These have been a traumatic few weeks in the life of The Guardian. First, Donald Trump swept to power, prompting editor Katherine Viner to offer counselling to staff. Then, many of her journalists went on strike for two days, protesting sale of The Guardian’s sister newspaper, The Observer to Tortoise Media. The deal was approved last week by the titles’ owner, Guardian Media Group and its parent, the Scott Trust.
First, Trump. Viner said that the result would be “upsetting for many others” according to “upsetting for many others” according to the Guido Fawkes website, adding: “If you want to talk about it, your manager and members of the leadership team are all available, as is the People team. There is also access to free support services.” Having staked its all, editorially, on defeating Trump, who could not be more diametrically opposed to The Guardian, the paper was bound to have egg on its face. Its journalists were crushed, but therapy?
There was another way of viewing Trump’s win, which was that for the Left-wing title, it presented a tremendous commercial opportunity. During a similarly difficult time for The Guardian — the reign of Margaret Thatcher — the newspaper enjoyed a boom period. When Thatcher won the 1979 election, its average sale was 379,000; by the time she quit in 1990 it was 434,000. With that also came an expanded publication, one that was firing on all cylinders and possessing a passionate investigative purpose.
To be fair, Viner did reassure readers in an editorial that the paper would “stand up to four more years of Donald Trump”, and only yesterday it announced it would no longer officially post on X, claiming Trump’s new best buddy Elon Musk has used the platform he owns to shape political discourse. Wrote Viner: “With Trump months away from taking office again — with dramatic implications for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the health of American democracy, reproductive rights, inequality and, perhaps most of all, our collective environmental future — it’s time for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those who surround him to account.”
Appealing for donations, she said her paper “will stand up to these threats, but it will take brave, well-funded independent journalism. It will take reporting that can’t be leaned upon by a billionaire owner terrified of retribution from a bully in the White House”.
Editor free to make losses
It’s this last reference, in this case directed at The Washington Post and its super-rich owner, Jeff Bezos, that to industry observers only serves to antagonise and highlight the hypocrisy residing at the heart of The Guardian.
Bezos seemingly instructed The Washington Post to remain neutral and not endorse either Trump or Kamala Harris. His move provoked a storm of criticism — The Washington Post had been consistently hostile towards Trump, only to falter when it really mattered. The fact that Bezos was concerned about how a vindictive Trump might seek revenge on his myriad business interests once back in the White House was reportedly a key factor. That was what Viner was alluding to.
While not defending Bezos’s position, Viner can dish it out in this manner because The Guardian, unlike other major newspapers, is not mandated to attempt to make a profit and protect its proprietor’s money. They don’t need to play by the rules that govern other newspapers, indeed govern most other businesses; in the Scott Trust, Viner’s paper has an extraordinarily generous owner, that is apparently comfortable weathering annual losses, currently a staggering £36.5million, up from £21million the previous year.
The Guardian’s Pravda-like approach to reporting on itself is unforgivably hypocritical
As some sort of self-appointed media high priest, Viner’s paper is quick to attack rivals, proclaiming that unlike them it is not owned by someone with bottomless pockets, without saying that The Guardian is owned by an incredibly wealthy trust which is able to extend a degree of financial indulgence that would rarely be tolerated elsewhere.
Indeed, The Guardian’s Pravda-like approach to reporting on itself — compared with its constant undermining of its rivals — is one of the things that irritates people and also seems unforgivably hypocritical for the self-professed, independent media sector specialist. With Labour in power, the paper should be riding high, but the paper has endured internal strife aplenty at its King’s Cross HQ, where deep divisions in the organisation broadly fall along the lines of Starmer enthusiasts versus Corbynite refuseniks.
In a case of less-than-impeccable management, Suzanne Moore, a long-serving columnist, left the paper with a devastating parting shot which likened the internal culture more to mob rule than democracy; she had broken with other Guardian journalists over the trans issue and wrote in the Evening Standard that she “suffered the consequences of expressing a view contrary to the liberal orthodoxy”.
Another of The Guardian’s famous faces, Hadley Freeman, likewise defected to The Sunday Times, over similar concerns about the breakdown of free and open debate. She claimed there was an “atmosphere of fear” in the workplace.
The latest nightmare is the fissure between the hard-left’s stance over Palestine and their more moderate counterparts
Staff liken Viner’s predicament to that of a general fighting on two fronts. On one hand there are staff who feel they were driven to departure because of the frosty reception for their supposedly Right-wing views, on the other there is an insurgency at the paper from Left-wing staff who do not believe Viner is radical enough. The latest nightmare for Viner is the gargantuan fissure between the hard Left element’s stance over Palestine and their more moderate counterparts.
There are gripes too about Adrian Chiles, a former sports television presenter who has been inexplicably repackaged as the newspaper’s star lifestyle columnist. Chiles also happens to be the editor’s husband.
Real world considerations, of having to account to a rightly demanding proprietor, that beset other editors, do not apply to Viner and her team — not to the degree that they do to The Guardian’s peers. Now though, there are signs of change, that even the Scott Trust cannot justify repeatedly footing what is, by anyone’s standards, a hefty yearly bill. While Viner was administering her soothing balm, another emotive issue was rumbling away in the background. In September, Guardian Media Group (GMG) confirmed it is in talks to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media. Part of the same stable since 1993, The Observer, founded in 1791, is the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.
The Observer scandal
Tortoise, run by former Times editor James Harding, approached GMG with “an offer that was significant enough to look at in more detail”. Tortoise plans to invest £25million over the next five years in the title.
Harding said: “We think The Observer is one of the greatest names in news. We believe passionately in its future — both in print and digital.”
This only served to infuriate staff and some of The Observer’s famous devotees. An open letter was signed by leading culture figures, including Bill Nighy, Mary Beard and Ralph Fiennes, labelling the deal “disastrous” and saying, “While figures of £100million are being bid for other publications, this poorly funded approach sets the value of The Observer at or near zero.”
Small wonder employees are up in arms. The Observer is thought to be losing around £5million a year. In the context of the overall loss, or as GMG likes to term it, “cash outflow” of £36.5million, that is not much. Yet they have been thrown under a bus. There is puzzlement, too, about the choice of Harding. A serious, widely respected print journalist, at the Financial Times, then The Times and BBC, he is, or was, an evangelist for digital-only — Tortoise is entirely online. Yet he’s now stressing for the foreseeable future, The Observer will remain in print.
He is emphasising digital as well, and again, where The Observer and its current parent is concerned, this serves to irritate. The Observer does not have any self-standing, substantial web presence of its own; it is subsumed into The Guardian’s seven-day online platform, which GMG has declared will continue regardless of how the negotiations with Harding proceed. So, The Guardian will be competing with its former sister title.
Theirs, though, has always been an awkward relationship. The Observer was purchased in the first place simply to prevent it falling into the hands of rival The Independent. Ever since, they’ve co-existed.
The proposed sale to Harding, however, has managed the feat of uniting journalists on both papers in their opposition. The National Union of Journalists announced that a ballot of editorial staff on the titles produced “an overwhelming indicative ballot in favour of industrial action. Ninety-three per cent of journalists confirmed their willingness to strike, with 96 per cent in favour of action short of a strike.” That stoppage, lasting 48 hours, took place last week. More are planned.
Little is known about the depth of Tortoise’s resources. Harding’s firm generated revenues of £6.2million in 2022, resulting in a loss of £4.6million. To seasoned newspaper watchers, an injection of £25million over five years does not appear anything like enough, not to properly transform the paper’s fortunes in print and in digital. While it has fallen on hard times, The Observer has cachet by dint of its long history. Yet its fame as a brand is deemed to be worthless.
It’s not alone, either, in suffering. In 2021, GMG stopped releasing its circulation figures calculated by ABC, the official body, prompting speculation its titles were declining in print. Today, The Guardian is thought to be selling 60,000-plus copies Monday to Friday, and 100,000-plus on Saturday.
A potted history of The Guardian
1821 Founded as the Manchester Guardian, making it one of the UK’s oldest newspapers
1995 Alan Rusbridger takes the reins as editor
2014 A survey finds that typical Guardian readers are into hiking, love Waitrose and their top dishes are antipasti, braised endive and parmigiana
2015 Katharine Viner elected as editor
2023 £36.5 million in losses reported in the last nine months of the year
Harding has forecast that his Observer will start to break even in 2027 when it reaches a combined print and digital subscriber base of 134,000. Digital subscribers are expected to make up about two thirds of total readers by 2029.
His plan centres on putting The Observer’s website behind a paywall. A subscription fee of £10 a month for access, like that charged by The Spectator, could generate more than £20million in audience revenues. He would accompany that by staging ticketed live events and from advertising. Not mooted is the possible scale of redundancies that might result as he wrestles to stabilise its losses.
A conflict of interest?
What is causing anger is that Harding’s model is not exactly rocket science — there is just no support for that sort of approach within GMG, which only wants to offload the title. The Scott Trust has a commitment to maintain The Guardian in perpetuity, a promise that does not extend to The Observer. The Spectator comparison is especially provocative — it recently changed hands for £100million. It does make a profit, presently £4.8million a year — something Harding clearly believes is achievable with The Observer.
There is a sense that he is getting a bargain, that GMG just wants rid, to focus on growing The Guardian in digital internationally. Fuelling the fire as well is Harding’s long-time friendship with Anna Bateson, the GMG chief executive. The pair have holidayed together with their spouses aboard a £15m superyacht belonging to telecoms billionaire, Sir Charles Dunstone. Bateson was there because her husband worked as a director of Dunstone’s Talk Talk. The two families are also said to have enjoyed ski holidays together.
However, Bateson has been upfront about their relationship and GMG and the Scott Trust are said to be relaxed about it.
It is strange that GMG entered talks only with Harding, without testing the water to see if there were other possible bidders — the Labour-supporting tycoon, Dale Vince, for one, has confirmed his interest. Whichever way it is cut, The Observer sale raises questions. Certainly, if it was replicated elsewhere, The Guardian would be all over it, erecting doubts, highlighting flaws and probably demanding a rethink. But as we know, when The Guardian comes to holding a mirror up to itself, the image tends to be somewhat blurry.
