AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

The Washington Post on Tuesday revealed that a Qatari royal, Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, invested $50 million into the hard right cable news channel Newsmax, which eventually led to staff being told by management to “soften” coverage of Qatar.

“We were not allowed to criticize Qatar,” a Newsmax employee told the Post. “We were told very clearly from the top down, no touching this.” The Post spoke to multiple employees “on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the Newsmax CEO” who said they witnessed staff being told directly to ignore Qatar’s human rights abuses ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

The Post added that CEO Christopher Ruddy “verbally reprimanded a female host in 2018 for her on-air comments about Qatar, according to two other people who saw the exchange.”

The report explained that Newsmax first reached out to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund about a potential investment “around 2017.” Talks of an investment coincided with the Saui-led diplomatic blockade of Qatar in 2017, which resulted in multiple Gulf states cutting ties and trade with Qatar and accusing the small, gas-rich country of fueling terrorism in the region. Qatar’s ties to Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the state-owned and operated broadcast channel Al Jazeera were major sticking points in the diplomatic crisis. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE all banned Al Jazeera in their countries and demanded the station be shuttered.

Then-President Donald Trump initially sided with the Saudis in the crisis and publicly slammed Qatar for having ties to Iran. Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani made his investment in Newsmax in 2019 and 2020 through a London-based investment fund called Heritage Advisors. The Post explained how its reporters tracked the funds:

Newsmax and Heritage Advisors confirmed the investment after being presented with documents detailing the transaction, which show that Sultan subsequently transferred his stake to a Cayman Islands-based corporate structure. The $50 million investment represents a significant minority stake in Newsmax, a privately held media company estimated to be worth between $100 million and $200 million, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Newsmax spokesman Bill Daddi responded to the Post’s report in a statement to Mediaite, saying, “In 2019 Newsmax received a minority investment from a UK-based fund with a Qatari investor that also invested in a company associated with the current Washington Post publisher. Newsmax’s coverage of Qatar has always been balanced, including publishing many online and TV reports quite critical of its activities.”

Daddi also rebutted the claim that the network avoided criticism of Qatar following the investment, telling the Post that Newsmax ran “numerous critical items about Qatar” and included a lengthy list of those articles. Daddi added in a statement that Ruddy “categorically denies he told any host to not criticize Qatar. While he is involved in coverage from a general perspective, Mr. Ruddy never tells hosts or correspondents what to say on air.”

Read the full report here.

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