Thanks for your support and your little penguin, Rob Biddulph 🙏🏻

Hello! Thanks again to everyone who supported our strikes over the last two weeks. It's meant a lot to us all. Stewart Lee was amongst us, as reported by Chortle Comedy chortle.co.uk/news/2024/12/1…

From The Times and The Sunday Times (£) "Tortoise is a thinly capitalised vanity project in search of a commercial model. Buying The Observer will give it a reason to tap backers for millions more... The Guardian is paying too much for a stake that isn’t big enough..." thetimes.com/article/guardi…

So Tortoise now owns the Observer. For the sake of all involved let’s hope it works. If James Harding’s figures are to be believed the Scott Trust has just enabled and funded a potentially powerful competitor to the Guardian in the liberal media space. Strange times

NEW: The Tortoise-Observer deal has been formally signed, with Lucy Rock named print editor and a voluntary redundancy scheme for staff who don't want to move over opening today

MPs object to Observer transfer. At the time of writing 18 MPs had signed. Please check whether your MP is among them; congratulate them if so; and encourage them to join if not. 🙏 #savetheobserver The Guardian and Observer NUJ londonfreelance.org/fl/2501gmg-edm…

👀 Observer newspaper deal attacts government scrutiny (£) "Officials have sent letters to the Guardian and Tortoise requesting information about the proposed buyout of The Observer, to help judge whether the deal needs further scrutiny" ft.com/content/20e271… Financial Times

UPDATE: NUJ achieves concessions for Guardian & Observer journalists The union has been engaged in negotiations with the Guardian Media Group making significant progress over necessary mitigations for journalists nuj.org.uk/resource/nuj-a… NUJ

#Gaza: "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims of this latest attack. Yet again we find ourselves calling for an investigation into the action of the Israeli forces.” IFJ #pressfreedom nuj.org.uk/resource/pales…