The controversial Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson is understood to be in negotiations about leaving the broadsheet as the newspaper’s new owner makes significant newsroom cuts.
Sources told the Guardian that Pearson – firmly on the right of the Telegraph’s roster – is preparing to announce her exit imminently and is crafting a statement about her future plans.
The news comes after the German media company Axel Springer, which completed a £575m takeover in June, warned that as many as 100 journalists’ roles were at risk of redundancy as it transitioned into being “a global, AI-powered premium media and intelligence business”.
One insider said the Brexit-backing columnist had been “in some sort of negotiation to make an elegant departure” after discussions with management about her future at the title.
But they said rumours of her expected exit had been circulating within the newsroom for a number of days, and were not a surprise after a column she wrote in September had raised some eyebrows internally, particularly among senior management.
Pearson wrote in an opinion piece that the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had “the rough-diamond charisma to pull a large, enthusiastic crowd”.
She also wrote: “Every single person who marched in the rain to Unite the Kingdom, every decent person hanging our beautiful flags from lamp-posts and motorway bridges and on village greens, is making patriotism respectable again. Step by step, inch by inch, we are taking our country back from those who hate it.”
Pearson has been the Telegraph’s chief interviewer and a columnist since 2010. But her relations with some senior editorial figures were said to be strained over a number of subjects she raised in her columns, particularly around immigration.
Other managers did not welcome the attention she brought to the title when she was investigated by police in Essex in 2024 for allegedly stirring up racial hatred with a social media post.
The force was criticised by Pearson and her supporters when officers knocked on her door on Remembrance Sunday over a photograph she retweeted amid heightened tensions over the policing of Gaza protests. Pearson deleted the post and the police investigation was dropped, but a review concluded the force was right to look into the allegations.
When the Telegraph’s purchase was announced – ending three years of uncertainty over its future – Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer’s chief executive and controlling shareholder, said he planned to invest in the title as he wanted to make it the “leading centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world”.
The Telegraph will also focus on increasing its audience globally, “particularly in foreign affairs, defence and business”, according to an email to staff from the chief executive, Carolin Hulshoff Pol.
She added: “To deliver on this ambition, we need to change how we are organised, how decisions are made, where we focus our resources and create efficiencies. We need clearer accountability, faster decision-making and a simpler, more effective organisation.”
Some staff at the Telegraph said that in the difficult period since the cuts were announced, the newsroom had felt like “a morgue”.
Proposed changes include folding separate departments such as health and travel into one features department.
A spokesperson for the Telegraph declined to comment, saying they could not discuss the employment status of individual staff members.
Pearson has been approached for comment.
