New Observer owner promises ‘new day’ for the paper after staff backlash

Read time: 3 minutes

In brief:

• Tortoise Media has purchased The Observer newspaper, pledging to invest £25 million in the publication, despite significant opposition from journalists who went on strike to protest the sale.
• The News Agents speak to Tortoise co-founder James Harding, who says he plans to maintain the paper’s Sunday print edition for 5-10 years while developing a new digital presence.
• Despite concerns about Tortoise Media's financial losses, Harding envisions following The Atlantic's business model, aiming to transform The Observer into a sustainable digital subscription-based publication focused on "insightful, quality journalism."

Earlier this month, while journalists went on strike to protest the sale of The Observer to start-up media company Tortoise Media, the deal was simultaneously being signed.

With the purchase now confirmed, Tortoise have pledged to invest £25 million in the world’s oldest paper, breathing new life into a publication with readership figures so low they are no longer published.

While Tortoise co-founder and editor, James Harding, promised that under his leadership the paper will “reach a whole generation of new readers and listeners,” journalists from the publication were reeling about the sale.

Earlier this month Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist for The Observer, told The News Agents it was a “reckless and quasi suicidal move.”

So what does James Harding plan on doing with the paper? And why are journalists so upset?

What does James Harding plan on doing with The Observer?

Harding, co-founder and editor of Tortoise and former director of BBC News, has committed to keeping The Observer’s Sunday print edition for the “foreseeable” future.

“We’re talking about 5-10 years. Who knows what happens beyond there?”

“Our plan is we keep it in print every Sunday, but we now give it a digital life that runs through the week.”

Like its new home Tortoise, Harding says the paper will move away from “daily news” and move towards making sense of the news.

This means the shape of paper will look substantially different from traditional newspapers.

For example, while the paper will still have a team of sports reporters, there will be no more match reports.

“Do you really think that the best you can do is match reports in a world in which you can see football live on a host of different platforms?”

“The very last thing we should be doing is sitting around saying, ‘what we're going to do is, we're going to do exactly what's always been done before’.”

The paper has been owned by The Guardian, and both have been owned by The Scott Trust, for 30 years. In 2009 a decision was made that both brand’s would share one website, branded as The Guardian.

This left it “without a digital identity,” Harding says.

Still, journalists at the publication were unhappy with the plan.

“This has gone down really badly with the workforce,” Emily Maitlis says.

“You don't often get Guardian and Observer journalists striking. 93% of journalists voted to strike.”

But Harding argues that “a very large number of people” at The Scott Trust and The Guardian were supportive of the sale.

“Let's face it, understandably they find it difficult in these circumstances to voice that view.”

One concern stems from Tortoise Media making a £4.6 million loss in 2022, although the company says it chose to “invest in the business” and are confident they will reach profitability.

So where are Tortoise getting this investment from, and can they guarantee it won’t come from fossil fuel companies, like The Guardian have?

“All of our investors, current investors, are named on Companies House actually, they've all been out widely in the press. None of them are oil companies or oil money.”

But Harding stops short of ruling out money that comes from fossil fuel companies in the future, saying that “the real lever that a newsroom has to change the world is what it does editorially. It doesn't have much influence in terms of what it does commercially.”

“There is no way that commercial money has any impact on our journalism. You know, if we ever have to choose between the commercial and the story, we choose the story.”

Harding compares ambitions for The Observer - both editorially and financially - to The Atlantic, an American magazine covering foreign affairs, politics and culture amongst other things.

“The Atlantic was bought several years ago. It was losing about $20 million a year. It's a US magazine, and then they built out alongside the print a digital platform now reaching about a million subscribers.

“It's gone from losing about $20 million to making two or three plus. And Nick Thompson, who's the CEO, says his aim is to make a very small amount of money for a very long time, and create a sustainable future.”

Referring to the decision to put The Observer’s new digital offering behind a paywall, he adds; “The reason why we look at The Observer and think there's the opportunity to do that is we believe people will pay for insightful, quality journalism.”

But can Harding get readers - and journalists - on side to make a success of it?

“We should be really excited about the capacity to take another brand that was fading away, investing in it and renewing it,” he says.,

“Now the deal is done, now that it's clear that it is happening, I think that it feels very much like a new day.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.