on media


Reasons for Observer sale fail to convince


Disposal plan seen as shameful on many levels, says Raymond Snoddy T


he curious tale of the proposed sale of The Observer – the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in


1791 – to Tortoise Media, a loss-making online outlet now largely devoted to podcasts, gets curiouser and curiouser. At the outset and at a superficial glance, the announcement by the Guardian Media Group (GMG) that it was in exclusive talks for a disposal to the slow news group created by James Harding, former editor of The Times and head of news at the BBC, seemed plausible, including to me. The Observer, an apparently ill-loved stepchild of the Guardian, was, the daily claimed, heading for losses in the next few years and a new life as the mainstream, print arm of the supposedly trendy Tortoise would make a strategic sort of sense. With Harding claiming to have


£25 million to invest in the new venture over the next five years, it looked as if The Guardian would be able to rid itself of what management saw as a potential ‘problem’ and the title would find a better home. A much needed, forward-looking new hub of liberal journalism in the UK would be created and everybody would be happy. Such a theory was probably the high


point for the project as GMG and the Scott Trust, which control both titles, were bounced into a premature announcement by an impending leak. It has been downhill all the way since. The disputatious journalists of


The Observer and The Guardian are strongly against a deal and went on strike for 48 hours on December 4 - the 233rd anniversary of The Observer - as The Journalist went to press. They have been picking away at the


justification for a sale and, in particular, whether such a disposal is even necessary in the first place. While the profitable Observer might


go into loss in the rather vague next few years, there is a lack of clarity given the entangled fortunes of the two papers. Then there is the not so small matter of the group’s reserves of £1.3 billion, a treasure chest that could sustain modest losses for a very long time. The most devastating attack came from Paul Webster following his retirement as Observer editor after six years, who said there had been a ‘shameful’ attempt to bundle the paper out of the door as quickly as possible. The newly liberated Webster said the


sale would ‘severely damage’ the reputation of the Scott Trust, threaten the future of the newspaper and be a ‘discreditable’ episode in the company’s history. The plan, Webster argued, was based on two false premises. One is the ‘preposterous’ claim that The Observer represented a serious threat to the future of The Guardian – when it contributed several million a year even after ‘added expenses’ were included. The second is that Tortoise Media “a


small, historically loss-making start-up is able to sustain The Observer as a serious competitor on Sunday news stands” with comprehensive news, foreign, sports, business and cultural coverage. Since its launch in 2018, Tortoise has lost more than £16 million and changed editorial direction several times. The plot thickened when distinguished Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who has a freelance contract with the paper, appeared on a Prospect magazine Media Confidential podcast with former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, former FT editor


Lionel Barber and Harding. She said the proposed deal had come “like a bolt out of the blue” and there should be “a proper process” and all options for the paper’s future should be considered. Rather shamefully for an organisation


that prides itself on the importance of free speech, management told Cadwalladr to ‘desist’ from making public statements about the Tortoise deal, a call she ignored when denouncing plans to sell at an international conference on press freedom. There is another matter worthy of consideration. As Harding conceded on Media Confidential, he is a long- standing friend of GMG chief executive Anna Batson, as reported by Private Eye. Food critic Jay Rayner, who is leaving the Observer after 25 years to join the FT, is believed to have described the potential sale as “absurd and deranged”. Another voice worth listening to in this fraught debate is that of Will Hutton, former editor of The Observer and still a columnist on the paper. Hutton believes the best outcome


“


One false premise is that a small, historically loss-making start-up is able to sustain The Observer as a serious competitor


would be for GMG and the Scott Trust to get behind the Sunday “and not let it wither on the vine as they have done”. If they are still determined to sell, then it should in the form of a partnership, with GMG retaining a 20–30 per cent stake with perhaps an additional 5 per cent stake for Observer readers, he said. There is little doubt the deal is now mired in controversy. Also, Sunday Times reports from inside Tortoise suggest it has a sometimes ‘chaotic’ atmosphere and may need The Observer more than vice versa. Hutton is right. Get fully behind The


Observer or, at the very least, don’t give such an historic publishing asset away for next to nothing – but, if you must, hold on to a chunky minority stake.


theJournalist | 09


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28