Tuesday 8 September 2009

Donald Trelford and David Mitchell but no GMG bosses at 'Stand-Up for the Observer'

Former Observer editor Donald Trelford and the comedian and Observer columnist David Mitchell are to speak at a 'Stand Up for the Observer' public meeting being held in London later this month.
The event has been organised by Press Gazette and the NUJ after claims that the paper may be closed by the Guardian Media Group.
Trelford wrote in the Independent in August that public dismay at the threat to the Observer "should be a warning to the Guardian of the obloquy it would face – and the permanent stain on its liberal reputation – if, after 218 years, it were to remove the world's oldest Sunday paper from our national conversation."
Mitchell has been urging the 95,000 people who follow him on Twitter to join the campaign to save the Observer.
Press Gazette says hundreds of journalists from the joint Observer/Guardian NUJ chapels are expected to attend the 'Stand up for the Observer' event as well as colleagues from other papers, concerned readers and high-profile figures from the worlds of culture and politics.
It is being held at the Friends Meeting House in Euston Road, Kings Cross, from 7pm on 21 September.
Press Gazette has invited GMG bosses, and the members of the Scott Trust, to attend the public meeting. But a spokeswoman for Guardian News and Media told the magazine: "We can't participate as we can't pre-empt the outcome of the internal review, at this stage any discussion is in fact speculation."
Scott Trust chairwoman Dame Liz Forgan has said she is unable to attend.

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