The Telegraph has declared war on the Guardian.
In recent days the Guardian and other media outlets have criticised the newspaper owned by the Barclay Brothers for failing to cover the HSBC scandal – a decision The Telegraph’s former Chief Political Correspondent Peter Oborne claimed was due to ties between the bank and the newspaper’s advertising department.
On Friday, the Telegraph published an article accusing the Guardian of hypocrisy, reporting that a Guardian insider revealed how a 2014 article on Iraq was changed and then dropped over concerns of offending Apple.
The article, which has no byline, said: “The Telegraph can disclose that in July last year Apple bought wraparound advertising on The Guardian's website and stipulated that the advertising should not be placed next to negative news.
“A Guardian insider said that the headline of an article about Iraq on The Guardian's website was changed amid concerns about offending Apple, and the article was later removed from the home page entirely.”
The Telegraph goes on to accuse the Guardian on failing to brand sponsored content on its website, while detailing how columnist George Monbiot publically criticised his own paper over a deal with Unilever.
On Thursday evening, the Daily Telegraph published a leader in which it blamed its own inability to cover stories that affect the newspaper’s marquee advertisers on a giant conspiracy to remove David Cameron and the Conservative Party from power, perpetrated by the BBC and the Guardian among others.
In response, the Guardian published an editorial on Friday morning attacking The Telegraph for trying to shift blame.
It read: "The paper, normally an advocate of transparency, has so far declined to answer any detailed questions about Mr Oborne’s article. A long, dishonest and callow editorial on Friday almost comically attempted to shift the blame onto the BBC and the Guardian. You would never guess that the criticism – unreported in the Telegraph – actually came from neither of these sources, but from their own much-celebrated former colleague, who until recently was writing editorials."