Preparations to transfer ownership of the Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, from the Guardian Media Group to Tortoise are in their frenetic final stages, with the first edition of the newspaper’s new era expected later this month.
This is accompanied by much busy-ness across both organisations, albeit with very different tones. Tortoise is said to be chaotic, trying to build a website and start printing its first newspaper, not to mention preparing the transfer of the Observer’s online content and a million other small tasks.
While the grand retooling and relaunch of the Observer is months away, much is having to be done beforehand. Some of the first hires have been made – including poaching Rachel Sylvester from the Times to serve as political editor – and a steady stream of interested candidates can be seen heading into and out of the offices.
The mood inside the Observer’s home in King’s Place is somewhat more sombre. The paper’s hacks had been offered voluntary redundancy on generous terms if they didn’t want to make the jump to Tortoise, and a little over a third of its team had taken it.
But as the reality became clear, more and more Observer journalists seemed to get cold feet. Voluntary redundancy was reopened not once, but twice, and now fewer than half of the paper’s team is expected to join the new Tortoise era.
Most of those going fear for the Observer’s future – at a send-off party for the paper’s current iteration, one posed for a photobooth picture with a prop gun in her mouth – but largely hope against their expectation that the purchase will succeed, and bear Tortoise little ill-will.
The same can’t be said for their feeling towards Guardian editor-in-chief Kath Viner and the Scott Trust, who oversaw the Observer’s sale. While tensions have cooled to a simmer after the strikes around Christmas, there is considerable lingering ill-will towards the bosses that spills well beyond the soon-to-be-gone Observer. But Viner, per the latest newsroom rumours, may not be around for too long to worry about them. She is expected to restructure the Guardian soon after the Observer sale is finalised, shedding its UK roots and becoming a global executive editor overseeing three nominal equals heading the UK, US and Australian newsrooms – but the new rumour is that she’ll now do so from New York, where few of the American journalists have even heard of the Observer…
