The Chattering Classes: Euronews comes to Jesus

Hallelujah! The Chattering Classes is risen! Contrary to the testimony of at least one heretic, we haven’t disappeared. Rather, we’ve been in the cloisters, deep in thought, contemplating the hopelessly dysfunctional European media cosmos…

Forwarded this email? Join the Chattering Classes.

EURONEWS COMES TO JESUS

As Viktor Orbán recently discovered, “it is always darkest before the Resurrection”, which brings us to his favourite media outlet: Euronews. It’s been a difficult few months for the EU-financed television channel.

First, we dropped this exposé, documenting how Euronews’ new ownership has transformed it into an influence network for authoritarian regimes. The report won wide notice, including in Germany, where some have begun to ask why the von der Leyen Commission continues to fund (to the tune of €350 million in the last 15 years alone) a network of questionable journalistic value that has struggled to build a core TV audience, much less survive without taxpayer support.

Euronews’ crisis deepened a few weeks later as one of its veteran journalists accused management in an all-staff email of breaching “editorial integrity”. He accused editors of killing an article published on 27 March about Orbán’s oligarch cronies moving their assets out of the country ahead of the election for political reasons. Some reporters rejected his claims of bias. Nonetheless, the sudden disappearance of the story raised alarms within the newsroom because Euronews’ owners are known to have close ties to Orbán’s circle.

Euronews resurrected the article in question on 1 April – nearly a week after the initial publication – and only after we wrote about the controversy. To its new version, the broadcaster appended both a “Disclaimer” and “Note”, offering a somewhat credulous explanation for why it was taken down in the first place.

Strunz, Claus Strunz

Little wonder then that Euronews boss Claus Strunz felt the need to rally the troops before Easter and remind them of their journalistic raison d’être.

“The most-read story of the week was a standout success,” wrote Strunz, a former top editor at German tabloid Bild.

“Our Culture team’s April Fool’s piece, ‘So long Daniel Craig… The identity of the new James Bond has been revealed,’ went viral, generating an outstanding 2,037,241 page views across 13 language editions. It is a strong reminder that well-timed creativity and humour can resonate at scale.”

As memorable an example of Teutonic humour as it was, something convinced Strunz (the Holy Spirit?) to go even further in his crusade to win back the newsroom. As Donald Trump recently proved, if you’re trying to impress people around Easter, He is the only answer.

Holy Scheiße!

“I ran an AI experiment,” Strunz confided to his staff.

“I asked: ‘What would Jesus advise the Editorial Director of Euronews at Easter this year?’

The response was striking:

‘Blessed are those who seek the truth – not to judge, but to bring light.

You carry responsibility for many voices, for many eyes that look to what you choose to show them. What you make visible shapes the world – and what you conceal remains in darkness.’”

Needless to say, AI Jesus had much wise counsel for the Sinner Claus, but we wouldn’t want to violate any confidences…

The Anticlaus?

It would appear not everyone at Euronews was swept up by Strunz’s digital awakening.

Here at Chattering Classes Global HQ, we recently received correspondence full of legal fire and brimstone, demanding our recent articles about the network be taken down.

What to do? We asked Claude to ask JC for us, of course. Unfortunately, His full response is not fit for print. Suffice to say there’s a bit about how “Hell will freeze over”.

The sum of the matter: our articles remain online.

The Lord works in mysterious ways!

The enemy within

What lies ahead for Euronews sans their biggest fan? Anyone’s guess. Going by our inboxes, however, the natives are getting restless.

In a staff email, Strunz recently disclosed the results of what he called an “external analysis of our reporting on the political situation in Hungary” by the Osservatorio di Pavia, an EU-funded research institute in Italy that studies media. Who better to examine the work of an EU-funded broadcaster?

The Osservatorio’s conclusion: there’s nothing to see here.

“The analysis found all news stories met high professional standards, maintaining editorial independence and avoiding external influences,” Strunz wrote, quoting a summary of the 90-page report.

Now all he has to do is convince Euronews’ own journalists.

Instead of asking AI to connect him to JC, perhaps Strunz should seek counsel from the Good Book itself.

We’d recommend he begin with the Gospel of Matthew (10:36).

Or maybe he’s already read it. In his Easter homily, Strunz also issued a stark warning to his flock:

“The only risk comes from within, from self-inflicted harm – but that, be assured, is something i will not allow (sic),” he wrote.

God save us.

MEDIAHUIS

The Hallucinator

Strunz isn’t the only European media maven looking to AI for inspiration.

Peter Vandermeersch, a senior executive at Euractiv-parent Mediahuis who formerly served as editor of Brussels’ De Standaard, Amsterdam daily NRC, and as publisher of the Irish Independent, was suspended by the company recently over his use of the technology.

Vandermeersch was named Mediahuis’ “Fellow, Journalism and Society” last year, a role that allowed him to explore and opine on the tectonic shifts in the media landscape.

“My focus will include boosting trust, reaching diverse audiences, protecting local news, and helping newsrooms use AI responsibly,” he said upon taking up the position. “The goal is clear: make journalism stronger, more relevant, and more resilient.”

It was a classic grey-beard role for a company veteran at the end of an illustrious career.

Let him who is without sin…

Vandermeersch shared his ruminations in a regular column on Substack. After reading the columns, journalists at NRC, one of the papers Vandermeersch used to edit, discovered that they couldn’t find the source of the quotes he cited. That’s because they didn’t exist.

After confronting Vandermeersch with the discovery, NRC published an article under the headline, “How a journalist slips up on AI-generated quotes”.

Vandermeersch quickly acknowledged that he had used AI models to find quotes and hadn’t verified their accuracy. AI tools often produce so-called “hallucinations” – answers to queries that sound accurate but are made up.

In a Substack mea culpa, Vandermeersch explained how it happened.

“It is particularly painful that I made precisely the mistake I have repeatedly warned colleagues about: these language models are so good that they produce irresistible quotes you are tempted to use as an author,” he wrote. “Of course, I should have verified them. The necessary ‘human oversight,’ which I consistently advocate, fell short.”

Our take: AI is a potent, if dangerous tool. It’s also here to stay. The challenge for newsrooms, as the WSJ explored in this excellent piece on how the technology is transforming Fortune, is to harness the power of the technology without sacrificing journalistic integrity – which may be easier said than done.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNA

Our good friends at Politico, the American pub operator and gala organiser, have been mired in a sticky patch of late (We swear: it has nothing to do with us!)

It all began in early March, when our favourite Playbook writer, Gerardo Fortuna, somehow ended up having a private phone call with Ursula von der Leyen’s chief spin doctor (a.k.a. ‘a senior European official’), Alexandra Henman, recorded and splashed all over YouTube. We covered it in detail here. Mercifully, YouTube took pity on Fortuna and removed the recording.

Weeks later, and we’re still none the wiser about what really happened. Both parties insist that their phones have been checked and they weren’t infected with Pegasus or some other spyware. Politico has insinuated that the episode was just another in a long string of incidents where the Commission got hacked. But our sources within the Commission point the finger at Politico, and specifically Fortuna.

Here’s why: if spyware wasn’t involved, as both sides insist, the call would have had to have been intercepted out of thin air, a complicated undertaking. It seems unlikely anyone would go to such lengths to listen in on a call between a flack and Fortuna (no offence!). More likely, our Commission sources say, is that Fortuna inadvertently recorded the call with a programme such as Otter, which many reporters use to transcribe interviews, and it somehow ended in the wrong hands, accounting for the nearly two-week delay between the recording and publication.

Circumstantial evidence also points in this direction. As anyone who has dealt with Henman can attest, she rarely minces words. If her phone had been targeted, the culprits would surely have had much more – let’s call it ‘colourful material’ – with which to harass the Commission.

Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to ever discover the truth. Much like the notorious ‘Fake Plovdiv Flight Emergency of 2025’ (see update below) – in which Henman played a cameo – this one will be swept under the rug.

For its part, Politico  has taken to the high ground, casting the whole affair as a vindication of its journalistic standards.

“We will not be intimidated by an apparent attempt to interfere with independent reporting – nor deterred from the important work we do,” editors Kate Day and Carrie Budoff Brown wrote in an email to staff. “We have always been and will remain vigilant in protecting our sources, supporting the work of our journalists, and maintaining the accuracy of our independent, nonpartisan reporting.”

Speaking of protecting sources…

SPIES LIKE US

Back in September, Politico’s defence team landed an impressive scoop: procurement plans from Germany’s ministry of defence, detailing just about everything Berlin planned to purchase through the end of 2026. Extremely useful information for Politico’s clients – and Germany’s enemies.

According to Der Spiegel, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was furious. How had a junior Politico reporter gotten his hands on the highly classified documents?

It didn’t take long to find out. Politico published an image of the original top-secret file, which Der Spiegel said enabled German investigators to quickly determine where it had originated. The main suspect is a German navy captain. Authorities believe he forwarded the list to a lobbyist who then shared it with Politico.

The captain has been suspended and faces criminal prosecution for divulging state secrets. If convicted, he could face prison time.

Politico  declined to comment.

OUT OF CONTEXTE

The affair is a timely reminder of the perils of posting original documents online. With competition for scoops intensifying in the EU quarter, media outlets (including Euractiv) have increasingly adopted the practice.

The most surprising thing about this latest episode is that it involved Politico and not Contexte, the Paris-based policy news provider, which has carved a niche for itself by delivering original policy documents to paying clients, often – and perhaps a bit ironically – without context.

The journalism-lite model appears to be working. Contexte, which originated as Euractiv’s French division before declaring independence in 2014 and introducing a subscription-based business model, has been on something of a tear. For most of its existence, Contexte depended on subsidies from the French government – the source for many of the documents it delivers, our sources tell us.

Contexte recorded a clean profit last year for the first time of €220,000 without including subsidies, according to Les Echos.

Chapeau!

OVER THE TRANSOM

Politico man trapped in a ‘Jewish lobby’

Politico scribe Karl Mathiesen found himself on the defensive last month after writing a fawning profile of UN’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese.

Critics complained that the nearly 4,000-word piece gave short shrift to Albanese’s detractors, including a number of European governments, Germany, France and the Czech Republic among them, who consider her remarks to be antisemitic (which she denies).

Mathiesen’s predicament worsened after a tweet of his resurfaced in which he used the oldest antisemitic trope in the book: “Can someone explain the US reluctance to stand up to Israel? Is it the Jewish lobby? How powerful can it be?,” a seemingly perplexed Mathiesen, then a freelance journalist, wrote back in 2014.

Given the pro-Israel stance of Politico-parent Axel Springer, it should come as little surprise that the revelation wasn’t ignored.

Politico has parted ways with Mathiesen, according to several people familiar with the matter. When asked by the Chattering Classes about the episode, a Politico spokesman said: “We have zero-tolerance for antisemitism and discrimination of any kind.”

Neither the spokesman, nor Mathiesen would comment further.

Love it or leave it

The dismissal comes amid deeper debate at Politico about parent company Axel Springer’s commitment to Israel.

Late last week, a group of Politico journalists in Europe and the US, raised concerns in a letter to their new global editor-in-chief (see below) about Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner’s “repeated use of Politico to promote his political agenda,” according to a report in Semafor.

The reporters – in full Claude Rains mode – sounded shocked to discover “the appearance of editorial slant.”

Having worked at Politico out of Springer HQ for more than a decade, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

This edition is already too long to do justice to this issue here. We promise to return to it in more depth.

When Henry didn’t meet Carrie

It promised to be the showdown of the year, with two Brussels media titans – Henry Foy, the cartophile and FT Brussels bureau chief, going toe to toe onstage with Politico’s Europe editor, Carrie Budoff Brown.

The room at the American Chamber of Commerce HQ was full, the atmosphere electric. Henry was ready to rumble. He even brought his own stenographer and wore his Pete Hegseth-style socks with little street cars on them.

And then? Carrie didn’t show.

The official explanation was that there was a snowstorm in Berlin and the flights were cancelled. According to the Berlin airport monitor, however, flight SN2592 departed that morning at 7:15 a.m. for the short hop to Brussels, giving her plenty of time to make the event…

Henry wasn’t happy. Asked by someone in the audience about his views on competition in the Brussels media front, he feigned disinterest, insisting that “gossip” was beneath his ilk.

The FT was above the fray. Its audience wasn’t in Brussels, but on THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE. You know, Davos. Munich. Bilderberg. Decision makers. The Big Swinging Dicks who populate the pages of How to Spend It. Not us schmucks choking on exhaust along Rue de la Loi.

Fair enough. Though given the EU’s long tradition of using the UK-based daily as a depository for leaks – not to mention the more than €2 million the institutions spend to subscribe to the pink paper every year (yes, we’re jealous) – he could have at least pretended to care.

Eurocontrol to Major Henry

Speaking of the FT… A secret source tells us that Eurocontrol, the agency that coordinates air traffic control across Europe, conducted its own investigation into the reports that the Russians had interfered with the navigation equipment on von der Leyen’s plane back in August.

You remember: the flight where her pilots supposedly had to break out paper maps to land the plane with the airport clearly visible out the window.

Here’s what they found: Nada. Not even evidence of atmospheric interference. According to Eurocontrol insiders the whole thing was much ado about nuthin.

We look forward to the FT correx.

 Un-banned

Good news for lovers of press freedom. The Commission has lifted its ban on our attending exclusive background briefings, imposed by Alexandra Henman after our groundbreaking coverage of the ‘Fake Plovdiv Flight Emergency of 2025’.

One might fairly ask that if the chats are exclusive, why was our ilk invited in the first place.

Leaving that paradox aside, German MEP Fabio De Masi lodged an official query after our story, asking the Commission why it had imposed the ban. The Commission denied doing so, insisting that it selects participants on a “rotation principle to ensure that different media gain access to background information from the Commission.”

Strange then, that certain media – not to name any names (Reuters, FT, AFP) – are, in our experience, always invited.

CAROUSEL

Bruno Waterfield, the celebrated Brussels newspaperman formerly of The Times and Telegraph, has joined Euractiv as Political Editor.

Alice Tidey, a veteran of CNBC, AFP, and most recently Euronews, is now Euractiv’s Defence Editor.

Pietro Guastamacchia has joined Euractiv as a Defence Reporter. He previously worked for Italy’s ANSA.

Beyond Euractiv…

Times are getting tougher.

The FT is reportedly offering voluntary buyouts to staff of up to £120,000. The news follows word that the BBC plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs to save £500 million over the next two years.

Back in February, The Washington Post laid off hundreds of reporters, including most of its staff in Europe, where it now operates with a skeleton crew.

John Harris, the co-founder and global editor-in-chief of Politico, is stepping aside today to become the outlet’s “chairman”, a new role.

Brussels editor Budoff Brown, who returned to Politico last year after a stint at NBC News, didn’t get the call as we predicted she might when she agreed to return last June. Nor did another Brussels veteran and our personal pick – Peter Spiegel. Spiegel departed the FT last year to take the managing editor’s seat at The Washington Post. He was reportedly on the short list for the Politico position. Alas, it would seem helping Jeff Bezos gut one of America’s most storied journalistic institutions doesn’t look good on a CV…

Yet we digress. Harris’ successor will be Jonathan Greenberger, a former television news executive, who joined the company in 2024 as an executive vice president. He has the distinct advantage of having never written a word for Politico, or, as far as we can tell, any other major publication.

Nicolas Barré, the former editor of Les Echos who became the head of Politico’s French operation in late 2024 only to depart earlier this year, was in the running this month for the editorship of Paris daily Libération only to withdraw after a few days. Word is the staff at the left-wing bastion found him too centrist. Dommage!