The Guardian Is Basically Giving The Observer Away. Here’s Why

Everyone knows that the economics of print media no longer stacks up. Where London’s Routemasters were once packed with readers of newspapers and magazines, today’s buses are full of passengers doom-scrolling on their phones or listening to podcasts. As a result, the circulation of titles like The Sun, The Mirror and The Times has collapsed. The Evening Standard, which used to run multiple daily editions that people once paid for (yes, really) has moved to once a week. In 2022, it lost more than £16m. 

One notable example of print’s demise is The Observer newspaper, owned by the Guardian Media Group since the 1990s and now subject to an offer from Tortoise Media. First published in 1791, The Observer was the world’s first Sunday newspaper. Its apogee came in the mid-20th century under the editorship of David Astor, a pioneer in championing the middle ground between Britain’s two major political parties (in this respect a proto ‘centrist dad’). Astor’s risk-taking with the paper’s coverage of colonialism, however, was unmatched. 

For all its heritage, today’s Observer has struggled. As recently as the 1980s, it had a weekly readership touching a million, and in the 1990s its integration with the Guardian made sense, allowing the media group to publish seven days a week. But in the digital era, the title blurred the Guardian’s brand and has often felt analogous to an embarrassing relative.

One recent article by Sonia Sodha, the paper’s chief leader writer, was titled: “Fat-shaming Keir Starmer was wrong, but we all judge people by their appearance”. Meanwhile, in 2017, former columnist Nick Cohen finished one of his missives with the instruction: “Stop being a fucking fool by changing your fucking mind.” With ‘journalism’ like that, it’s hardly surprising the paper will be sold for next to nothing. 

This brings us back to the conventional wisdom regarding print. While the digital landscape has certainly transformed the media industry, it’s also allowed executives to excuse failure. But when it comes to weekly and monthly publications – which should be regarded as distinct to their daily cousins – many outlets have prospered. Private Eye’s most successful issue was published in 2021 (the magazine has 90,000 subscribers). Elsewhere, The Week and The Economist have thrived over the last two decades. The Spectator, almost as venerable as The Observer, was recently purchased for £100m.

The gap in the UK market so willfully neglected by The Observer is most conspicuous when abroad. Across the continent, the British paper of choice over the weekend is the Financial Times. In Oslo, I saw the FT displayed next to Danish weekly Weekendavisen and France’s Le Monde Diplomatique. That should be The Observer, I thought. The paper’s problem isn’t economics – it’s vibes. 

So why are the vibes off? First, it doesn’t have much original reporting – certainly not compared to the Weekend FT. Second (and somewhat connected) is the simple reality that the paper just isn’t chic. And what is a weekend, and the idea of reading something for hours during one’s free time, if not that? A Sunday paper needs to offer high value, original work. It’s something you need your reader to identify with.

This glamour deficit is a direct outgrowth of the paper’s politics. British centrism is equal parts incurious and self-righteous. Indeed, it’s arguably unique in thinking it’s not only morally superior but more intellectually cultivated than anyone to either its left or right. As a result, The Observer offered little of interest on austerity, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn or Donald Trump – let alone a world of emerging multipolarity, the rise of China or demographic ageing. Instead, the paper’s modus operandi was to be to the right of Tory voters on issues like public ownership, while at the same time calling them racist. And leftwingers? They were to be mocked and demonised. 

The Observer is dying because the politics it represents aren’t mainstream in a meaningful sense. A centrist publication that is successful, like Monocle, does well precisely because it demurs from hard politics, sticking instead to global reportage, design and pretty pictures. The world is full of fascinating people doing fascinating things. Cover them and you’ll find an audience. But being the parish noticeboard for liberal media obsessions like stopping Brexit? People, surprisingly, just aren’t that keen.