It seems a bit unfair that the Observer has been singled out as Sunday Paper Most Likely To Fold. As The Media Blog points out, sliding circulation and slumping ad revenue hardly make it a singular failure in the newspaper world. And nor do its journalistic failures – most grossly, its uncritical publication of the false claims in the 2003 Iraq dossier. Detailed by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News, the Observer’s coverage was hasty, credulous, and depressingly handy in pushing forward the war. A factual failing, and idealogically a fairly devastating failing for a supposed paper of the left – especially if its defenders, like Donald Trelford in the Newsnight segment below, have to resort to some sort of radical heritage of as an argument for its survival.
After the jump, the Newsnight discussion with Donald Trelford and Harold Evans on the Observer’s future.
© Sarah Ditum, 2009
[...] on other blogs Paperhouse: Save the Observer, 2003 edition The Third Estate: Save the Observer? Blood and Treasure: unlamented death of a newspaper Media [...]