In August 1939, a young woman named Clare Hollingworth got her first journalism assignment. “You must go to Warsaw tonight,” her editor said. Days later, after Hollingworth spotted “hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” near the Polish border with Czechoslovakia, the 27-year-old cub reporter kicked off her career with a once-in-a-lifetime dispatch heralding the outbreak of World War II: “1,000 TANKS MASSED ON POLISH FRONTIER. TEN DIVISIONS REPORTED READY FOR SWIFT STROKE.” 

The news organization behind this historic scoop wasn’t one of the newswires, or The New York Times, or the BBC. Rather, the glory belongs to The Daily Telegraph, a conservative London broadsheet that recently went on the block for the first time in nearly two decades. It’s a paper with an illustrious past, whose owners have ranged from Conrad Black and Sir Edward Levy-Lawson to the Berry and Barclay families. And though it doesn’t have the same global cachet as other enduring publications with roots in the 19th century, it is, as the BBC once described it, “an ornament to Britain and one of the world’s great titles.... At its best, the daily and Sunday papers channel the kind of sceptical conservatism that speaks to and for a patriotic and provincial England.” 

The Telegraph’s story begins in 1855 when it rolled off the presses and boldly declared itself “the largest, best, and cheapest newspaper in the world.” One hundred sixty-eight years later, The Telegraph holds none of those distinctions. But it might as well, judging by the murderers’ row of media barons that have been identified as prospective suitors. There’s Rupert Murdoch, perhaps keen on one last conquest, whose interest has been reported as if he isn’t imminently stepping down as the executive chairman of News Corp. There’s Lord Rothermere, scion of the legendary Harmsworth dynasty, who has been consolidating influence since taking Daily Mail and General Trust private two years ago. There’s Mathias Döpfner, the charismatic Axel Springer boss, who now has a second chance at acquiring a landmark English-language newspaper after losing out on The Financial Times in 2015. 

Others include a group led by GB News co-owner Sir Paul Marshall, who is teaming up with Republican megadonor and fellow hedge-funder Ken Griffin; a group led by the recently knighted former Telegraph editor in chief and erstwhile Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis, who is also reportedly one of two final candidates that Jeff Bezos is considering to run The Washington Post; and a group led by the Northern Irish media proprietor and British tabloid veteran David Montgomery, who now serves as executive chairman of the UK media company National World. The Barclay family, meanwhile, is fighting to wrest their beloved Telegraph Media Group back from Lloyds Bank, which took control of the entity in June after talks over unpaid debt broke down, thus setting the present auction in motion.

That’s a lot of rich and powerful men salivating over a newspaper that’s not exactly massive, unlike, say, The Guardian or the Daily Mail, both of which have exported their brands throughout the English-speaking world. 

Why all the fuss?

“Upscale heritage brands have been successful around the world, and they’re the only ones who’ve really made the transition to digital, while many of the startups have turned out to be commercial disasters,” says Kelvin MacKenzie, the former longtime Murdoch lieutenant best known for his ferocious editorship of The Sun. “If you look around, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times [of London], they’ve all been successful. So The Telegraph is viewed as an opportunity to be in the digital age with a heritage brand that has unfilled potential. The bet is that they can turn this into a successful subscription-based product. And also, these big heritage brands give you a calling card at the top table, certainly in the UK.”

Indeed, The Telegraph is a long-standing power broker in conservative UK politics—a loyal defender of the monarchy and champion of conservative policy. It’s not a middlebrow populist firebrand, but rather a first-read for a certain influential and well-heeled voting bloc within Britain’s London-centric upper middle class.

“Any politician who wants to make any sort of impact in right-leaning politics in the UK will gravitate toward The Telegraph because it has authority and it’s not a tabloid,” says Martin Dunn, the British tabloid veteran and former longtime editor of the New York Daily News. “It’s always been a force. Imagine a sort of broadsheet version of the New York Post. It has all the politics of the Post, but with the authority that people still believe a broadsheet newspaper carries. The Telegraph has always clung to that fig leaf of respectability.” 

The auction for The Telegraph and its sister publication, The Spectator, is being run by Goldman Sachs. It officially kicked off on Friday, October 20, with expressions of interest from roughly 20 potential bidders either for one or both of the titles. (The full process is expected to wrap by February.) 

Some prospective suitors have already confirmed their ambitions. A spokesperson for the Marshall consortium told The Observer last month that their proposal is still at an “early stage,” but that the idea is to “revitalise” The Telegraph and The Spectator. (In addition to his stake in GB News, Marshall is also the money behind UnHerd Ventures, which is putting together the bid.) Lewis gave an interview to Bloomberg saying he’s “really interested in trying to find a way to buy” The Telegraph, which “needs a digital product and services refresh.… Anything that we end up owning, we would infuse with our social expertise.” 

It’s unclear how fervent Axel Springer’s interest is. They’ve tossed their hat in the ring, but a source familiar with the company’s thinking cautioned that an official offer is far from certain. For now, Axel “just wants to be part of the process, look at the numbers, and make a viable valuation.”

Murdoch’s British publishing division, News UK, didn’t have a comment. A spokesman for Daily Mail and General Trust, on the other hand, answered a few questions over email, outlining Rothermere’s Telegraph vision publicly for the first time: “The Rothermere family has a unique record as a custodian of newspapers, and since Lord Rothermere took DMGT private, its focus as a consumer news business puts it in an ideal position to provide the resources, management expertise and long-term decisions the Telegraph needs for its journalism to thrive. The Telegraph’s success in building a subscription model will help us reinforce the strength of our existing business. We must stress that editorially the Telegraph will remain independent of our other titles, and we will take steps to ensure this. We do believe there is a strong potential to scale the Telegraph abroad, particularly in the US, just as we have very successfully done with the Mail.”

The Mail’s American success can largely be attributed to its preternatural volume of mass tabloid news. The Telegraph doesn’t play in that ballpark, but the DMGT spokesman says (British spelling his): “We believe there is enormous potential in the US, which sadly has become polarised between the left and the right, both in print and in broadcasting, for a centre-right news publication like the Telegraph. The current political polarisation is not healthy for America or the world, and we are convinced there will be a strong market for an alternative that offers an intelligent and accessible conservative viewpoint. The cost efficiencies a successful bid would create across all our titles will help fund this expansion.”

Whether DMGT can prevail in the Telegraph bake-off is another matter. UK regulators may not be keen to see the title in the hands of someone who already commands a significant swath of the newspaper sphere, like Rothermere or Murdoch. Potential funding from Saudi or other Gulf backers could be another red flag. As one British media insider put it, “Number 10 has kind of made it clear that they don’t want a huge chunk of Middle East money involved in this. They view The Daily Telegraph as their in-house paper, and don’t want some particular line being run which suits the shareholders but won’t suit them or the country.” (The Mail spokesman says: “If we field a bid with another investor it would only be on the condition we have the majority of equity risk, and the control needed to invest in the business and protect its editorial independence.”)

In choosing a new owner, the Telegraph board will indeed consider possible regulatory hurdles like foreign investment and competition. The three things directors will be looking at, I’m told, are the ability to get a deal done, the reputation of the buyers, and—last but not least—the price. (£600m is the sum Lloyds is said to be eyeing.) 

If the Telegraph’s new owners do in fact make a push into the US, it won’t be easy. Aside from the obvious brand-awareness challenge, the market here is extremely crowded, including other UK brands that are already making a go of it, from the Mail and The Guardian to The Independent and The Sun. (The Spectator, by the way, set up shop here in 2018.)

“I think it would take an awful lot of work, and I can’t quite see where it would fit in,” says Dunn. “Here, with media being so polarized on the left or the right, I’ve got a feeling that if you try to come in slightly less than one or the other, you would sort of get wiped away. It would take a huge investment. The Mail did it by concentrating on show business, and The Guardian by concentrating on politics and its appeal to that sort of East Coast audience. The Telegraph isn’t rabid enough to dethrone players like Fox.”

MacKenzie takes a different view. “If there was an American version of The Telegraph, properly staffed up and based on subscriptions, my bet is it would do quite well,” he says. “There isn’t anything in America quite like it.”