Like many writers, I love the Observer's fine literature section; where else would I read superb reviewers like Will Skidelksy? The Observer's reviews of fiction and non-fiction are consistently among the best — not just in Britain, but in the world. Just look at the number of times a review from the Observer is quoted in a novel in England or the United States! Writers, readers, critics, and lovers of literature across the world hope for an independent, prosperous, and thriving Observer.

Largely thanks to the life — and then the afterlife — of its incomparable literary editor, Terence Kilmartin (the co-translator of Proust), the Observer has for the last half-century been a beacon of good writing, of the finest journalistic prose. Its disappearance would represent a miserable defeat.

In spite of its tribulations in recent years, The Observer is still connected to the outlook which once made it the world's most important Sunday newspaper: the cause of international justice and freedom, and — at home — of personal liberty and enlightened reform. In the grim, dangerous and probably repressive times close ahead, it is vital that this Observer voice is not only preserved but given fresh strength and resources.

In an increasingly corporatised and homogenised world we can ill afford to lose a newspaper of the stature of the Observer. Britain needs papers which are not owned by right-wing billionaires more now than ever, and that's why I support the campaign to keep the Observer a vital and vibrant part of our lives.

As it currently stands, The Observer is a bastion of light in British Journalism, continuing with the great tradition of critical inquiry, good humour and honest reporting and providing a mainstream outlet for moral integrity, liberal opinion and courageously asking difficult questions about today's world to help us all come to better answers.
The Observer harbours and encourages a lot of talent, some of the best writing today can be found in its pages and what's more it is absolutely rare in its novel take on delivering the news to the public. It is able to deliver the serious, the important and heavy-weight stories in the distinctly Observer fashion, which is highly readable, clear, and so often, lightly humoured.
Many readers, as well as myself, have come to rely on The Observer for news which is unaffected by petty personal views of newsmakers and news reporters. The newspaper's value is not in its material revenue but its firm insistence on truth; without it, Britain and international journalism, would suffer greatly. The public need to be able to see what we know as 'news' through multiple lens, so that they can sift through 'bias', to see the many sides to one story. Removing The Observer, I fear, will contribute to a 'dumbing down' of Britain. Also, The Observer is so popular amongst younger newspaper readers; as they will be the ones continuing to read newspapers it seems illogical to remove such a direct vehicle of communication to our society's future.
We depend upon The Observer for unmanipulated news. It is a brand for trust,why take it away when it is your biggest credit rating? Money is not the best thing in the world, which is hard to see in current financial climates, but the currency of truth will always be, as history will show us. It takes moral courage to preserve good things against the tide of profit, I hope that you can find yours and preserve the bright jewel of journalism that is the Observer.
Progressive views, the ability to champion underdogs and uphold high standards of writing and ethics are always threatened by those who cannot keep up, but would greatly benefit, from it. I for one will be very sad and very concerned about British Journalism to see The Observer go. Please do not make this grave mistake and deprive us of the heartfelt and humanist intellectualism that The Observer has so boldly provided over many warmly experienced years.

Since I have a bit of a thing for fine writing and independent points-of-view, I'd prefer not to sign a form-letter, but that, of course, does not diminish my passionate support for The Observer. It was fine writing and independent points-of-view that brought me to The Observer. First as a schoolboy reader, later as a contributor. I've been writing for the paper since 1978. I don't share many of the opinions frequently expressed and I dare say other contributors and readers don't always share mine. And that's exactly the point : agreement is not the issue. The Observer offers access to a world of ideas unique in Sunday newspapers. The quality of national life will drop if The Observer is compromised in any way. It's specially worrying that The Scott Trust, a product of journalism itself, may, on coarse grounds of penny-pinching, ruin a great newspaper. I thought we were all about to return to Ruskin's notion that lasting quality and value are independent of cost. Seems we are not. But, for once, I hope I'm wrong.

Britain without the Observer would be like Peter Mandelson without the menace. Unthinkable. The Observer's voice must continue to be heard.

I grew up with The Observer and it's been my Sunday paper of choice. It would be very sad if we lost our only serious centre left Sunday newspaper. It has the best writers and the best arts section of the week.

The Observer is everything a newspaper ought to be - radical, inquisitive, transgressive, and hard hitting. Without it, we're left with ticker tape, headline news. The Observer takes us beyond the world's front pages and press statements of the persuasive and the powerful. It's a paper I do not want to imagine my world without.

I have read the Observer for over 50 years. I have constantly felt myself to be well informed by it and in the presence of great writers of integrity and huge knowledge. It is such a fine paper today and stands for so much of value. Times are tough but that's why we need a paper like the Observer most.

The Observer's a distinctive voice which is needed at a time of increasingly bland consensus. Writers like Nick Cohen, Andrew Rawnsley and Will Hutton need a regular outlet

The Observer is an indispensable part of the way newspapers help us to understand Britain and the world. Its evolving history enables it to give a uniquely valuable perspective; its writers are among the best in the land. Its independence is crucial to its identity. Long live the Observer.

The Observer has long stood for political independence, critical excellence, serious reporting and good writing. To disregard such a tradition by closing or diminishing the paper would do great damage to British journalism at a time when national and international affairs are more than ever in need of scrutiny, and the arts need as much exposure and support as possible.

Despite a shaky start more than two hundred years ago The Observer very quickly established itself as a voice of reason, enlightenment and wit. These virtues are no less desirable today &mdash indeed, they are even more desirable, for the pressures that threaten them grow ever more intense. Please keep The Observer going &mdash we can't afford to lose it.

I believe that if the Observer disappeared it would be a sad day for the British public who go out and choose their Sunday papers... and for journalism in general.

As a young journalist I loved reading the Observer and always wanted to write for it. To me it was always and still is the best and sharpest of the Sunday Broadsheets. It’s a matter of great pride that I have written for the paper, and the thought of its possible demise is profoundly disturbing. It would be calamitous for British journalism, and a great blow to our culture of the written word.

The Observer is our favorite newspaper, basically the only one we read. Sundays would not be the same without it!

The Observer has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was brought up on it, worked for it for many years, first on the staff and then as a freelance, read it every Sunday still. The world's going to be a much bleaker place if we should ever be without it.

If the Observer dies it would mean a huge loss to press freedom in the UK. For all their merits both the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph are associated with the political Right. We need more on Sunday morning than the world according to Murdoch and the Barclay brothers.

It would be an enormous loss if there was no longer the distinctive voice of the Observer, a paper with such a distinguished history behind it and such an important part to play in the future, if it were allowed to do so.

The Observer is a vital part of our public culture. At this critical juncture, anyone who cares about the quality of British life should stand up and make clear that losing this distinctive liberal voice would be an irreparable disaster.

I grew up reading the Observer and still read it today. The quality and independence of its coverage make it unlike any other paper and it continues to stand out in a market in which other titles are becoming indistinguishable. The Observer is as essential as it is irreplaceable.

Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without the Observer — I would miss everything about it but particularly Food Monthly which has been a huge support to me and really is required reading

The Review section of the Observer is my favourite occasional reading of the week. Its reviewers, particularly Philip French and Laura Cumming, bring a quitet knowledgeability and authority to whatever they are writing about. The Books section is the best in any daily or weekly, in terms both of the reviews and the selection (not too damned many titles!). There's always at least one feature I feel I must read, many that I choose to do so with pleasure anyway.

For me to say that it is hard to visualise the culture without the presence of The Observer might seem rather a small thing. But the culture itself is composed, over time, of a number of small and discrete and highly-evolved organisms, of which The Observer is one. Its disappearance or assimilation would not be a small thing. I should like to see the forces of homogenisation undergo a defeat.

The closure of the Observer would not only be a disaster for British journalism. The death of this great newspaper would be a tragedy for British public life.

The Observer makes an invaluable contribution to Britain's political debate and cultural life. I urge the Scott Trust member to preserve the most venerable institution in the newspaper world. It will be unforgivable to shutdown the Observer, to replace it by a weekly magazine. George Orwell would have been outraged.

There are many institutions that Britain can do without. The Observer is not one of them.

The Observer is an essential liberal voice in our national conversation; its presence on the newsstands each Sundays is vital to the pluralism of our contemporary media. The case for standing up for The Observer is not, ultimately, about its unique history and special status as the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, but about why it matters today. A rising circulation over 400,000 and a readership close to a million and a half make it the most widely read liberal publication in the land. Long may its journalism thrive. To close it would be an act of cultural vandalism.

As long as I can remember, The Observer has been a fixed point in my weekend. I read it over my father's shoulder when a child, listening while he fulminated about the inadequacies of government, provoked by what he had read. A genuinely radical commentary, I learnt my political outlook from its pages over the toast and Robertson's Jam. Now, in the darkest of times, when political correctness defines every audacious thought out of existence, when the State seeks to peer into every aspect of our lives — to monitor us, catalogue us and file us away, Stasi-like, in its leaky databases — now, when we need a radical voice like the Observer more than ever before, that voice is placed under threat. I'm reminded of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote. If we're not careful, we will look round and find this wonderful newspaper gone. And we'll wonder what we can do about it. But it will be too late.

The Observer is a true publication of record and one of my lifelines to london and the world beyond. saving this paper is only of importance to anyone who is interested in knowing the truth about anything. The Observer is not just useful, it is vital.

The Observer is an original, quirky, informative and entertaining read. It offers something very different to the other Sunday newspapers and would be much missed by many every weekend. For me, and many others, it really is an essential part of Sunday morning

I worked for some years as an op ed columnist at the Observer, and relished the robustly enquiring ethos and the unparalleled standard of subediting. This is a newspaper that is holding out against the general vulgarisation of public discourse and it would be dreadful if it were to go under. We need The Observer — and not just because it has an eminent pedigree.

In my opinion the Observer is an excellent newspaper — Britain's best — but, even if you disagree, you should want it to be published.If it closes,the British media will be too unbalanced for the healthy function of democracy. There will be too few liberal voices and so the ones in the pay of right-wing tycoons will seem even louder. Without institutions like the Observer, you get people like Silvio Berlusconi in charge. I can't imagine the sum it isn't worth paying to stop that happening.

The world of British newspapers would be considerably poorer without this, the oldest title, the first newspaper to appoint a female editor (Rachel Beer in 1891), and a paper you can rely on to be quirky, provocative, well-written — and with its heart in the right place. I will never forget the thrill of seeing my first-ever book review appear on the literary pages in 1968, and I have been buying the Observer every Sunday since then — always a little bit wiser as well as better-informed, when I finally add it to the re-cyling on Monday.

I have been abused, ridiculed, reviled, insulted, mocked, derided, and trivialised by The Observer for over 20 years. But that's what makes it such an important and valuable national institution. A sentiment I am absolutely certain would be shared by its readers. I am horrified at the thought of it no longer enraging me on a weekly basis, and so should everybody else be. It's a great paper, with great journalists, and The Observer must be saved.

I can't imagine Sundays without The Observer. It's the newspaper I've always trusted. Please join together to help save it

The Observer is a great newpaper — intelligent, informative and entertaining and has a vital place in our cultural history and our present. Please don't let it die. We are losing too much that's of intellectual import. We should be fighting for it.

Of course we need the Observer — for its balanced reporting, insightful comment and fine writing. Strong, open-minded newspapers are the best defenders of our personal freedom and no other paper has done as much as the Observer in pointing out how the Government seized upon 9/11 to chip away at that freedom. As a people we simply cannot afford to lose the Observer.

The Observer is one of the few independent papers left in British journalism. To lose its voice on the left, above all at this moment in our political cycle, threatens to unbalance the working of our democracy. At this stage of crisis in the newspaper industry we should not be closing one of the handful of remaining quality titles but be developing it for the new world of reporting and a new generation of consumers of news.

A basic requirement for a working democracy is a free press that does not rely on financial support from a particular 'interested' party. From a totally personal point of view, every day I enjoy (and the lousy ones), I owe to the British press. Over the last year the media has discussed the issues around my legal campaign to clarify the law on assisted dying. All different positions have been explored, with serious, reasoned articles from individuals who hold very different views. My vision of what a British law should look like, while still fundamentally the same, has certainly been developed and refined by the media coverage of the issues. Had the media not been able to inform the debate the 'overwheming public interest' cited by various judges would not have existed. If the public/media had not forced the hand of the judiciary to clarify the law, I would probably have already gone to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich as I have pretty much lost my ability to travel alone, but I am by no means ready to give up on life. The Observer is a vital part of this discussion. Without the Observer, the 'balance' would be jeopordised and it's loss could have wide reaching repercussions on the confidence and courage of other parts of the media. Sorry to be melodramatic, but I feel I owe my existance to the existance of a strong and diverse media, we can not afford to lose the Observer if we want to strengthen our democracy. A cog is not the most imprtant part of a machine, but without it the machine won't work properly.

As a lifetime reader of the Observer (and the Guardian) I would like to add my name to those who will be devastated if their Sunday Paper ceased to exist in order to conform to flawed some notion of 'commercial best practice'.

For me the Observer has been the paper of Philip Toynbee, Kenneth Tynan, Anthony Burgess, Philip French, and many other wonderful writers and journalists. If silenced, its liberal, humane voice would be a grievous loss.

The Observer, with which my late husband Anthony Sampson was deeply involved from the 1950s on, is a unique institution, not only for its robust liberal values and world-wide reporting, but above all for its good writing. To wind it up, or reduce it to a shadow of itself, would leave a yawning gap in journalism, and not just on Sundays.

I read it every Sunday!

I've had the pleasure of both reading and writing for The Observer. To me, it's an essential part of the British journalistic landscape. We can't afford to lose it.

The Observer is one of the best newspapers in the country, particularly on the arts and contemporary lifestyle. There is an emotional attachment to the Observer which represents the best kind of relationship one can have with a newspaper. Were it to close I would not feel inclined to replace it with any other paper including a Sunday Guardian.