Former Sunday Times editor Harold Evans has suggested that the Guardian Media Group should take the Observer upmarket rather than consider closing what is the country's oldest Sunday newspaper.
Evans, interviewed on BBC 2's Newsnight by Kirsty Wark, described the Observer as "a splendid newspaper" that added to the variety of the British press and should not be treated as if it was "a tin of baked beans."
He argued the Observer could be positioned upmarket of the dominant Sunday Times, building on its literary and political traditions, and increase its cover price.
Former Observer editor Donald Trelford, interviewed on the same programme, claimed the paper was being used as "a scapegoat" for the Guardian's losses and investment in online. He warned that the closure of the Observer and Independent on Sunday would leave the quality Sunday sector in Britain with two right-wing papers - the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph.
GMG did not comment to Newsnight.
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The Observer could well go more upmarket. But it's first job is to be a little bit more respectful of its readers. I stopped taking it two years ago, fed up with the Decent Left agenda, the self-righteousness and the snobbery. I read it this weekend - my in-laws bought it - and saw nothing had changed. The women's mag is a disgrace, the colour supp seems designed to make the reader feel like an outsider and the whole thing is poorly edited. A publication that doesn't appear to know its readers exist has no right to survive.
(I feel better for that.)
Sorry, "its".
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