The End of "The Telegraph" and "Spectator" as We Know Them?

Also: Collin Garbarino’s favorite books, the birth of the chapter, the world’s most eclectic dictionary collection, and more.

Jeff Zucker, smiling in 2010. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Am I wrong to think that it is a bad thing if Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN, buys both The Telegraph and Spectator? Maybe he’s fair minded? Maybe he’s a closet conservative? Who knows?

But I think it is safe to say that he is out of touch after spending most of his career in the administrative suite of media companies like NBC and CNN and that any organization that is funded in part by Abu Dhabi’s International Media Investments will not be conservative in any Western sense of the word. It will also likely make The Telegraph and Spectator incredibly boring—no mean feat—like CNN:

Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN and onetime CEO of NBCUniversal, is eying a push by right-leaning British newspaper The Daily Telegraph into the U.S. if his company’s bid to buy the title is successful.

An auction for the Telegraph Media Group, which includes magazine The Spectator, was halted this week when Zucker’s company RedBird IMI offered to clear the debts of the group’s previous owner, the Barclay family, totaling more than £1.1 billion ($1.38 billion), according to The Financial Times.

RedBird IMI is a joint venture between private-equity firm RedBird Capital, led by former Goldman Sachs partner Gerry Cardinale, and Abu Dhabi’s International Media Investments, a private investment fund run by Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan.

Other bidders for The Telegraph include Rupert Murdoch’s News U.K., owner of London newspapers The Times and The Sun; Lord Rothermere’s DMGT, owner of London’s Daily Mail; and Paul Marshall, a hedge fund billionaire and co-owner of British television news channel GB News, The Financial Times reported.

I hope News UK wins out.

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Last week, I wrote about year-end best books lists and noted that what “I want to know at the end of the year are the favorite books of people I know or trust.” Collin Garbarino, a longtime friend and WORLD’s arts and culture editor, sent me his favorites. Here they are: