The Guardian

paceme said:
Nice save.

Whenever I read the guardian it always strikes me how little most other papers bother actually reporting on anything other than really basic issues.
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Well the news isn't really what newspapers are for now. That's been swallowed up by the major broadcasters who will always do it better. It's now about breaking stories and/or comment, and Guardian columnists are among the most irritating out there, especially in the sports section.
 
The Telegraph and the Guardian should merge into a TeleGuardian giant. Very similar papers which I hold in equal regard. Their "leanings" don't affect the quality of either paper.

Someone will probably try to say that they aren't similar at all, but to me they are and that's almost a criticism. Whereas papers/magazines like the Economist and Financial Times are a unique read which can't be replicated by any other paper/magazine, there wouldn't be much of anything unique or gained in reading the Telegraph on a certain day if you had already read the Guardian and the Times. And the same even applies to the Independent to a lesser extent...

And so we come to the reason of them adding "opinion pieces". With all the major newspapers stepping on each others toes, to try to make themselves unique and keep their audience they add 'opinion pieces' that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Some of it is usually thought provoking and good quality, and some of it is usually drivel.
 
The Telegraph and Guardian comparison is a pretty good one. Both are reasonable quality newpapers with clear biases on a number of issues. As long as you read them with a full awareness of their bias, they can be quite informative and interesting, although the Telegraph's UKIP current UKIP love-in is a bit annoying (a bit like the Guardian's Lib Dem love at the last election).

I remember when I was at university I read the Times for a while, but their desperate efforts to be neutral made them a bit dull to read.
 
£55k for senior writing jobs is quite low. I tend to think the Guardian's come out quite well from that. Martin Samuel is paid £400k at the Mail.
 
alastair said:
£55k for senior writing jobs is quite low. I tend to think the Guardian's come out quite well from that. Martin Samuel is paid £400k at the Mail.
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My thoughts exactly. Those salaries are similar to those of government press officers. I'd imagine journos at the Sun, Mail and Times are all on significantly more.
 
It does so 'advertised at a minimum rate of' though. I was quite happy seeing that as a trade journalist and realising my salary is in a similar ball park. I've freelanced for the Guardian and they always used to be a bit stingy. Telegraph paid far better.
 
Charming.

I'm guessing the fact her previous article only got three comments played a significant role in her feeling the need to write that tripe.
 
I've gone right off the Guardian due to high proportion of idiots writing in it. Same for the Independent and the NS, too. Given the amount of column space they're given, you'd be forgiven for thinking that white, young, middle-class hysterical feminists make up half of the population.
 
From Goal.com to F365 to the Guardian & beyond: they've all gone down the Mail click-bait road lately.
 
From the madness?!? ;)
 
rednev said:
I've gone right off the Guardian due to high proportion of idiots writing in it. Same for the Independent and the NS, too. Given the amount of column space they're given, you'd be forgiven for thinking that white, young, middle-class hysterical feminists make up half of the population.
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White, young, middle class. That's the Guardian readership, so why wouldn't their writers match it?
 
rednev said:
I've gone right off the Guardian due to high proportion of idiots writing in it. Same for the Independent and the NS, too. Given the amount of column space they're given, you'd be forgiven for thinking that white, young, middle-class hysterical feminists make up half of the population.
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I know, its saturated with that shit. All I get on my feed is femenist articles, 99% of them horrible.
 
paceme said:
Weren't you the one who was banging on about how nobody should have to pay for music or basically anything someone else has created?
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No, I said I don't believe in intellectual property. What does that have to do with newspapers anyway?
 
Since they lunched the .au version it is far and a way the best newspaper in Australia. Then again it has very little competition from the Murdock owned rags.
 
peterstorey said:
The problem is that they don't - so journalism is a dying craft so the papers are full of eejits spouting shite.
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True enough. But I think since the internet can give you pretty detailed news, papers have turned into glorified opinion pieces. They get scoops now and again, but generally it's the same thing.

Which is fine too I guess.
 
It's still free online, unlike the Times and Independent. And I would make a similar comment to Wibble in relation to the USA version - it's better than any native newspapers. Good journalism, blogs are often rubbish.
 
Wibble said:
Since they lunched the .au version it is far and a way the best newspaper in Australia. Then again it has very little competition from the Murdock owned rags.
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It is a good newspaper.

Ignore the vitriol Alistair is spouting (because it's not a Tory editorial) and ignore some of the shitty opinion pieces and you'll find a newspaper that actually has the balls to engage in real journalism.

You might not agree with its political slant, but at least they attempt occasionally to do their jobs and print things that make people uncomfortable.

The Murdoch press has diluted 'journalism' into a reliance on leaked information, they get pally with the politicians and then tell the public only what the politicians want us to hear. It's an ingenious money making scheme, but its basically the reason modern day politicians can surround themselves in web of secrecy.
 
alastair said:
White, young, middle class. That's the Guardian readership, so why wouldn't their writers match it?
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I'll give you white and young. But to try and sell itself as feminist and leftist while its female employees are almost entirely middle class from privileged backgrounds is laughable.
 
It's best to separate comment is free from the rest of the website, the rest of the website contains some of the best articles you'll see on the internet and covers a huge range. Comment is free is just increasingly obvious full of articles designed nothing more than to provoke a reaction and get people clicking, every week there's some ridiculous feminist article where everything and anything is a feminist issue - "Is how much milk you have in your tea a sign of the patriarchy?", that will guarantee a load of comments. This isn't too say nothing on comment is free is worth reading, there's still good opinion pieces there, but its certainly the worst part of the website often lowering itself to a daily mail-esque level of controversy. But I guess these click bait pages are the ones ensuring the website stays free, a necessary evil. You probably get 10x as many clicks on the controversial stuff, heck the daily mail pretty much makes it their business model.
 
I've no problem with Feminist articles at all, but the one I linked is not only poor but disingenuous - while castigating Richard Burton, it conspicuously fails to criticise Liz Taylor's massive & negative role in the history of his decline. How unsurprising...
 
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