The cartoon above appeared on-line and in the print edition of the Observer on 20th July. It has since been taken down on-line and the paper has apologised. Not it might be noted for being racist to Zarah Sultana or categorising the left-wing social democrat Jeremy Corbyn as a Communist but anyway..
The NUJ chapel at the Guardian and Observer went on strike to stop the Observer from passing to Tortoise which they claimed would not end well.
I’ve been reading the Observer since the 1960s and until the transfer still did as I subscribe to the e-version of the Guardian. I usually glance at daily updates from the Observer now but it has become a viewspaper more than a newspaper.
The front cover is not news lead but magazine story focused. The sports pages carry interesting comment pieces but no results or match reports. The features are sometimes interesting but if you are looking for liberal-centre left analysis Byline Times and Prospect magazine do it better.
The Observer always was to the right of the Guardian (certainly from the late 1960s which is as far back as I can reliably remember) but it often had important news and features and good sports reporting.
I have no insight into how it is now doing beyond the anecdotal. While I mainly read on-line at 68 I still like to flick through an actual paper as well, which is a different experience to on-line reading. On Sunday morning I meander down to the newsagent just in time to get the last copy of the Sunday Times next to which can be found a pile of unsold Observers.
As the NUJ warned, there could be trouble ahead, beyond just that cartoon
Leave a Reply