The Guardian job cuts

Somewhere along the way they thought that by doing so they would gain access to some sort of public service magic money tree (licence fee for the graun perhaps), forgetting that their funding actually had to come from somewhere.

Alan Rusbridger took a massive gamble. When he first built the Guardian website, he was determined to make it bigger and better than everyone else's, and pretty much succeeded. The gamble was thinking that they didn't need to charge for content because they would attract advertising and sponsorship. You could have job ads on the site, classified ads, consumer ads, plus you could get big companies to sponsor specific sections. At the time it must have seemed like a risk worth taking. What he didn't foresee was that the advertisers simply wouldn't follow, and that 90% of advertising would end up going to Google and Facebook.

To make it worse, the Guardian cannibalised its own print readership, so print sales fell and so advertising in the print edition fell. And of course the website took away readers from other print newspapers, hastening the demise of print in general.

The thing I really don't understand - and this is where I agree with you - is why they continue to pursue this model when it clearly doesn't work and is never going to work. Their website now is enormous, it has tons of content, it has editions in Australia and the US - the whole thing must cost a bloody fortune to produce. Why relentlessly pour money into giving away a product for free? What other sector does that?

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman.

Ironically I've always thought it should be the other way round ie a trans woman is a woman who has transitioned to be a man and vice versa.

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman. Complying with it has, predictably enough, led to "trans women are women! Trans is the adjective and woman is the noun!"

'People?' Like those people who menstruate?

Seems to be good enough for women, after all ...

They created this mythical view of themselves as the voice of righteousness, and saw themselves as a woke newspaper version of the BBC. Somewhere along the way they thought that by doing so they would gain access to some sort of public service magic money tree (licence fee for the graun perhaps), forgetting that their funding actually had to come from somewhere.

I think there was a strong feeling of "we are righteous, we are telling our version of the truth unto power, we are educating the proles and thereby providing a public service, so someone ought to fund us, and because they ought to, it will happen."

Or perhaps they simply thought identifying as being funded would be sufficient.

And our journalism should be grounded in the principle that trans women are women

Why should a newspaper adhere to a principle that basically means 'men who say they are women, are women'? What has it got to do with journalism?

Steve Bell is now going. Predictably, Guido has the headline “Bell Ends”, which I can’t say didn’t make me chuckle.

Here is Jamie Shupe’s article about being the USA’s first legal non-binary person:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/i-am-first-official-genderless-person-united-states

Shupe has since published an article about how it was all bullshit and he has AGP.

Here is the list of Hannah Mouncey’s articles for the Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/profile/hannah-mouncey

Hannah was asked to leave the Australian women’s handball team because the women didn’t feel comfortable sharing showers and changing rooms with Hannah (Hannah’s own words). Make of that what you will.

Then there was this piece from the woke Americans:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardian-editorial-response-transgender-rights-uk

With this priceless line:

And our journalism should be grounded in the principle that trans women are women

No mention of trans men of course. But wanting journalism to be grounded in a falsehood is just startling.

These are the sort of articles they want us to pay for.

Fuck. That.

Lack of reporting on Cologne was also my peak Guardian moment. I subscribe to the Times now. I think there must be quite a few of us as their ongoing prominent coverage of the impact on women and the dangers of transing kids would suggest demand from their readers

Is anyone else pondering whether jkr could start a left-of-centre facts-based newspaper?
I realise print news is an horrific loss maker these days, so probably better uses for her money.

The Guardian have alienated 50% of the adult population with their failure to support women. Funny how we exist when they want our money? Happy to see it go out of business due to its mysogynistic content.

Perhaps they could identify as a decent newspaper??

Wow. I wonder who the hell they think buys VF?
Exactly, mrsnoah2020! White, middle aged, middle class American women is surely their core readership?

This opinion piece about Yaniv's case is a perfect demonstration of the hubris and queer politics of Viner's Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/27/male-genitalia-week-in-patriarchy-women

"If a female beautician has only been trained to wax female genitalia and only wants to offer these services to women then that should be her prerogative. But, hang on a minute, what if the person who wants their intimate areas to be waxed is a woman with male genitalia?"

According to this piece, Yaniv is probably 'a troll' but definitely a 'woman with male genitalia', she/her etc. because the Guardian's commitment to self id and queer theory must be upheld above all else

And then this:

"While the Yaniv case has been going on for a while now, you may not have heard much about it, as it has largely been covered by the rightwing press."

Because nice Guardian readers would never venture to read those nasty unspecified rightwing papers?

I think what we've seen though since then is that when you take the Guardian's route as a paper, you end up being almost less independent, more tied to advertisers etc.

The overwhelming TRA slant since hasn't helped, but Cologne was really the turning point for me. The fact that they ignored the blowback about that and continue to employ the person who wrote it, while allowing what appears to be massive scale bullying of Suzanne Moore, only reinforced my feeling that there's probably no salvaging it, as sad as that is.

Another one saying how upsetting it is to see a once great newspaper flush itself down the toilet. They won't get a penny from me until they start actually showing some kind of journalistic integrity.

Cologne was a tipping point for so many of us, it seems. Some victim blaming shite right there, no thanks. Plus all the drivel from "Owl" and Owen Jones - we don't want to pay to be patronised, thank you.

Since picking up a subscription to The Times I've noticed that their opinion pieces are generally labelled as such, and not treated as if they were factual reporting. How long has it been since The Guardian made that distinction?

It's probably been mentioned but facty-facty and not wokey blokey is my new motto.

They also published a very factual non opinion story about Karen White which is what one of the TRAs might be referring to.

OJ’s Twitter feed is full of people telling him they won’t support the Guardian because of ‘ fake allegations of anti semitism’ as well as the transphobia of course.

It is really hard to get work in journalism and you do have to understand your readers. I know two ex journalists who both had to leave for other careers. One of the used to work for the Daily Mail. He is very left wing but also aware that he had to give readers what they want. As a journalist you also do need to understanding the mood of the country.

My daughter (late 20s) and friends are deeply woke.
But I can’t think of a single one of them that actually buys a paper, either print or subscription online. So the support they have for the Guardian et al is the equivalent of clapping for the NHS, lots of noise, no cash.

*Mumsnet must have ordered a swarm'

Because the only GC women out there have to be members of Mumsnet, right? Notwithstanding the colossal numbers of women responding in scornful voices to the Guardian's appeal for their support. But they've thought out an explanation for that one too. They must be sock puppets, right?

Or could this be because they've successfully closed down almost every online platform where women could gather to discuss issues of relevance to them? (Here's looking at you, Reddit ...)

IME people only adopt these lines of argument when they're absolutely desperate to convince people that the whole world thinks like them. And that shit's the stuff of the very far right.

No Twitter account here, either, so I'm not part of the alleged swarm.

No Twitter a/C either. I'd lose my mind in that cess pit.