After the news broke that Guardian Media Group is in talks to sell The Observer to ‘slow news’ outlet Tortoise Media, GMG staff are up in arms, and now have agreed they may strike over the sale. Not surprising they don’t want to join another sinking ship when Tortoise’s traffic dropped by a whopping 41% from July to August alone and boasts a £4.6 million annual operating loss…
Yesterday, 400 staff attended a meeting to voice their grievances over the change of hands, complaining of the utter “betrayal“. Staff harked back to the (clearly failed) “Not For Sale” marketing campaign last year to protect their “independence”, fearing that their readers who donate to their left-wing content will feel let down. Meanwhile, GMG’s CEO is still trying to push the narrative to that this is an “exciting strategic opportunity” for the staff. With GMG operating a £21 million loss, it’s definitely an opportunity to offload at least…
Sky News reports that Guardian Media Group is in talks to sell The Observer to ‘slow news’ outlet Tortoise Media. GMG chief executive Anna Bateson says this is “an exciting strategic opportunity.” An opportunity to offload…
Liberal media supremo James Harding has championed his “centrist dad media” brand with the help of BBC, the left-wing broadsheets, and millions in initial funding over the course of its 2019 launch. Five years later Tortoise Media has a £4.6 million annual operating loss to show for it, which is up £1.5 million from the year before. On the bright side, not as bad as GMG’s £21 million loss…
According to analytics data from SimilarWeb, Tortoise is struggling to get consumers to read its drawling long-form content, either. Over the last 90 days this is how they have done in terms of reader visits, which Guido has handily compared with another not-for-profit online outlet also founded to do more highbrow journalism:
From July to August alone Tortoise’s traffic dropped by a whopping 41%, and it is now attracting fewer than 500,000 monthly unique visitors. Audiences are hardly crying out for boring, long-winded centrist content…
The Observer is beaten to the bottom of print circulation only by The Guardian. Birds of a feather flock together…
The Guardian has just published a stinging piece on Tory Leader hopeful Kemi Badenoch citing bullying allegations from a former SpAd. The article has reportedly been “months in the making”, and it appears Political Editor Pippa Crerar wasn’t shying away from asking former employees to dish dirt. Guido’s seen the text that has been sent to junior civil servants:
The same text was sent to another civil servant, who is said to be “shaken-up” after the approach from the Guardian. A Badenoch ally says:
“This is a total fishing expedition by the Guardian who have targeted young, female civil servants to try and unsettle them. The shamelessness of referencing the Raab hatchet-job just confirms how much of a reach the whole thing is.”
Kemi’s claws will be out…
Some dark corners of the sanctimonious left’s presence on Twitter have been frantically trying to come to terms with the fact that Reform did so well at the election. Their chosen conspiracy? That Reform’s “paper candidates” in unwinnable seats aren’t real people at all. A theory based on the fact that one candidate, an antique dealer called Mark Matlock, had a photo that looked a little bit edited…
And their chosen champion is none other than the fox-beater himself, Jolyon Maugham. The anti-government crusader-turned-government-enthusiast (as of 4th July) bravely said on Twitter: “If you’re an MP who lost by fewer votes than a Reform candidate who didn’t exist you’re gonna be speaking to your lawyers.” Jolyon then went round pointing out Reform candidates who didn’t speak to the press or turn up to the counts (normal if you are a paper candidate – hence the name). He was even assisted by defence minister Maria Eagle…
The Guardian jumped on the bandwagon last night and even spoke to Matlock, who “insisted that he did exist“. Some saner hacks in that newsroom must have been seriously biting their tongues as this one got written up…
GB News went so far as to get Matlock on air last night to chat to him about his existence. Never fear, though – Jolyon is still going on about it this morning…
The Guardian has just released the news of their latest hire:
“We are pleased to share the news that we have appointed Amber de Botton as our new chief communications officer.
A journalist for almost two decades, Amber was deputy head of politics at Sky News before moving to ITV News, where she was head of politics and then head of UK news. At ITV News, Amber led teams across the UK covering the death of Queen Elizabeth II, managed exclusives like Partygate, and oversaw investigations including care homes during Covid and social housing, which led to changes in the law.
Amber managed coverage for several UK elections and negotiated multiple TV debates including the first ever televised head-to-head debate in the UK. Amber then served as Communications Director at 10 Downing Street from 2022-23, where she was in charge of the UK Government’s communications strategy.”
De Botton left Downing Street in September last year after Rishi’s Chief of Staff told aides to quit if they don’t believe the Tories can win. “Managed exclusives like Partygate”…
Owen Jones hasn’t stopped producing groundbreaking journalistic output since announcing his new “Vote Against Labour” initiative. His latest piece in The Guardian yesterday argued for cuts to defence spending and scrapping Trident, using such high-grade arguments as: “It is true that Nato membership calls for arms spending of at least 2% of GDP, but in practice most states flout that.” That settles it, then…
Owen included damning final evidence in his polemic:
“As the House of Commons Defence Select Committee concluded: ‘The only way that Britain is ever likely to use Trident is to give legitimacy to a US nuclear attack by participating in it.’”
The only problem? Jones has misattributed the quote to the Committee as opposed to its actual author, which is Greenpeace, in one evidence session in 2006. The quote does in fact appear as the conclusion of the Defence Committee, though only on a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament leaflet. Judge a journalist by the quality of his sources…
Owen defended himself last night by blaming the error on his teeth: “I had dental surgery this week, which has left me a bit of a groggy mess…Basically I don’t have any wisdom teeth.” Hope he’s got BUPA…
