Staff at UK’s Guardian strike over sister paper’s planned sale

Staff at the UK’s Guardian newspaper went on strike Wednesday for the first time in more than 50 years over the proposed sale of its weekend sister paper The Observer.

Unionised staff members last month voted 93 percent in favour of the action, accusing the Scott Trust — the ultimate owner of Guardian Media Group (GMG) — of “betrayal” over the potential sale of The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.

Around 500 journalists at both papers began the 48-hour strike against the sale to the online news group Tortoise Media.

Tortoise said it had approached GMG with an offer to buy the publication and invest more than £25 million ($33 million) over the next five years in the “editorial and commercial renewal of the title”.

“While we respect the right to strike, we do not believe a strike is the best course of action in this case and our talks with the National Union of Journalists continue,” a Guardian spokesperson said.

“We have a plan in place to minimise the impact of strike action on staff, readers and subscribers and we will continue to publish online and produce the print edition as usual.”

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Tortoise, which is run by former BBC News director James Harding, says it will continue publishing The Observer and combine it with its own podcasts and live events.

More than 70 UK cultural figures, including “Homeland” star Damian Lewis, actors Mark Rylance, Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller and Ralph Fiennes, and Man Booker Prize winning author Julian Barnes called in an open letter for the Scott Trust “to reject this ill-considered offer at once”.

“While Tortoise is a respected media outlet, we believe that the move would be disastrous for the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper and its journalists, for The Guardian and for liberal journalism,” the letter said.

Guardian Media Group acquired the Observer, which was first published in 1791, in 1993.