Tortoise Media is a British media startup founded around 2019, led by James Harding, a former editor of the Times and former head of BBC News. The company practises what it calls "slow journalism" but has pivoted towards podcasts and events after finding that readers were bored by its long pieces.
Tortoise's losses narrowed from £4.6m in 2022 to £2.9m in 2023. In its short life it has burned through more than £20m from financial backers, who include the Thomson family, majority owners of the Thomson Reuters news business.
In 2025 Tortoise acquired The Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, from Scott Trust Limited. Mr Harding has said he hopes to break even within three years, citing the Atlantic, an American monthly that went from loss to profit in a similar timeframe. Enders Analysis, a media-research firm, has described the combination of Tortoise's digital expertise and youth (more than half its staff are aged 25–34) with the Observer's centuries-old brand as a "complex yet elegant" fit.
In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way.