Tortoise's Slow Moving Deal For The Observer

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The deal that would see media start-up Tortoise buy-out The Observer has been controversial from the start. Tensions quickly escalated and staff at the newspaper went on strike. Former Guardian journalist James Ball gave a good explanation of what was going on on the podcast. You can listen to that here. Now that the deal is all but done, the industrial action has stopped, although I suspect newsroom resentment remains.

Per The Financial Times, government officials have written to both organisations. However, neither that story nor conversations I’ve had suggest the deal itself is in any danger. This is all standard procedure – even locals merging would have to through stage one of the Enterprise Act. However, it is another hoop for those keen to complete the deal to jump through.

Tortoise Goes For The Observer

An interesting thing to note, given all the furore, is that Alan Rusbridger joined his fellow former editors in signing a letter that called for the current deal to be stopped. That’s the same Alan Rusbridger who explored the sale of The Observer during his tenure.

Back in 2009, a sale was one of the options, which also included turning the newspaper into a weekly magazine or replacing the brand with a Sunday Guardian. (It’s also the same Alan Rusbridger who insists he will remain on Facebook’s Oversight Board, despite the recent changes and controversies. It’s a role thought to earn him a pretty penny.)

Tortoise Media being interested in The Observer is a fascinating development. The company pivoted from being a largely text-focussed news outlet into one that focuses largely on (some very good) podcasts. Moving in a video/audio/multimedia direction would seemingly have been more logical than buying a centuries old newspaper brand. Clearly James Harding, a former editor of The Times, has not quite lost the bug of overseeing a print publication just yet.