How to fix The Observer

Slow news is good news?

Quick note #1: The next Odds and Ends of History event/meet-up is on 21st January. Paid subscribers, check your email as you have first dibs on tickets!

Quick note #2: Keep 7pm tomorrow tonight (Friday) free, as I’ll hopefully be doing a live stream in the Substack app with someone very cool indeed, but I’m going to keep the details mysterious until tomorrow morning!

Quick note #3: The vote on assisted dying is imminent, so be sure to check out my ambivalent take.

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I suspect this take won’t make me popular amongst my industry colleagues.

Next week, Guardian and Observer staff are planning to go on strike over the proposed sale of the latter by the current owner of both papers, the Scott Trust.

The suitor, Tortoise, is a digital news start-up founded by former BBC News big-shot James Harding and current rich business guy Matthew Barzun. The company has reportedly promised a £20m investment in the paper if it can get its hands on it.

But despite this, the paper’s existing staff are not supportive of the acquisition - with 93% of voting in favour of the strike.

The rationale for their dissent is set out by the National Union of Journalists: “We believe the transfer is a betrayal of the Scott Trust’s commitment to the Observer as part of the Guardian News and Media family. The trust should protect a vital element of the UK and international liberal media and not seek to throw it overboard.”

You can read the full case against the sale from Carole Cadwalladr, who clearly hasn’t learnt the lesson I did about how wise it is to slag off your employer in public.

But here’s the awkward part. I’m not sure I agree the sale is a bad idea. And that’s because of an important factor that no one really wants to mention: That unless nothing changes the Observer, as a brand and a news outlet, is basically fucked in the medium term.

So that’s why watching this drama play out as an outsider, I’m curious about the deal. I think it could conceivably lead to a better future for the Observer. At least, if Tortoise pursue the strategy I think they should.

So following in the grand tradition of my fixing of other media properties, like the New Statesman, Newsnight, the BBC as a whole, the entire local news industry, and, er, Owen Jones’s career, here’s… how to fix the Observer.