China has long been engaged in an open war of propaganda with the United States as the two nations vie for world influence. But lately, the communist superpower appears to be placing great interest in taking over the Western media.
“RedBird Capital Partners, chaired by American financier and longtime CCP [Chinese Communist Party] confidant John L. Thornton, is angling to buy The Daily Telegraph, the 169-year-old broadsheet that has defined Britain’s center-right press for generations,” The Daily Caller reported. “Critics warn the deal, cloaked as a routine commercial transaction, risks undermining the independence of Britain’s free press and handing Beijing a subtle but dangerous lever of influence.”
The concern is well-founded. RedBird’s chairman is not only a zealous public supporter of the bloodstained regime, but the corporation itself is "co-invested" with Tencent, a Chinese tech giant, which the Department of Defense says is controlled by the Chinese military.
‘Funds Sourced From Foreign State Actors’
RedBird Capital announced its deal to purchase the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in May. Members of the UK Parliament immediately expressed alarm. “[A] cross-party group” of MPs sent a letter to UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport Lisa Nandy, asserting that there was “a lack of transparency regarding the source of the funds behind this acquisition.” The letter stated it was “conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors,” notably China, The Guardian reported in June.
Though a consortium of investors will be involved, RedBird Capital will become the controlling owner of the iconic newspaper if the transaction is approved. However, it would require a change in the law. In 2024, Parliament passed legislation capping foreign ownership of UK media outlets at 5%.
That's not a problem, apparently.
“The sale of the Telegraph looks set to finally go through after government legislation to allow foreign states to own up to 15% in British newspapers survived a potentially fatal vote in the House of Lords,” The Guardian reported. This allows the United Arab Emirates to retain a planned 15% stake in the RedBird venture.
On the other side of the Atlantic, it’s smooth sailing as well and with much higher stakes.
Friends of China Broadcasting System
When the recently approved Skydance-Paramount merger was announced in 2024, RedBird Capital was described by entertainment news site Deadline as Skydance’s “chief backer.” Indeed, Skydance is prominently featured in RedBird’s online corporate portfolio.
Among Paramount’s assets is a little network you might have heard of called CBS. “The deal marks a notable C-suite comeback for Jeff Shell, head of RedBird Capital Sports and Media, who will be president of the merged company,” Deadline reported July 24, as the purchase was greenlighted by the FCC. “Shell was ousted as CEO of NBCUniversal in 2023 after being the subject of complaints about inappropriate contact with a subordinate, CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble.”
Let’s look at that timeline. Shell is forced out at NBC by a personal scandal involving on-air talent. He then becomes an executive at a private equity powerhouse that reportedly partners with a leading Chinese military tech company. And he will now be given control over a second major television network in the United States.
Why such a seemingly unlikely choice? This might lend a clue: In 2014, while serving as chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment at NBCUniversal, Shell gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter in which he waxed exultant over business prospects in China.
“Shell was making his sixth visit to China to officially launch NBC Universal’s Beijing office, which will be run by veteran Hollywood studio executive Jo Yan,” the Hollywood trade publication stated at the time. “We think there is a lot of growth left in this market. The pie is so big that there is growth for Hollywood movies and we also think there is a co-production local element that so far we’ve only dabbled in and we want to get more serious about,” Shell told the site.
He dismissed regime censorship in China with a wave of the hand. “Every market has its issues with content of movies, some are more liberal and some are less liberal,” Shell said. “You always have to tailor your movies to the market, here you just have to go through an agency before you can have the stamp of approval. We are tailoring our markets depending on the cultural tastes of every one of our major markets.” That is how easy the new president of the company that owns CBS acclimated himself to “tailoring” Hollywood movies to fit approved Chinese communist narratives for distribution in that “exciting” market.
RedBird head John Thornton “is on record in 2023 encouraging Chinese officials to ‘get into’ Western media channels to tell the Chinese story ‘well,’” Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith wrote on July 1 in a post published at UK blog Conservative Home.
This is the corporate entity that will now run CBS. Though some Americans may still harbor wishful thoughts on the matter, there is seemingly less reason than ever to trust dominant establishment media organs.
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