https://t.co/EXzbcGkYgZ A beautiful tribute to Rachel Cooke, the brilliant Observer journalist who has died so tragically young

“It feels like a safe space in the chronically overcrowded, chaotic and often frightening places that make up much of our prison estate, mostly hidden from our gaze by towering walls and public indifference,” writes @paulfwebster. https://t.co/QFz0NN7WJG

The Scott Trust, which is supposed to to promote ‘the causes of freedom of the press and liberal journalism in Britain and elsewhere’, has lost the confidence of the staff it represents. It no longer appears fit for purpose.

Instead, Trustees acted in the face of powerful opposition from the substantial majority of Guardian and Observer staff, defying four days of unprecedented strike action.

The secrecy that led to the sale has excluded any possibility that Observer journalists might have contributed to a discussion about their title's future, or that alternative, possibly better suited and financed, potential owners might be found.

Instead they promoted the preposterous notion that the Observer, which makes a positive contribution to revenues according to company figures, represents a threat to a company sitting on a £1.3bn fund.

The Trust has failed utterly to convince staff how taking the Observer behind a paywall, and losing the huge advantages that sharing resources with our sister title The Guardian, will help sustain liberal journalism, surely one of its cherished purposes.

The deal is mystifying. No price has been given, instead the Trust is paying Tortoise Media to take The Observer off its hands, and in so doing to create a digital competitor.

The Trust claims the Observer was facing an existential crisis. But they failed to raise this once with me during my 6-year editorship which ended last month. And when I asked to address the Trust to make the case opposing the deal, the chair refused.

The paper is being hustled out of the door after a furtive and largely secret negotiation into a very uncertain future in the hands of a loss-making start-up.

The announcement of the sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media is a grim end to a shaming episode for the Scott Trust.🧵

The Murdoch model of newspaper ownership is not the only one: is another tradition in peril?

https://t.co/bl9MMQqdEC A brilliant letter explains why some of the finest international correspondents in the media are so angry about the deal to sell The Observer

A cooling off period is needed. TM negotiations should be suspended and journalists should be consulted on any further moves. If other bidders are out there, they should be allowed to compete with TM's offer on a level playing field. Right now, the Tortoise deal is a dead duck.

As a senior journalist on the Guardian and Observer for 35  years, I believe the Scott Trust should reject this deal and embark on a proper review of the Observer's future if it is to uphold its clearly enunciated role as a defender of liberal journalism at home and abroad,

The Guardian persistently boasts that it’s not owned by a proprietor. But - by excluding its own journalists from the process of the sale - it has behaved as if it is.

If its losses are severe enough to warrant abandoning the Observer then it is doubtful that Tortoise has the means to sustain the title. If they are not, then the Trust, with a £1.3bn endowment, is a far better home for the Observer.

The Scott Trust boasts a proud record of defending liberal journalism, as represented by both the Guardian AND the Observer. It appears as if it’s about to betray that record by essentially gifting the Observer to a small, historically loss-making start-up.

Nor are its projections of subscription sales realistic, and uncertainty clouds the scale and future of its funding.

Based on the little information Observer journalists have been provided with it does not have the resources to shoulder the cost of sustaining a standalone Sunday paper with a comprehensive news, foreign, sports, business and cultural coverage able to compete with our rivals.