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?!

Aermingers: do you have evidence that it was a salaried position?

One TV debate I watched saw Jack Monroe repeatedly shout somebody down who mentioned her grammar school education by repeating "Yeah but I failed". Yes, so what, but you still went to a grammar school what's failing got to do with it? Unless she was implying she's more working class cos she failed her grammar education, I don't know.
I don't get the adulation on here for her at all, it's cringy, yes it's nice she's done alright for herself after a few tough years but the facts are she did go to grammar and she had a nice middle class upbringing like a lot of people, they don't feel the need to deny it happened that way though.

I get the Guardian Weekly (my excuse is that it's for my teenager to read.)

It has more international news, with articles from Le Monde and the Washington Post, and less lifestyle dross and postured whining about UK politics.

I can sort of understand the op's point that the Graun is to the left, what the Mail is to the right. I've always read the Guardian I think it's probably very well meaning, even if it doesn't quite hit the mark at times, I love the comments section of the website even it's diehard readers are getting fed up of the worthiness.

More fool anyone who blindly takes any one paper's editorial slant as gospel over any other, really. Some guardian articles can be interesting and thoughtful. Some are shrill and predictable. The Telegraph went through a phase of some good content at the end of last year, but the impending general election and assorted Embarrassing Stuff put an end to most of that, more recently, though I do still enjoy reading some of the articles on education. The Independent's online presence is highly diluted by the i and, to be honest, verges on trashy, sometimes.

I've also noticed that the various papers' online content is not always as varied as one would hope for. There's an increasing trend for one paper leading on something eg an interview and all the other papers simply quoting most of that article and interview. There's a lot of content just taken verbatim from local papers in the same way - when the news broke of UKIP candidate John Leathley's vile online discussion about Yasmin Alibhai Brown, articles in all the national and regional papers were pretty much identical, with variation only in the number of asterisk's used to thinly disguise the language he had used.

asterisks.

Out damned apostrophe.

I can't put the Guardian in quite the same category as the Mail but I have also gone off it.
When I read articles about issues I know a lot about I have found that some of the journalism is shoddy and doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story. (Society and Education). Some of it reads like an undergraduate essay.
Have stopped buying newspapers.

I think a rich person doing a social experiment living on minimum wage is at best naive and daft and at worst a patronising self publicist.

Yes you Polly.

A member of my family was once the subject of a guardian piece, pretty much everything they wrote about her was incorrect. The piece was then shared on various websites ( this one included) as an example of the downfall of society. Comments on the piece correcting the errors were removed and when she contacted the paper they wouldn't aplogise or print a retraction ( the things that were wrong were fact not opinion). I would trust what I read in the mail before the guardian.

Oh yes agree Diane, state schools are the only way to abolish inequality except for my kid who should have a private education Abbott.

She's just a national joke though isn't she really.

She would be better off reporting on long railway journeys like her mate Portillo or in her case perhaps coach tours of state schools not good enough for my child.

I used to read it (almost) every day. Recently stopped after they published the cartoon suggesting that most Scottish people are incestuous. I know some people will say oh it's only humour but I found it incredibly offensive. (And I'm not that easily offended!)

YANBU.
But at least the Mail is honest about its views on the poor/benefit claimants ( send them all to Siberia ) the Guardian just pretends to care.

I agree with the Guardian more often (ie sometimes) than the Mail (never). But agree that it is not what it used to be. Am also increasingly disappointed with the clickbait on the various Independent sites.

I assume the paper versions are better than the website versions, but not in a position to buy them, so have to get my news over a variety of newspaper sites, blogs and the Beeb.

Refreshing Thread op. Yes bored of it. I used to read it, when younger it was touted as the cool and great paper to read by people I respected ( and at uni etc).

Now I see it as the left daily mail I am afraid.

who treat the working class as something to be conserved and protected, a little like how Victorian upper class women would patronise the poor

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 indeed.

I would urge anyone to always read as many papers as they can, never ever rely on one source of news.

I read both the Guardian and the Daily Mail and they are as bad as each other. What entertains me endlessly is the fact that they share so many of the same feature articles. I'll read one in one paper and then a couple of weeks later, the same article, word for word, will pop up in the other one. I wonder how many Guardian readers realise they are sharing the same stories with their moral compass opposites and vice versa.

I am a typical Leftie but cannot stand it anymore. It just makes me so depressed, and is so fecking po-faced, and righteous. And yes, I find the 'I'm the first person to have a baby/ move out of London' thing mentioned up thread as just a bit, well, teenage.

I'm 40, and I feel that it is increasingly pandering to an audience 5,10,or 15 years younger than me (old gimmer that I am). And don't get me started on the Guide on Saturday. I now no longer even understand it.

I do love the Family section though (apart from the bloke who seems to believe that he is the first person in the world to have a baby). Actually I remember that Zoe Williams (who is normally great) did that first.
It's so tedious listening to other people talk about their kids. It's even more tedious reading about someone doing it with a child slightly younger than yours in what I imaged at the time, to be a glamorous meeja world.

I now read the Torygraph as it's useful to know what the enemy are thinking, and at least it doesn't take itself too seriously.

I used to be an avid reader, but the clickbait and CIF has finished it for me, I now read the economist and FT.

The Graun generally has a great track record for getting on its high horse about something, but not applying the same standards to itself

This is what killed it for me over a couple of weeks, full center piece 3 page spread on the destructive housing market and the evil landlords, with a property section dedicated to where you can buy a bargain BTL up north in small market towns.

The whole tax avoidence theme that they ran, without ever mentioning that they themselves and their parent group both have used and still do use those same methods, oh and the open goal of the unpaid internships.

They also really need to disassociate themselves from CIF, it's dragging it down generally across the Internet it seems.

YANBU

The Guardian consider the working class to be little better than feeble minded pets who need urgent protection as they are incapable of seeing to themselves.

Leftism has had its day.

I mentioned its bias to my df, he disagreed and said it was a balanced unbiased paper . I agree about its hypocrisy; who they proclaim to stand for versus the contents of the adverts. I remember they did a big piece one week in the money bit on how terrible the large tax avoiding companies are. Then the following week the money bit was all about how you could tweek your income though various salary sacrifice or other schemes to hang onto child benefit. Absolutely no recognition of the fact that doing so isn't really any different to what the big companies were doing with their scheming.

Eee, not hypocrisy from the lefties? Surely not