complete incorrect story. Part of DMG Media

Metro – free newspaper part of DMG Media. Seems to have a balanced reporting on MH17. Less sensational than for instance Daily Mail.

Russian Federation

Almost all media in Russia is owned by Russian firms with close ties to the Kremlin. Many foreign companies were more or less forced to sell the magazines and newspapers to Russian Firms. German Alex Springer left Russian market in 2015. Denmark’s Egmont Media Group transfered its Russian magazine business to a local company in 2015.

Sputnik, Russia Today, RIA, TASS are all government owned or controled media.

Novaya Gazeta is one of the very few independant newspapers in Russian. Owned by George Soros and Alexander Lebedev. Both very anti-Putin

Michail Prochorov is the owner of media company RBC media group . RBC has a newspaper, a tv station (RBC TV) and an online news site (RBC.ru).

Australia

The Australian – National newspaper of the News Corp Australia group. Murdoch owned and anti-Putin.

news.com.au – online news site owned by News Corp. Healines like these: MH17: The satellite images Russia doesn’t want us to see

Fairfax – slightly ‘liberal’ publisher of Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and many other regional papers. Vaguely anti-Government and definitely anti ‘right-wing’ whatever that is. Reasonable quality. Generally anti-Russian and anti-Syrian – like most of Australia.

NewsCorp – definitely a more right-wing arm of Murdoch media empire. Publishes many regional papers. Heavily influenced by Rupert Murdoch’s views and panders to the rabidly conservative side of politics but also sucks up to specific elements of the Government. Detests Putin, Russia, and Syria. Strong Israel supporter. see 

Commercial TV – Channel 7,9,10 – lightweight with no serious current affairs – despite Channel 9 running a 60 minutes clone. Generally follow Australian norms of anti-Russian / anti-Syrian views.

Government TV – ABC & SBS. Much better current affairs. Editorial bias against Russia, Putin, and Syria. Essentially using their position to push soft ‘left’  views

 

Ukraine

This section will be updated. Many newsstations are owned by oligarchs or politician. Poroshenko owns a media company.

Ukrainskaya Pravda is one of the few independant newspapers in Ukraine. In July 2016 Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed when his car exploded. The last story he  wrote was about Ukraine’s notorious Azov Battalion operating above the law. Sheremet was critical to Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

Sheremet was driving the car of his long-time partner, the Ukr Pravda editor, Оlena Pritula. Sheremet was critical to Putin. Ukrainskaya Pravda is one of Ukraine’s best independent media, publishing hard-hitting corruption investigations. The paper was founded by the late Georgiy Gongadze, whose 2000 murder was never fully unwrapped

Rado Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a large media organization paid by the US state. Their mission is kind of bring a different news coverage to states which lack freedom of press. Christopher Miller wrote this piece on the dead of a journalist in Kiev. RFE/RL publishes about each and every Bellingcat report.

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