The Scott Trust, which is supposed to to promote ‘the causes of freedom of the press and liberal journalism in Britain and elsewhere’, has lost the confidence of the staff it represents. It no longer appears fit for purpose.

Instead they promoted the preposterous notion that the Observer, which makes a positive contribution to revenues according to company figures, represents a threat to a company sitting on a £1.3bn fund.

The Trust has failed utterly to convince staff how taking the Observer behind a paywall, and losing the huge advantages that sharing resources with our sister title The Guardian, will help sustain liberal journalism, surely one of its cherished purposes.

The deal is mystifying. No price has been given, instead the Trust is paying Tortoise Media to take The Observer off its hands, and in so doing to create a digital competitor.

The Trust claims the Observer was facing an existential crisis. But they failed to raise this once with me during my 6-year editorship which ended last month. And when I asked to address the Trust to make the case opposing the deal, the chair refused.

The paper is being hustled out of the door after a furtive and largely secret negotiation into a very uncertain future in the hands of a loss-making start-up.

The Murdoch model of newspaper ownership is not the only one: is another tradition in peril?

A brilliant letter explains why some of the finest international correspondents in the media are so angry about the deal to sell The Observer

@MargaretSimons @billisdoing Also Margaret, why did you not choose to raise any of these matters when I appeared before the Scott Trust to gove my annual report as Observer editor? Did you not consider them worthy of open discussion?

@MargaretSimons @billisdoing Neither the editor in chief of the two titles, not the editor of the observer nor me recognise the 2012 decisions you refer to. Can you please explain?

@MargaretSimons @billisdoing What decision in 2012? I’m not sure what you mean and I was deputy editor at the time

RT @HenryCPorter: A cooling off period is needed. TM negotiations should be suspended and journalists should be consulted on any further mo…

As a senior journalist on the Guardian and Observer for 35  years, I believe the Scott Trust should reject this deal and embark on a proper review of the Observer's future if it is to uphold its clearly enunciated role as a defender of liberal journalism at home and abroad,