The owner of Britain’s Islam Channel has acquired left-wing political magazine Tribune – a title which has been published for 88 years and at one point employed George Orwell.
The satellite broadcaster said that the publication will now increase its print frequency from its current quarterly level, and will also launch new content such as podcasts, video and newsletters.
The current editorial team led by Alex Niven will stay in place, and Bhaskar Sunkara, founder of the American socialist publication Jacobin, which bought Tribune in 2018, will remain on a new editorial advisory board chaired by Labour MP Jon Trickett.
Tribune magazine was founded in 1937 by Labour Party MPs Sir Stafford Cripps and George Strauss, and counts politicians such as Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot as former editors.
George Orwell worked at the title for years as literary editor and authors such as Upton Sinclair and Doris Lessing were published in the magazine.
The publication currently reaches 10,000 readers every quarter in print for an annual subscription of £29.95 (£19.95 digital-only) as well as reaching “hundreds of thousands” online every month via its website, Islam Channel said.
Islam Channel is a satellite TV channel founded in 2004 by Tunisian businessman and activist Mohamed Ali Harrath, and the current CEO is his son, Mohamed Harrath.
Mohamed Ali Harrath said: “A new future for Tribune should excite anyone who wants real change, and a better and brighter future for all.
“The editorial independence and the tradition of Tribune are assured, and I’m confident that it can become an even more powerful voice for the entire progressive left, whether inside or outside the Labour Party, as well as for the huge numbers who feel they have no voice in politics and public life.”
Mohamed Ali Harrath, chairman of Islam Channel’s parent company E Group, will “take stewardship” of the publication, Islam Channel announced in a statement, via a newly formed Tribune Media Group.
Jacobin publisher Asher Dupuy-Spencer said: “We are delighted that Tribune will continue to be in good hands.”
Jon Trickett, chair of the Tribune advisory board, said: ““Tribune aims to build on its historic socialist and internationalist legacy and speak with and for a new generation”.
Tribune was relaunched in 2018 by publisher Sunkara at a conference hosted by pro-Jeremy Corbyn activist group Momentum, after Sunkara bought Tribune using profits from Jacobin.
Sunkara faced controversy after getting rid of existing staff and turning the weekly into a bi-monthly, then quarterly publication – featuring writing from Jeremy Corbyn among others.
Previously, the title changed hands multiple times, being bought by Blackpool FC owner Owen Oyston before he filed for bankruptcy and stopped publishing, and previous owner Kevin McGrath closing it down in 2011 two years after buying it from a trade union consortium.
‘One of the weirdest things which has happened in history of British media’
Not all are delighted by the new Islam Channel deal.
Lawyer David Toube, head of legal at the Jewish Leadership Council, described the deal as “quite remarkable”.
In 2023, Ofcom fined the Islam Channel £40,000 over “serious and repeated breaches” of broadcasting rules relating to a documentary, The Andinia Plan, which Ofcom said centred on a conspiracy theory originating in a neo-Nazi publication and which “amounted to hate speech against Jewish people”.
Former Tribune editor and long-time columnist Paul Anderson told Press Gazette that the deal represented a “nadir” for Tribune.
Anderson said: “Tribune was always secularist and not connected with organised religion.
“This deal is completely bizarre, and one of the weirdest things to have happened in the history of British media.”
Anderson edited Tribune from 1991 to 1993, and had previously worked there for years as reviews editor, during the title’s move from traditional hot metal to desktop publishing.
He remained a columnist until 2014.
He said: “I’m amazingly angry about it. The link probably comes from the Jeremy Corbyn factor, that Islamic hard-left alliance.
“Some of the people in Jacobin are hard-left and into anti-imperialism – so America is the worst thing and anything that’s against America is probably a good thing.
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