To dislike The Guardian almost as much as the Mail at the moment

[fiveacres]

Perhaps I am BU as I rarely read it these days so feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

The Independent was always the newspaper of choice in our house growing up, but when I started buying newspapers myself I read the Guardian and also many books by some of its prominent writers.

I honestly can't work out if it's that I've changed and grown older and shifting into my mid thirties cynicism after the ideals of my youth, but it just seems so incredibly sullen, complaining and despairing yet without presenting any salient solutions. It also appears very patronising against those it seeks to defend.

As a result, I've started reading The Independent.

Has anyone else stopped reading it of late? I'm genuinely interested as to whether this is my state of mind or not - in other words, has it got worse or have I become more jaded? And AIBU to place it in the same category as The Mail?!

[mrsfuzzy]

reading the independent ? a much better choice - the guardian is a bog standard lefty paper along with the red top rubbish.

[mijas99]

YANBU - the Guardian is full of Oxbridge educated daddy-funded interns who treat the working class as something to be conserved and protected, a little like how Victorian upper class women would patronise the poor

There are a few exceptions among its journos, but I just feel that they are way out of touch with the people they want to stick up for, a bit like the labour party. No longer about the working class, now it is just the de-facto choice for middle class public workers

[JamNan]

I got bored with it especially during the run up to the election and their the editor's support for Cleggie. The comments section is exasperating but I still enjoy reading some of the great journalists who work on the titles like Marina Hyde and Polly Toynbee and two of course the best cartoonists around - Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.

YANBU

But you are BU to place it in the same category as the Daily Fail

[Happybodybunny12]

Nope agree they are both biased and ridiculous.

Surprised anyone bothers with a newspaper now really. Waste of money.

[fiveacres]

Well, I "read" on the iPad. I do rather miss the days of idly leafing through on the way to work, though :)

[LurkingHusband]

I gave up print newspapers years ago. I now rely on various sites (BBC, hobby forums, news alerts) to keep me informed. As long as there's a spread, you can be more well informed than someone who reads a paper. It also gives you a chance to determine where editorial bias lies. It's not unusual to see a story in one source that's never mentioned in another - quite funny should it become bigger news.

[grumpysquash]

Well.....I wouldn't put it in the same category as the Mail.

I have bought the Sat Guardian almost every week for a couple of decades, but would say it's getting a bit 'meh'. Some of the columnists are just boring, or (worse) think they are the only person ever to have done whatever it is they're writing about (babies, eating disorders, the joy of moving out of London etc etc ). The election coverage was tedious :(

But in the absence of good stuff to read, I've got a lot better at the Killer Sudoku LOL

[Cherriesandapples]

Yuk Polly Toynbee! Someone who thinks they know all about "the poor" from their posh London flat / wine bar. I wish she would spend a month working in Housing/A&E or some other frontline service in inner London. She would change her tune.

[OTheHugeManatee]

YANBU. The Guardian is an awful blend of self-righteousness and middle class condescension.

[fiveacres]

I rather liked Polly Toynbee at one point. My Dad couldn't stand her and would splutter about champagne socialists whenever I mentioned her.

As I've aged, I agree with him :)

[GoodbyeToAllOfThat]

I totally agree with you, but I can't trust my judgement because I have become far more conservative myself in the past five years - I moved into an area that can only be described as a social experiment gone wrong. I was a Guardian reader before but now I really can't bear it.

[Dawndonnaagain]

the Guardian is full of Oxbridge educated daddy-funded interns
I do wonder how Jack Monro and Owen Jones parents managed this, along with Charlie Brooker, Decca Aitkinhead et al.
Some went to Oxbridge, some didn't. None are 'daddy-funded interns'.

[fiveacres]

In fairness to her Cherries, she did, after a fashion - did a Pulp's Common People and did a variety of minimum wage jobs whilst living in a council flat.

[museumum]

I think the online version has waaay too much comment.
The paper version only has the best of the columnists and more international news.
I think it doesn't quite know what it is in the Internet world and chases clicks too much :(

[sparkysparkysparky]

Try the Telegraph. It is a tabloid posing as a broadsheet. You get to see what (in my case) your political opposite is thinking. I don't feel as worn down by it as I do by the Guardian.

[ILYBAE2015]

If you ran your own paper, would you not get it to reflect your views?

I expect they will all lean in their own directions and dip in and out of all of them to see things from different sides. Some days my views will agree with some of theirs, some days with none.

[GoodbyeToAllOfThat]

If you ran your own paper, would you not get it to reflect your views?

Sure, but I notice that Guardian readers tend to get very upset with Rupert Murdoch.

[OTheHugeManatee]

IMO the Grauniad has become every bit as shrill and one-sided as the Mail. The only difference is that rather than shrieking about things that are outrageous to caravan owning Middle Englanders, it shrieks about things that are outrageous to second home owning North Londoners

[ChuffinAda]

Yanbu

Someone mentioned Jack Monro, she makes my teeth itch. She's a grammar school educated typical leftie who loves the sound of her own voice. Not a fan of her or other reporters like her.

[sparkysparkysparky]

Exactly, manatee. It's like Coldplay (sorry Coldplay fans)- self righteous, self important and humourless. And did I say 'dull'?

[niminypiminy]

"I wish Polly Toynbee would spend a month working in Housing/A&E..."

She did. And she wrote a book about her experiences in minimum wage jobs. It's called Hard Work:life in low-pay Britain.

[MurielWoods]

YANBU but The Independent is becoming just as bad imo.

Is there such a thing as a balanced 'neutral' newspaper nowadays?

[fiveacres]

Yes, yes Manatee

PT did indeed; I have a battered copy knocking about somewhere. It is very interesting to read and makes salient points.

[BusyCee]

I gave up with the Grauniad several years ago when I realised that every single sodding item in their fashion pages is unattainable priced for the majority working in the public sector. Made me feel hugely disenfranchised and perceive their writers to be patronising and out of touch. Haven't gone back, obvs.

[Aermingers]

Oh fuck yeah. Banging on about how much they care about the poor next to articles about £15,000 holidays, £5,000 dresses and £20,000 holidays. The fact that they don't see the hypocrisy in that is frustrating. It's everything that's wrong with the left wing. Middle class, wealthy people taking a paternalistic patronising approach to the poor.

They are as bad as the mail. As a case in point, there was an article in the Guardian this week. It was written by a C of E canon.

He was complaining that the Tories discriminated against Muslims but pander to Hindus. His evidence was a letter written by a woman from the Hindu Forum, she had no religious authority but was drawing attention to the fact the Tories have offered to repeal a law which forbids discrimination on the base of caste and called for people to vote Tory for this reason.

He compared this to the case of Lufther Rahman in Tower Hamlets. After being expelled from the Labour Party he stood as an independent as Mayor but was stripped of his office and banned from holding public office because of electoral fraud and corruption.

One of the aspects of the Rahman case was that 100 imams signed a letter telling Muslims it was their religious duty to vote for Rahman, to vote for Labour was Haram and amounted to apostasy (which is punishable by death).

The Canon writing was complaining that it was so unfair on Rahman that she could write the letter and he couldn't and showed Rahman was being discriminated against. He failed to draw the distinction between someone with no religious authority suggesting a party on the basis of one policy and religious leaders threatening people with eternal damnation if they didn't vote the way they wanted. If I, as a lay person, can see the difference then as a Canon of the C of E he certainly would have known. He also glossed over the other aspects of Rahman's campaign such as fraud, threats and intimidation, which there is no suggestion the Hindu lady was involved in.

Also a quick google revealed that the Canon held salaried positions on several Tower Hamlets quangos to which he was appointed by....Lufther Rahman. None of this was disclosed in the article.

Just as a comparison, there are allegations of electoral fraud against UKIP in Thanet. Should the Mail print an article complaining how unfair it was when Muslims are exploiting postal votes in elections that poor old Nige is being investigated. Let's say it gave a glowing endorsement to Farage, and it came out that the writer was in the pay of UKIP. Well the masses ranks of Guardianistas would be frothing at the mouths and decrying a readership being deliberately mislead.

When it's in the Guardian they just sagely nod their heads and bemoan the Tories terrible Islamophobia without questioning the bias. So many readers of the Guardian appear to believe it is unbiased reporting with no agenda and they unquestioningly accept everything it says.