Sensemaker Daily
Tortoise Media is pleased to announce that its offer to buy The Observer newspaper has been approved by Guardian Media Group (GMG), and its owner the Scott Trust.
As part of the agreement, the Scott Trust will take a minority stake in Tortoise Media and a representative will join both the Tortoise company board, chaired by President Obama’s ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun, and the editorial board, chaired by former Financial Times editor Sir Richard Lambert.
Tortoise has raised £25m in funding to invest in the renewal of The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791.
Tortoise and The Observer will combine into one newsroom, bringing together the digital-startup’s expertise in podcast story-telling, investigations and data journalism with the paper’s extraordinary strengths in reporting, arts reviews, ideas and, of course, food. The investment will see the creation of at least a dozen new roles for staff reporters and the near doubling of the editorial budget.
Tortoise approached The Guardian earlier this year with a proposal to acquire the Sunday paper with a long-term commitment to maintaining it in print on a Sunday and a plan to build it into a digital brand. The Observer, which was bought by The Guardian in 1993, is currently a print-only title in the UK, which publishes its journalism on The Guardian website.
It is expected the deal will be completed and signed in the coming days. Under the terms of the deal, the investors have committed to the principle of safeguarding journalistic freedom and editorial independence. They include This Day, Gary Lubner’s philanthropic foundation, and Standard Investments, the related investment platform of the global industrial company Standard Industries.
James Harding, editor and founder of Tortoise, said: “We are honoured and excited at the prospect of working together to renew The Observer, a name that represents the best of liberal, pioneering journalism. We admire its temperament, both tolerant and humane. We love its appetite for the arts and, of course, food. We promise its readers we will do all we can to live up to its history as a defender of human dignity and to give it a new lease of life as a powerful, progressive voice in the world.”
Matthew Barzun, chair and founder of Tortoise, said: “This process revealed the enormous regard and passionate connection so many have to the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper. I am deeply appreciative of our investor partners, including the Scott Trust, all of whom expect the highest quality independent journalism. We are filled with an awesome sense of responsibility as we become a part of its long story and participants in sharing the stories it will long keep telling.”
Richard Lambert, chair of the editorial board, said: “The Observer matters. In a noisy marketplace, it has an independent and progressive voice, covering ideas and stories that don’t get proper attention elsewhere. Its editorial comments are shaped by its journalists rather than by other interests. These values must be supported, and I’m keen to do anything I can to help.”
Emma Sullivan, Managing Director of Tortoise, said: “The whole team at Tortoise is excited about bringing together our newsrooms. We recognise the scale of the challenge in creating something whole and brilliant out of two different cultures and backgrounds, but we’ll approach the job optimistically and respectfully and, together with our new colleagues from The Observer, we’re absolutely confident that we can create something much greater than the sum of its parts”.