Now that the railway workers and the junior doctors have settled their differences with the Government, it is left to a group of liberal-minded journalists to provide a demonstration of industrial solidarity, and while not exactly bringing the country to its knees, the strike this week at The Guardian newspaper has, for some of us, a certain significance.
The 48-hour strike – the first time journalists at the paper have withdrawn their labour for 50 years – is in protest at The Guardian’s proposed sale of its Sunday stablemate, The Observer, to online news organisation Tortoise Media.
Journalists at both papers believe that Tortoise (established 2018) is not a suitable owner for The Observer (established 1791), and this putative deal imperils the future of an historically important independent voice in the newspaper market. The National Union of Journalists has called it “a betrayal” of The Guardian ownership’s commitment to The Observer, believing that the loss-making Tortoise does not have the financial resources to secure its future.
To the uninitiated, this might seem like the orchestra on the Titanic downing tools because the acoustics weren’t quite right. These are extremely difficult times for printed media, and The Observer’s circulation has, in line with the market, been on a precipitous decline for two decades. The economics of the newspaper industry, which was founded on the delivering of a printed product overnight to homes from Penzance to Perthshire, are challenging, to say the least.
But for all that, a newspaper is still a desirable asset to own. Witness the queue of potential purchasers of The Daily Telegraph. And The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, has a special cachet in that respect.
The paper has had some sketchy proprietors in the past and survived. It was part of Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho empire for 12 years from 1981 and was used as a mouthpiece in his commercial battle with Mohammed al-Fayed; before that, it was owned by the American oil conglomerate, Atlantic Richfield. In that context, Tortoise, run by an experienced journalist with an impeccable record as an independent thinker, might not seem such a bad home for The Observer.
I am not entirely disinterested in The Observer’s fate. The paper gave me my first job in national newspapers in 1982 as a junior on the sports desk, and it occupies a special place in my heart. I remember vividly how impossibly glamorous I thought it back then, and the overriding sense I had from my colleagues was one of pride to work for a newspaper that had such a distinguished history (The Observer’s principled opposition to the government in the 1956 Suez crisis is still regarded as one of the most significant editorial interventions by a newspaper in modern times).
More than that, I was now working for the same newspaper as some of the all-time heroes of journalism: Hugh McIlvanney, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Clive James, Katherine Whitehorn, William Keegan, and others too numerous to mention.
Then there were the nights in the Cockpit pub, adjoining the paper’s offices. I watched as cheques were cashed behind the bar, journalists were hired and fired, songs were sung, fights were started and quickly ended and the occasional tourist would wander into the pub, find themselves in the middle of this Rabelaisian scene and just watch, open-mouthed in wonder.
By 1993, I was editor of the paper’s magazine. If Guardian journalists talk of “betrayal” today, they should have been around then. We were called to a meeting on the editorial floor by the paper’s editor, Donald Trelford. He started by saying: “This is the last time I shall be addressing you all,” and then told us that the paper was being sold to The Guardian.
The floor was taken by Peter Preston, then editor of The Guardian, and he detailed a future for the paper that would be prosperous and glorious and, it quickly became apparent, wouldn’t involve many of us. I was sacked over lunch at a posh restaurant and many of my colleagues, particularly those who had the strongest allegiance to The Observer’s idiosyncratic, stand-alone virtues, either chose to leave or were shown the door.
“They came in like a f**king conquering army,” said Hugh McIlvanney that morning, “but I don’t ever remember fighting the war.” The tone from The Guardian, it seemed to us, was one of haughty superiority, that they were here to rescue us from our own incompetence.
And here we are 30 years later, and the world is a very different place. The Guardian is not quite so gung-ho, its journalists have downed tools, and The Observer is, again, about to change hands.
Owning a newspaper is a privilege that comes with onerous responsibilities. I pray that Tortoise has the imagination, the patience, and most of all, the financial backbone to be faithful to the singular traditions of this most precious acquisition.
