Ready ‘Observer’ buyer

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 6

Ready ‘Observer’ buyer

NZPA-Reuter London Roland “Tiny” Rowland, owner of “The Observer” newspaper, may sell it to a publishing magnate, Robert Maxwell, after a row with the editor, Mr Donald Trelford, over a report on Zimbabwe, “The Times” newspaper reported yesterday. It quoted Mr Rowland, head of the multinational Lonrho Trading Company, as saying, “If he pays our price it would go to him.” He declined to disclose a figure.

A Lonrho subsidiary bought the paper, Britain’s oldest Sunday newspaper, for £6 million in 1981. Mr Rowland threatened at the week-end to close or sell “The Observer” over the report by Mr Trelford on alleged Army atrocities in Zimbabwe’s southern Matabeleland. The Lonrho chief, who holds extensive business interests in Africa, accused the editor of writing a sensational story based on unsubstantiated material.

But Mr Trelford, who has edited the weekly since 1975, has said that he stands by his report, published on Sjinday week, after a visit to Zimbabwe.

“The Times” quoted Mr Maxwell, chairman of the British Printing and Communication Corporation, as saying that if he bought the paper he would “most certainly” want to keep Mr Trelford as editor.

He could find no fault with the editor’s handling of the Zimbabwe report, he told “The Times.”