Eyebrows are raised again over at troubled Observer media purchaser Tortoise. Insiders are grumbling about the impact of the merger on editorial content, including a curious podcast on proscribed group Palestine Action that appeared last month. It ran under the title “the government is at risk of losing support over Palestine Action”…
Addressing the activities of the now banned terrorist organisation, Tortoise hack Jon Ungoed Thomas commented:
“We’ve now seen 700 people, more than 700 people arrested, some of who are very fine members, upstanding members, of our community. People who’ve worked as justices of the peace, people who’ve received OBE’s. So, the government has a problem. What’s going to happen when those people go through the courts? Because some of those people have been arrested under very serious offences, which will need to go to a crown court and a jury… the government really hasn’t carried a lot of people in the country with them on this, because they haven’t convinced people, they haven’t provided the evidence, that this is a terrorist organisation to the satisfaction of a large number of people.”
Sources say insiders grumbled about the episode, questioning whether the (Labour friendly) outlet was wise to run a line questioning Starmer’s decision to proscribe the group. Lefty on lefty fire comes at you hard…
Meanwhile, Tortoise itself is on the road to profitability, generating revenue from an extensive programme of – er- commercial partnerships including with some very large and well-known corporates. Doing corporate business is loathed by its newsroom, packed with lefty reporters who hate big business…
Insiders say the “shambolic” merger has been overshadowed by the “ironic” commercial reality. Observer writers were previously immune from commercial matters, they were able to rely on the super-wealthy Scott Trust endowment fund, so could just write nonsense all day without making any money…
The Observer has recycled an old Tortoise Media podcast as its lead story amid ructions at the James Harding-owned newspaper over how to make money. Fears are starting to be confirmed that the Observer is now just ‘Tortoise 2’…
Co-conspirators familiar with Tortoise’s podcast offering may remember one on the Unite Birmingham scandal from 2022 – whose content has been repurposed by the same author in a written story which led the Observer website for the last day. Guido hears from a newsroom insider there is “panic as we can’t get enough real stories for the weekly cycle.” Better dig into the Tortoise archives…
Meanwhile Guido hears an early focus from the paper on audio has died down in favour of “sensational investigations.” That follows the viral Saltpath story from a few weeks ago and the Neil Gaiman content from before that. Insiders say the Gaiman audio content made cash through advertisements while the Saltpath exposé drove traffic to the Observer which it is still unable to monetise. Tough for some…
An app is unbelievably still under construction at what media sources say is a “huge cost… running late and over budget.” A dodgy cartoon isn’t the worst of the Observer’s woes by far…
Co-conspirators may remember that back in 2022 James Harding’s Tortoise Media launched a judicial review against the Tory Party for its refusal to reveal membership figures in the Truss/Sunak leadership contest. Fought all the way to the Court of Appeal and the latest judgement is now in…
“The Court of Appeal Civil Division has today dismissed a claim for judicial review brought by Tortoise Media Limited (“Tortoise”) against the Conservative and Unionist Party.”
The key point here is that the Tory party was not “exercising a public function when it conducted the process for election of its leader in 2022” and so cannot be JRd for its refusal to supply what Tortoise thought was enough information about the process. It was always barmy to threaten a private organisation with Judicial Review…
A Tory source tells Guido:
“This deranged legal action was always doomed to fail. but not before Tortoise’s James Harding had burned plenty of his reader’s hard earned cash in a giant egotistical bonfire. Now loon Tortoise has joined the ranks of Jolyon, the Good Law Project and other campaigners who gum up the legal system with nonsense attempts at lawfare. No wonder their ‘journalists’ are getting ratty about the whole thing and many are asking whether they should run The Observer.”
UPDATE: A Conservative Party spokesman said:
“Once again, this publicity stunt has been a waste of time and ultimately a waste of Tortoise’s, and now the Observer’s, subscribers’ money. It is clear that the courts should not be used to conduct gesture politics and Tortoise’s ongoing failure with this claim is the latest in a line of welcome judgments against half-baked attempts at activism made by campaigners.”
Oops…
Read the full judgement below:
Chaos continues at James Harding’s new media empire following the launch of the under-new-ownership Observer. Tortoise Media suffering as well…
After technical, print, and staffing issues Guido hears from insiders that a lack of trained journalists means editors, commercial crew, and producers are writing copy for the paper. They are padding out pages. Probably achieves the same quality…
Live events can now be attended for free which has removed another membership benefit for Tortoise. The assured money-maker is currently the audio offering which Observer sources complain has been neglected by Harding since he took on his “new shiny toy.” One newsroom insider says: “No one is able to come up with a marketing idea that works, or makes sense.” The work flow is said to have degenerated despite staff having now been forced into the office five days a week and remote working strongly discouraged. Another week doing the opposite of what Hitler would have done…
The Observer has deployed another stinker in its second Sunday print outing. A blurred front page…
The wraparound front page picture of women with Farage was extremely low resolution and the focal point – Farage – is extended onto the back page. This was followed by strange multicolouration inside the paper itself. Did all the layout and photo editors quit?
Guido hears from Observer insiders that print subscriptions are so far significantly lower than expected – the plan is to give physical Observer editions to the fewer-than-10,000 Tortoise Media subscribers. Expect to see the Observer and Tortoise come even closer together. Tie two sinking ships to one another…
An Observer source tells Guido: “No one with any marketing nous remains. No one with any digital experience.” Is the lefty new media activist site Tortoise about to sink the 200 year old observer?
The Observer has sent out its first email to subscribers this morning promising “a range of expanded newsletters from the Observer” before listing two: a daily news one and a food review one. James Harding’s new vanity project getting off to a slow start…
A portion of the new paper’s website, launched on Friday, is dedicated to advertising “podcasts from the team behind The Observer” at Tortoise Media. Which has lost half of its readers this year so far…
On BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme yesterday the usually emollient host Paddy O’Connell ripped into the new operation with Harding present in the studio:
“The cover price of The Observer – £4.20! Many people according to the BBC news are turning off the news, describing it as depressing relentless and boring. The Observer hasn’t published circulation figures for years because they’ve been plummeting. Is anyone buying these things – is it just us banging on on Sunday?”
Harding’s response was to waffle that “when The Observer was launched in 1791 actually one of the things that is special about it was it committed itself it had some principles independence and truth but it committed itself to the dissemination of every species of knowledge.” Paddy furiously interjected – “It’s no good taking me back, I’ve never been taken back so far in one Sunday morning. People are not buying papers James”…
Harding says his pet paper will be “liberal, “progressive” and “internationalist,” it is “trying to do the opposite of what Hitler would have done” and its unofficial motto is that “dignity is as important as good.” When the cash burn runway expires, will the Observer go down with the Tortoise ship?
Speaking about Morgan McSweeney’s resignation, skills minister Jacqui Smith told Times Radio:
“It’s clearly not ideal but I do understand why Morgan, as he explained, decided to resign at this point. But the important thing as you say is how we both tackle what this Epstein and Mandelson scandal has identified and also how we make sure, as the prime minister is absolutely determined to, that we continue the change that the country needs and that’s what I’m focusing on this morning.”