Observer editor Roger Alton is ready to quit 'sooner or later'

The latest evidence for the feud claim revolves around a forthcoming book in which, according to the reports, an Observer executive is accused of having drafted the infamous "dodgy dossier", which helped to take Britain to war in Iraq. These stories have also generated some Fleet Street gossip about The Observer's editor, Roger Alton, being on the verge of resigning. An Independent piece a week ago referred to "rumours" that Alton was "being courted by other papers."

So what is the truth about this sudden eruption of interest in the internal affairs of Britain's leading liberal papers?

Let's deal first with this feud business. It is just not true. What there is, however, is a genuine concern - among the staffs of both papers, including senior executives - about how the eventual integration between print and web will work out.

That is entirely natural. In papers where this has already been accomplished, such as the Telegraph titles and the Financial Times, there were similar worries. Revolutions are always disruptive. That's why they are called revolutions.

Now The Guardian and The Observer, for which I write an internet blog, are at a watershed ahead of their relocation next year to a new headquarters in King's Cross. Meanwhile, the papers' owner, the Scott Trust, is committed to 24/7 online news delivery. It is obvious that it cannot possibly work - not least in terms of budgets - unless there is greater co-ordination between the titles.

To that end some 250 staff have been involved in exercises aimed at introducing them to the problems they will face in the brave new online world. One consequence will be the merging across titles, and across platforms, of various sections, such as sport, business and foreign news.

These kinds of changes do not necessarily-threaten The Observer's autonomy and its distinctive voice, but they have undoubtedly spooked Alton. He is not a digital dinosaur, as I have called him in the past, but he remains convinced of the primacy of printed papers.

He stresses that The Observer is in a healthier position than it has been for 20 years, with bumper pagination, increasing ad revenue and steady circulation. So is he about to jump ship? "Sooner or later," he says. "It's not a job for life."

He will not be drawn into the row over the book by investigative journalist Nick Davies, entitled Flat Earth News, that attacks his news executive Kamal Ahmed. Alton stands four-square behind Ahmed, regarding him as "a fine journalist and a friend."

I have read Davies's book, due to be published in February next year, which contains a 14,000-word chapter devoted to The Observer. It does not say, as reports have claimed, that Ahmed helped Tony Blair's Communications Director, Alastair Campbell, to draft the dodgy dossier. That is an inaccurate spin on a single paragraph.

But the essential point about the book was that it was Davies's own work. Though The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, knew he was writing about the press he had no idea it would deal with The Observer. Davies, a freelance, simply did his own thing and has made clear that his sources came from inside The Observer's newsroom. No one from The Guardian contributed.

Though The Guardian has serialised previous books by Davies it will not run any extracts from it. Indeed, one of the ironies of this situation is that the book is unlikely to be serialised by any paper - because it is highly critical of almost every title.