This week the Guardian's owner, the Scott Trust, gifted the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media.

This isn't just a dark day for journalism, it's a sign.

Meet the team.

This is Putin giving Tortoise's energy advisory board member an 'Order of Friendship' medal in 2017.
1/ Independent news is under pressure across the world. The US is already crumbling: ABC settled with Trump. WaPo pre-obeyed.

This week Guardian lost 100 journalists & one of its arms. To understand what's lost, let's start with Putin's friend: Ivan Glasenberg, ex Glencore CEO.
2/

This is what the Observer team & I were doing between strikes. Please read it because it couldn’t be more relevant. I interview Asif Kapadia about his alarming new film, 2073, with its stark warning of where Trump, Musk & Farage are taking us..

theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/… Kapadia won an Oscar for Amy, his heartbreaking film about Amy Winehouse. This is emotional too, a sci fi thriller with Samantha Morton set in the future made of fragments of the present. I tell the story of how I accidentally ended up in the film. But it’s so much more than that

This is an incredible short film. If you want to understand why the Guardian & Observer journalists are fighting for our survival, please watch it. It gave me the chills.

Winnie Mandela on how the Observer helped save Mandela's life & the ANC leadership
What I find so fascinating film is the parallels to our own time. In the film, the son of legendary editor, David Astor, describes how it was witnessing fascism in Germany that made his father alive to the danger & evil of apartheid. A fact that informed his whole editorship.

If you’re a Guardian or Observer reader, please share this. The need for a strong, free & independent press couldn’t be greater. Yet, here it is. The billionaire Scott Trust is preparing to push a core part of the Guardian over the cliff into the hands of speculators & profiteers

https://twitter.com/danielthomasldn/status/1861164845363552599

If you haven’t heard about this, it’s probably because you’re a Guardian or Observer reader. The one place you won’t read about the turmoil. Or as @paulfwebster - the Observer’s editor until week ago calls it - the betrayal of everything we represent

broligarchy.substack.com/p/how-to-speak…

NEW: The great Trump-Musk crackdown is coming. And it will hit hard & fast. Journalists will be first. But everyone else is next.

I urge you to read my 20 lessons in How to Survive the Broligarchy, inspired by & featuring the great @TimothyDSnyder.
1/
theguardian.com/commentisfree/… Lesson 1: When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

This week, Trump told us who he is. Believe him. If his adminstration picks look like a plan to destroy America from within, it likely is.
2/

Please read this. It's literally been 8 years in the writing.

The first wave of tech disruption of democracy 2016-2024 is over. What starts now is something much, much worse: the age of information chaos.
1/
theguardian.com/commentisfree/… It's exactly 8 years since I published this on Nov 6, 2016. My first step down the rabbit hole that became Facebook/Cambridge Analytica. And if you still think that's a 'conspiracy', I have a social media platform to sell you.
2/
theguardian.com/technology/201…

Many people have asked me what is going on at @guardian & @observer. The answer is a lot. To be clear, this isn’t an ‘internal dispute’ between 700+ journalists & their management it’s a struggle for the soul & future of UK journalism.

telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/… An archived version here. (Also pls support @waybackmachine which is another vital journalistic institution under mortal threat)

archive.is/2024.11.01-082…

Democracy *will* die in darkness. If a journalist isn’t telling you what’s happening...who will?

Crisis has hit @washingtonpost. Its journalists are in revolt. But here's what you don't know: it directly links to another journo crisis...at @guardian
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theguardian.com/us-news/2024/o… The @washingtonpost has refused to endorse a presidential candidate. Legendary ex-editor @PostBaron calls it an act of profound 'cowardice'. The paper, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos & led by ex-Murdoch man, Will Lewis, is now, in effect, a Trump collaborator.
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Journalists are meant to speak truth to power. That's our job. But what do you do when that power is your own news org?

This thread (professional suicide note?) is about @guardian & @ObserverUK's future. Because it turns out you can’t believe everything you read on a poster..
1/ Since 1993, @ObserverUK has been owned by @guardian. Which is owned in turn by the Scott Trust set up in 1936 to preserve the financial & editorial independence of @guardian "in perpetuity"

But perpetuity ain't what it used to be. And 2 weeks ago, a bombshell lands: Tortoise Media is in talks to buy @ObserverUK.
2/
news.sky.com/story/guardian…

So here’s a tale…

I noticed Charlotte Owen, the junior aide Boris Johnson controversially ennobled, has a new gig with - shock! - Boris Johnson. But that’s only the start. There’s also uranium, Iran, Steve Bannon..& a LOT of qs

My piece for @ObserverUK
theguardian.com/politics/artic… Boris Johnson has gone into business with this chap - Amir Adnani. He’s a uranium entrepreneur. And the photo he’s shared is the VP of his company meeting Johnson in parliament when he was still prime minister. 🧐

Yesterday I wrote a piece about Elon Musk for @ObserverUK, a free speech warrior so committed to the cause he serially sues his critics for libel. Today he responds to an untrue tweet about my own libel case.
1/ This is the article.

What I said in this ‘hateful’ piece is that Elon Musk believes in free speech in the same way he believes in free Teslas. Free for him & very expensive for everyone else.

It’s not a cause. It’s a grift.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

NEW: I'm seeking permission to appeal in the Supreme Court. There's no meaningful free expression in this country if after proving your speech is lawful, you're hit with £££ costs: a devastating ruling that will chill public interest journalism
by @_EmmaGH
theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/m… This was filed today in the Court of Appeal. If the Supreme Court rejects it, we believe there’s a strong case to take it to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Court of Appeal has ruled.

I've won on 2 of 3 important grounds of principle.

Most importantly, the landmark public interest ruling is intact. The judge's findings of fact are intact. The original judgment holds.

The court found in favour of Banks on a single point
1/

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryUK/status/1630573589282934784

It has ruled that after the NCA concluded its investigation in April 2020, the continued publication of the TED talk caused him serious harm

Only guess what? That 'continued publication' has nothing to do with me! I'm not the publisher. And the court even *acknowledges* this.
2/

It's been a long time but v happy to be back in @ObserverUK today with 2 pieces, both close to my heart. And to launch a new project with @allthecitizens.

1/ An astonishing new claim that MI5 refused to investigate Russian spy's infiltration of Tory party
theguardian.com/politics/2023/… 2/ Delighted to profile the fierce & brilliant @pevchikh for @ObsNewReview. If you've seen the Navalny doc, she's the woman sitting by Navalny's side as he calls one of his FSB poisoners & gets him to confess to Novichoking his underpants.
theguardian.com/world/2023/jan…

My jaw hit the floor when I discovered Boris Johnson left an emergency NATO meeting after the Kremlin’s chemical warfare attack on Britain & flew to an off-the-books meeting with an ex-KGB spy.

Yours should too.

This is how it happened.
1/

theguardian.com/politics/2022/… In July 2019, Johnson had just been made PM. And @nickhopkinsnews published 2 extraordinary stories about Foreign Secretary Johnson flying from a NATO meeting to a party in Italy at the height of the Skripal crisis.

2/
theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

It did almost crush me.

The only reason it didn't is because of my amazing lawyers & the generosity of 28,887 people.

But here's what you don't know. The judgment is *extraordinary*. 117 pages of FACTS.

About Russia, Brexit & the man who funded it.
1/
theguardian.com/uk-news/commen… I was blown away when I read it.

To judge the case on public interest, Mrs Justice Steyn first had to judge if Arron Banks had - as I alleged - lied.

To do so, she examined his relationship with the Russian govt in forensic detail.

We now have this all on public record.
2/

It hasn’t sunk in yet but…SOME NEWS.

I am so profoundly grateful & relieved.

Thank you to the judge, my stellar legal team & the 29,000 people who contributed to my legal defence fund. I literally couldn’t have done it without you 🙏🙏🙏

theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/j… I haven't read the judgment yet but what I can say that the last 3 years have been extraordinarily difficult. Fighting this has been a crushing, debilitating, all-consuming experience that I sincerely hope no other journalist ever has to go through.
2/
judiciary.uk/judgments/bank…

You have not been sued for libel.

I have.

There are many things I have wanted to say in the last 6 weeks of #DeppvHeard

But I haven't.

Because whatever I say will be used to attack not just me but others too.

Because that's how libel works. That's the whole point of it.
1/ You have not been sued for libel.

So you'll not understand how it's not just designed to silence you. Although it does. But also to destroy you. Which it does too.

It's not a pissy business dispute. It's a full-frontal multi-million quid existential assault. On who you are.
2/

One month before Russia invaded Ukraine, I stood trial at the High Court. And now I wait, in purgatory, to be judged.

But I believe this trial and the silence around it - & all the Kremlin's men - has revealed something profoundly rotten at the heart of the British state.
1/ The case rests on a single question: was it in the public interest for me, a journalist, to speak about a years-long investigation into Russian interference?

That's what the High Court heard, in a £2m trial against a single journalist, on eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
2/

NEW: It is absolutely NUTS given what’s happening but Johnson is STILL refusing to investigate Russian interference. We at @allthecitizens + 5 MPs/peers believe this is a fundamental breach of our human rights. So it’s going Strasbourg.👊👊👊
theguardian.com/law/2022/mar/2… Kudos to @BenPBradshaw @CarolineLucas @LordStras @AlynSmith & @PJWheatcroft. A cross party group fighting this for 2 years already. See this new film for a full explainer. The #RussiaReport found a gaping hole at heart of our national security. And European court only option left

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1508781017158635525

Imagine a weird small island on outlying fringes of the continental landmass. Its ruling party has been infiltrated by Russian interests.

It recently changed its constitution after populists won a poll that election officials say was tainted & corrupt.

And this man paid for it As fighting across Europe intensifies, the riverside capital remains calm.

State-run media refuses to confirm or deny that the supreme leader covertly met Kremlin officials at a drug-laced ‘bonga bonga’ party.

However, cracks are now starting to emerge in pro govt news outlets