The Guardian's U-Turn... why?

‚I feel that undertakings made to me were broken‘ in relation to a couple of articles on trans issues in the guardian published in the last week.
Bummer. Definitely sounds like he considered the whole paper committed by promise to his mystical gender essence point of view.

The tweet is posted earlier in this thread.

Ah, thank you, i‘ll go look at Twitter, see if I can find it. That would be pretty remarkable. Singular journos ok, but the whole paper... hm.

Someone posted a tweet here (not sure which thread) where Roz was having a tantrum about apparently having been promised something by The Guardian and being very put out that things were not playing out as planned (ie. they published one article that wasn't 100% pro TRA).

Angry why, what did Roz say about the guardian and promises?

And I have a .ac.uk email address so it's only £2.20 a month

Ooohh! I didn't know this. thanks for the heads up!

I've been bitterly disappointed by the Guardians lack of balanced reporting on this issue. It has felt like a trusted institution has let me down, ditto the BBC. My DH is still paying a subscription but I've asked him to cancel it, he's equally horrified I've signed up to the Times!
This last hour crumb feels very phyrric. It feels too little too late when they could have done so much more to allow sensible measured reporting of all the issues. Many feminists will have walked away from them and now they'll probably haemorrhage their TRA supporters too.

Two possibilities.

1. They're afraid that being so openly biased is losing them money

1. They're afraid that they're going to end up on the losing side, and are thus attempting to cover their arses. If so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more jaw droppingly "shut up, ladybigots" articles either vanish or are quietly edited to try to make them seem less aggressively indifferent to women's concerns.

Chances that they've realized that they really were being absurdly biased? Eh, I don't credit them with either that much self awareness or that kind of ability to acknowledge fault.

Interesting that Roz Kaveny is throwing toys out of the pram and ranting about broken promises though. What were those promises, exactly? What did The Guardian promise, and who exactly made those promises? If we can figure out who that person/those people were then that would be very interesting indeed.

(Of course it could just be LOJ, and Roz could have been vastly overestimating Owen's power and influence.)

It's because I cancelled my subscription, surely?

They're cunts.

But what do you really think Gncq? 😂

For what it's worth, I agree with you. They beat the trans-ally drum until the day before consultation closed, then threw some 'balance' in. Fuck 'em, I'll never give them my money.

I wrote "have" when I meant "half". "half of what they were 10 years ago." Pressed Post without checking.

I bought a Times subscription yesterday. It's great, really happy with it.

And I have a .ac.uk email address so it's only £2.20 a month

LangCleg: "No, it also asks people to front up monthly."

Well, yes, that's what I meant by "make regular donations".

The point is, to read the Guardian online you don't have to subscribe, whereas to read the Times you do.

The Guardian's misfortunes are its own doing. It has seen print sales plummet in the last 10 years, but then so have all the newspapers (the Times's print sales have held up better than most, but they're still have of what they were 10 years ago). The Guardian's previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, came up, Baldrick-style, with a cunning plan. If he put all the print content online for free, along with additional web-only content, he could attract a huge worldwide audience and, with it, massive online advertising.

The first part of the plan succeeded. The Guardian is the second most-read news site in the world (the first is Mail Online). But the second part failed big time. Instead of flocking to the Guardian, brands chose instead to advertise on Google and Facebook which, between them, now attract about 80% of online advertising.

The Guardian is now stuck. People don't buy the print edition because all the content, and more, is available on the website. It can't really ask for subs because much of its audience is in the US and Australia and the payment mechanisms would be too complicated. So it has resorted to asking people to make monthly donations for small rewards, such as tickets to events where Guardian journalists talk about journalism. They have actually done quite well with this model - from making a huge multimillion pound loss a couple of years ago, they are now close to breaking even. But whether that is a sustainable model is open to question.

I used to donate to the guardian online and never read The Times... I quit subscribing a little while back and am now considering a Times subscription.
Didn't see that coming.

I think it may be a commercial decision. I expect the the GC online articles in The Times and The Spectator get a higher number of hits than many articles. This is good for advertising revenue!
I have been wondering if the volume of GC articles in those publications have increased over time because it is good for business. They seem to have become more and more frequent and seeing as we are talking about commercial businesses I think this may well be the case.

Probably grandiosity,why would the Guardian make any 'undertakings' to R Kaveney

Precisely. How arrogant to assume that only your personal viewpoint should be allowed in the national press.

And if anyone did make "undertakings" to her in the way Kaveney implies, they have no journalistic integrity whatsoever. Shameful.

The paper Guardian has a small readership but the website is hugely popular. Second most read news site in the UK IIRC.

A government survey puts the number of transgender prisoners in England and Wales at 125, which is likely to be an underestimate.

They still don’t include the fact that @60 of those trans identifying men are sex offenders. They just couldn’t spit that bit out.

Funny you should mention that - Jane Fae's claim to be talking to both YHA & Girl Guides, when neither will confirm (so either same grandiose claim or they know admitting would show them up to have questionable judgement) has a similar whiff about it.

Does make you wonder how much the influence here is imagined or imposed with menace til the spell breaks...

Verify

Probably grandiosity,why would the Guardian make any 'undertakings' to R Kaveney

Anyone seen this? Seems someone thought they had the guardian by the short & curlies, assured they'd have a pro-TRA slant in coverage. Wonder what happened to persuade them to change their stance?

It's about a cunning a plan as Baldrick's recipie for Trench Coffee.

Thank you, LiverpoolReSisters. I didn't realise The Guardian had such low figures! I also used to be a reader, but now subscribe to The Times.

I am with Hackmum. I don't think it's a cunning plan. They were going to notice eventually and it's taken the frantic whirl of activity in the lead up to the consultation ending, and the clear evidence resulting from that that it's not just a tiny group of dinosaur-bigot-terfs who aren't for self id, to finally get it into their thick skulls that their newspaper is at risk if they carry on as they have been.