PG backs save Observer campaign

Press Gazette has launched a campaign to save the Observer, whose future is being reviewed by owner Guardian Media Group, from closure.
PG says today: "Recommendations on the Observer’s future are expected to be presented to the Scott Trust – which owns GMG – next month.
"Until that decision is made Press Gazette will be arguing the case that the Observer must be saved.
"We believe the Observer is one of Britain’s great and iconic news brands and that the Scott Trust, dedicated as is it is to supporting journalism, should find a way to make it work.
"It would be a needless blow to an already beleaguered British news industry to take out of the market a newspaper which has kept its circulation solidly above 400,000 in recent years, has a readership of 1.4m (according to NRS) and which has 219 years of journalistic endeavour behind it.
"Yes, the Observer has been loss-making in recent years and the Scott Trust has the specific purpose of protecting the journalism of the Guardian in perpetuity.
"But we believe the Scott Trust also has a wider duty to protect journalistic plurality in this country by doing what it can to safeguard the future of a great Sunday newspaper.
"If it cannot afford to keep the Observer going it should perhaps offer it for sale to someone who believes they can."