Will The Guardian now have to cancel ITSELF in line over slavery links sparked by planned podcast?

For decades he has been the holiest voice on the sanctimonious left.

But now the ever-awake Guardian finds himself at the center of a racing line.

A planned podcast by the newspaper about its historical connections to the slave trade was reported to have led to a racial complaint from three producers involved with the series.

The newspaper is said to have been working on the podcast as part of a larger editorial project on founder John Edward Taylor’s links to slavery.

But according to the entertainment industry website Deadline, three producers of the show told managers at the media company last year that they had concerns.

The Guardian has been accused by the three people of ‘institutional racism, editorial whiteness and ignorance’. The producers’ concerns were circulated to other members of the UK audio industry on Monday in a contained email published by Deadline.

The person who sent the email was described as a “rising star in the world of audio.”

In the message, they suggest the company was trying to “whitewash history” on the podcast and accused The Guardian of lacking the “desire” to “confront and interrogate its own historical role.” They said their concerns had been ‘dismissed as ‘trauma’ and ‘baggage’ rather than informed experience and analysis’ and that their formal complaint was ‘ignored’ and ‘downplayed’.

They added: ‘The institution is now looking for other producers to finish our work… The result of this project is a big indictment against the newspaper. The irony of dealing with institutional racism, editorial whiteness and ignorance in a project on the legacy of slavery has not escaped us.’

Black journalists from The Guardian are understood to hold important positions on the project.

A spokesperson for the newspaper said: ‘The Guardian has been working on a major editorial project relating to its own story which is due to run soon. The project is being led by a diverse team of experienced and respected editors.

The Guardian newspaper company logo is displayed in the window of the Kings Place office complex

“We are concerned that some former colleagues and collaborators have not had a good experience working with us, but we are disappointed that they have chosen to write a partial reflection of their time at The Guardian.”

They added: ‘We moved immediately to respond to people, including offering a mediation process, which took place with a mediator chosen by the people themselves.

‘The project is largely complete and no beating around the bush. It will be published in the coming months.

The Manchester Guardian was founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor, who was reportedly the son of a cotton merchant.

In 2020, Alex Graham, then chairman of The Scott Trust, the sole shareholder in Guardian Media Group, said there was no evidence that Taylor was “directly involved in the slave trade”, but some of Taylor’s family businesses and its patrons have almost certainly traded in cotton plantations that used slave labor.’