Sunday carve-up
The Observer , Issue 1633

"WE ARE in formal and exclusive negotiations and that process will take time but we want to be as open as possible," Guardian editor Kath Viner and chief executive Anna Bateson told staff last Tuesday as they announced they were attempting to flog off the Observer.

That claim might have been more convincing had they not scrambled to organise a meeting when they were tipped off that Sky News's Mark Kleinman was about to break the story.

Question time
Staff concluded that Kleinman was rather more clued-up than Viner and Bateson appeared to be. They were unable to answer a number of obvious questions about the proposed deal with Tortoise, a digital platform headed by former Times editor and BBC News boss James Harding which has already pivoted from public "think-ins" to a largely podcast-based business since it was set up in 2018.

How might the departments shared between the Guardian and Observer, including sport, business and foreign coverage, be disentangled? If the Observer is to continue as a print product, how would Tortoise go about printing and distributing it?

Would the "no compulsory redundancies" clause travel with all the Observer staff and freelancers Tortoise is pledging to take on? Had negotiations kicked off before the recent window for taking voluntary redundancy closed at the end of July, denying staff the opportunity to jump from what might be a sinking ship?

And where will Tortoise – which is run from a handful of desks in a shared workspace and whose most recent accounts show net assets of £4.3m and losses totalling £4.6m – find the £25m it claims it will invest in the Observer over the next five years?

Great Scott!
Answers came there few. But one response from Bateson was clear: asked by lead feature writer Tim Adams, a 30-year Observer veteran, if she and her colleagues at the paper's owner the Scott Trust would "fulfil the trust's obligation to look after the Observer", Bateson replied bluntly: "The Scott Trust's responsibility is to the Guardian, not the Observer."

Although strictly accurate to the terms laid out by the Scott family in 1936, this felt like a kick in the teeth to the Sunday staff who have been part of the Guardian group since 1993, and made it clear that they can whistle for any share of the endowment fund – which, it was revealed the same day, has grown to an eye-watering £1.275bn.

All Observer material goes out online under the Guardian banner, which means Tortoise would be obliged to create a digital presence for the paper from scratch. And the Graun's most recent and much-hyped product launch was the paid-for Feast app, which uses the branding of the Guardian's food supplement but encompasses recipes from the Observer Food Monthly and its star cook Nigel Slater, to which he retains copyright – yet another issue for managers to wrestle with over the three-month deadline they have set themselves to strike a final deal.

Observer editor Paul Webster, who announced his retirement in July, is now obliged to stick around until it becomes clear who will be choosing his successor.

Revolting staff
The negotiations will take place in the face of fervent opposition from staff: a series of emergency NUJ meetings last week demonstrated refreshing solidarity between the two not always cohesive crews and resulted in a motion that the chapel was "united in opposition".

A second motion, passed "with huge regret", was a thumping vote of no confidence in the Scott Trust and its trustees.

More top stories in the latest issue:

FUGGER'S FRIEND
The Sun was shocked by the revelations about "monstrous, bullying predator" Mohamed Fayed – but its start columnist has been far more forgiving.

EXPRESS WAY
Express staff are in the dark about what happened to bring about the exit of editor Gary Jones, as publisher Reach is remaining tight-lipped.

WORST OF BRITISH
After a terrible feature appeared in the Guardian's G2 section, editor Kath Viner was told that the writer's long-term partner is a commissioning editor on G2!

EVENING OUT
The Evening Standard trumpeted that it was up for a "newspaper of the year award" – two days before printing its last ever edition.

VINE & DANDY
Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine was unimpressed by the revelations about the PM's freebies – but what of her own history of receiving gratis goodies?

INSIDE TORY
Ipso has rapped the Daily Express over the knuckles for a false claim about immigration by the then Tory chairman in an angry column last December.

SPECTATOR SPORT
Andrew Neill announced he was stepping down as chairman of the Spectator, via a magnificently petulant sign-off on Twitter.

SPICY SULTANAH
A former queen of Malaysia continues her long defamation fight against the British journalist who exposed the $5bn 1MDB scandal in 2015.

CHRONICLE MYSTERY
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle is in hot water over publishing stories from a dodgy freelancer that Israeli media concluded were complete fabrications.