Guardian owner Scott Trust hits back as Observer staff lambast sale to Tortoise Media

Despite protests by journalists, the Scott Trust will be selling the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media, a loss-making business that is five years old.

The Scott Trust is selling the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media.

On a soggy Thursday afternoon in north London, dozens of Guardian and Observer journalists were in high spirits as they gathered, placards in hand, on the pavement of the busy A-road that runs past their glass-walled HQ near King’s Cross.

“It’s like Glastonbury,” said one cheery picketer as she offered a cup of tea, carton of oat milk in hand.

The actress Jemma Redgrave delivered a short, supportive speech, telling the crowd: “I’m one amongst many who’s on your side.”

A passing bus driver tooted his horn in solidarity.

Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You blared out of a boom box positioned at the side of a makeshift stall selling “Save The Observer” material.

Hours later, the board of the Scott Trust – the £1.3bn ($2.6bn) fund that owns The Guardian and Observer newspapers – met to approve the deal that its journalists have been opposing.

The following morning, staff were informed that, in spite of their protests, the Scott Trust would be selling the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media, a loss-making five-year-old ­business.

At 11.15am on Friday, Scott Trust chairman Ole Jacob Sunde, a Norwegian media veteran, went to face the music alongside Charles Gurassa, the City bigwig who chairs Guardian Media Group, as well as Anna Bateson, its chief executive, and Kath Viner, the editor-in-chief.

What followed was an ­excoriating, toe-curling meeting that stretched out over an hour.

Bosses were told they had “lost the dressing room”.

They were accused of treating staff like a “bunch of children” and told they ought to be “thoroughly ashamed”.

One staffer accused the Scott Trust of striking “a shit deal that none of us believe in”.

And later, a squabble ensued when a prominent journalist was incensed that Sunde didn’t know his name.

“You should know who we are,” he fumed.

One Sunde sympathiser said that some journalists in the meeting had incorrectly addressed him as “Ollie” rather than “Ole Jacob”.

Reflecting on the encounter a few hours later, the softly-spoken Sunde, whose harrowing experience was exacerbated by a “bad cold” on Friday, told The Sunday Times: “Change is always ­difficult.

“And thus I can understand that there is anger.”

But he added: “The current situation for The Observer is not tenable … We have tried to act responsibly.”

The Scott Trust, which takes its name from former Guardian editor and proprietor CP Scott, was established in 1936 to safeguard the future of the daily newspaper.

The trust has, over time, bought and sold several other assets, including regional newspapers and Auto Trader.

It has owned The Observer, a Sunday newspaper, since 1993.

Guardian Media Group (GMG) made a loss of nearly £40m last year and bosses are under pressure to cut costs.

In September, Bateson and Viner shocked staff by telling them that the company had ­entered exclusive talks to sell The Observer to Tortoise, a media start-up that is led by a former BBC and Times editor, James Harding.

Tortoise, which has lost £16m and several high-profile members of staff since launch in 2019, has won Fleet Street acclaim for its podcasts but has a limited national reach.

Tortoise is thought to be paying a nominal fee for The Observer and has pledged to invest £25m into the newspaper and a paywalled website.

Journalists of the heavily unionised Guardian Media Group are worried that a sale to Tortoise will imperil their job security, as well as the future of The Observer.

They have voted in favour of two 48-hour strikes, the first last week, and the second scheduled for this week.

In an effort to assuage staff concerns, Scott Trust is investing some £5m to take a major stake in Tortoise as well as a board ­position.

The theory is that this will enable the Scott Trust to continue to influence the future of The ­Observer.

But the gesture appears to have done little to win over the critics.

Sunde said he had expected to “find middle ground” with the union and GMG staff.

“So far, that has been difficult to find,” he admitted.

The Sunday Times