Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Guardian: I'm boycotting it

113 replies

Merchfach · 17/04/2018 10:24

I've been reading the Guardian since I was 16, so that's 40+ years — and now I'm boycotting it. Every week there seems to be a pro-trans article on the front page of the online version and not a mention of the difficulties WPUK are having holding perfectly legal meetings to discuss changes to legislation. All power to Hadley Freeman and the other feminist staffers trying to raise the issue but it's too little and too late.

I'm looking for an alternative news source and for the first time in my life I'm actually considering the Times or the Telegraph, neither of which have been allowed over my threshold till now. I'm told the FT is good source of well-researched news but I don't think I can afford it.

Any other Mumsnetters in a similar situation? Any recommendations? I don't even want to click on the Guardian on line: it's dead to me and I'm not going to forgive and forget this betrayal.

OP posts:
MrsWinkly · 17/04/2018 10:57

Another one here that stopped subscribing recently.
Same reasons, but especially the pro 'sex work as a career choice' line that dominates. They never open the comments on those articles either, so no feedback allowed.

I'm so tired of many of the regular opinion writers and the way the other side of the GRA debate has been virtually ignored. Of all the papers, I'd have expected the Guardian to demonstrate critical thinking but it continues to present a one-sided picture of the situation.
I find it unbelievable that it's come to this from the paper I used to read.
A few exceptions, like Hadley Freeman when she's given the chance, but it's not enough to save that paper from the dominant misogynistic tone.
Really can't bear Owen Jones and his ceaseless, one-way, narrow minded rants about subjects he clearly has no experience or understanding of.
I read the Economist & Private Eye & get my daily news from various sources but I feel 'newspaper homeless' as well as 'politically homeless' at the moment.
Think I'll end up getting a subscription to the Times.
Any other suggestions welcome!

0phelia · 17/04/2018 10:57

The Mirror and the Morning Star have quite good a balance of feminist views.

I can't read the Guardian and left it behind long ago.

deydododatdodontdeydo · 17/04/2018 10:57

I'm astounded so many people still read newspapers to be honest.
There are much better, free and less agenda-driven news sources out there.

AngryAttackKittens · 17/04/2018 10:54

Both The Times and The Telegraph both still seem like actual newspapers, whereas the Guardian has fallen into a clickbait rabbit hole and doesn't even want to get out. Their international news section is still actual news, mostly, but everything domestic and most US news is a mess.

Riversleep · 17/04/2018 10:49

Up it's own arse rather than star! prudish phone

HairyBallTheorem · 17/04/2018 10:48

I currently have subs to both the Telegraph and Times (will probably have to decide one way or the other when the Times' cheap deal runs out). Telegraph is a lot cheaper (and when I first took out the sub came with a year's free sub to the Washington Post as a perk, which was great because I was able to follow the first year of Trump's presidency).

I took out the Torygraph sub as a conscious "do not live in a bubble" decision post Trump, so I do it in the knowledge that there are people who write for them whose opinions I detest (Farage, for e.g.) - but while I may detest those opinions, I need to know they're out there, and need to know what they're saying (actually I apply the same principle to the Graun these days, though I'm sufficiently pissed off with them that if they put it behind a paywall I would not subscribe).

The Telegraph actually has a surprising number of good young women columnists writing interesting stuff. It also has victim-blamey articles which have me tearing my hair out. I'm also learning a lot from their business pages (for me, making the effort to read both Chakraborty from the Guardian and Evans-Pritchard from the Telegraph I think gives a much more balanced view of the economy). Their journalism, especially the foreign journalism, seems very well sourced.

Still getting used to the Times - like a PP I really like the fact that their app feels like a print newspaper. You sometimes have to dig a bit to find stuff, but again this could be because I'm not used to it yet. And they are of course the only mainstream newspaper currently carrying gender-critical stuff.

I'm very pleased with the FT for backing the investigative journalism needed to break the President's Club story.

One thing that really strikes me is how much better the Times and Telegraph are at covering foreign news than the BBC. I don't actually think this is down to wilful neglect by the BBC, I think they've just had their budget for foreign news cut to the bone (to overpay their male newsreaders - there was a great cartoon in the Torygraph of a female newsreader saying "And now my colleague will read from the autocue more expensively..."). So they haven't got enough correspondents on the ground when a story breaks (I particularly noticed this with the failed coup in Turkey - the Telegraph's live reporting was much better).

Riversleep · 17/04/2018 10:48

I stopped reading the Guardian when their family pages at the weekend disappeared up it's own star. I read the Times and am pleasantly surprised at the editorial freedom they give their columnists. They have wildly differing opinions presented in the same paper. I agree that Janice Turner needs to be supported to say what she says and The Times needs to know she is supported and their editorial choices in allowing her a voice are supported.

Merchfach · 17/04/2018 10:45

So there really is no alternative leftish news source that hasn't turned on feminists?

Who'd have thought it would come to this? Lifelong Labour voter and feminist Guardian reader now with no party to vote for and no paper to call her own.

OP posts:
Melamin · 17/04/2018 10:36

I used to get the guardian as my free newspaper at waitrose. I then moved onto the telegraph because I could read the others online. It was a toss up between that and the mail, and there was never much to read in the guardian anyway. Then they started to let you get the times. So now I get that on a Saturday. The crosswords are good and Janice Turner is good and some of their recent campaigns have been interesting.

BrashCandicoot · 17/04/2018 10:35

I took out the 3-months-for-£3 online subscription to the Times recently. The coverage of the actual news is good, the iPad app is really good because it feels like an actual newspaper. I don't agree with some of the viewpoints the columnists put across, but that's not an issue for me considering they're one of the few papers that is willing to put across a GC viewpoint when required.

Ohforfoxsakereturns · 17/04/2018 10:33

I’ve stopped buying it too. It’s the glorification of sex work and portrayals of the ‘happy hooker’ career path which turned me off it.

It all seemed to suddenly get very misogynistic.

I’ve been buying it for as long as I can remember (way back when media jobs section was thick and you’d actually find a job there). 30 years I reckon. Stopped about a year ago.

AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth · 17/04/2018 10:30

Yes I have stopped reading the online version.

I still have the Observer delivered on Sundays but am going to cancel. Just have to persuade DH, who will def not be keen on replacing it with the Sunday Times.

MargeH · 17/04/2018 10:29

We have a Times subscription and it seems to give a balanced perspective. I'd support them for Janice Turner's stance alone.