Journalists from The Guardian and The Observer have gone on strike for 48-hours in protest over a potential sale of the latter.
The Observer is The Guardian’s sister paper, which comes out weekly on Sundays.
It emerged earlier this year that the Scott Trust is considering a sale of The Observer to the relatively nascent Tortoise Media, which was founded in 2019 by editor James Harding as a longform journalism and podcast platform.
The news has caused consternation in the U.K., with leading figures including Bill Nighy, Hugh Grant and Ralph Fiennes signing an open letter decrying the deal, which they described as “disastrous.”
The Observer’s longtime editor Paul Webster, who retired last month, also criticized the sale, saying it would “severly damage the reputation of the Scott Trust and threaten the future of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.”
500 journalists at the company are reported to have voted for a strike. Those in the U.S. and Australia offices have indicated they will not cross the picket line at their respective offices.
The journalists are protesting outside the newspapers’ Kings Place headquarters in London, which coincidentally is also the location of three-day television conference Content London this week. So far the strikes do not appear to be impacting the conference.
More to come…
