Comic has been on the picket line

Stewart Lee has given his support to striking Guardian journalists.

Staff at the paper are angry over a proposed sale ofThe Observer, to loss-making start-up Tortoise Media.

Lee writes a fortnightly column for the Sunday title, which he quips amounts to ‘four jokes every two weeks’.

Last week, he joined the picket lines outside the newspapers’ London HQ, where 93 per cent of journalists have voted for strike action. They fear the disappearance of Observer content behind an online paywall would be ‘detrimental to the public interest’ while the sale by Guardian owners The Scott Trust will seriously impact the working conditions for staff on both titles.

Journalists have taken industrial action again today, part of the second 48-day strike at the newspapers. Yesterday Billy Bragg joined them, singing the protest song Which Side Are You On?

On the picket line last week, Lee told the Camden New Journal – in whose patch the Guardian is based – about his fears for The Observer.

He said: ‘It becomes increasingly difficult to be able to write about what you want when the the newspaper or the source of information is controlled by other other forces,

‘We’ve just seen this happen in the States with the Washington Post where they weren't able to make the point that they wanted to because of who owned the paper. Not saying that would be the same with The Observer, but it is an alarm call.’

The Post failed to pick sides in the US Presidential election, with reports that its owner, Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, spiked a leading article supporting Kamala Harris for fear of upsetting Donald Trump.  Yesterday it was announced that Bezos would donate $1million to the incoming president’s inauguration fund.

Lee added: ‘There's never been a time where we need an independent press able to tell the truth more, because you've got people like Elon Musk coming in  and taking control of the means by which information is disseminated and spreading – actively false information with real consequences for people's lives.

‘So that's the one reason I came down. The other reason was. We're really good little cakes here with a picture of The Observer on them.’

 The Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, was  first published in 1791 and was bought by The Guardian in 1993. Last month, it was reported that leaked internal figures showed the title was making a profit of £3million a year. Details of the deal with Tortoise, founded by  former BBC news director James Harding, have not been disclosed.

Published: 13 Dec 2024