To be gutted the Guardian is censoring comments

[Babycham1979]

For a long time now, I've found the comments section to be at least as informative and interesting as many of the comment and news pieces, so I'm gutted to find out that the Guardian is abandoning the pricinple of (relatively) free comment.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/31/readers-editor-on-readers-comments-below-the-line#comments

They claim it's due to trolling, but the real reason appears to be the long-term culmination of amount of criticism the paper and its writers were getting for factual inaccuracies (such as the Poppy Project) very heavily biased reporting/comment (race/sex click-bait) and the complete avoidance of certain subjects (the Cologne sex attacks).

In reality, Comment is Free has remained for more civil and intelligent than the offensive (but entertaining) dregs that appear on the Indy, Telegraph and Mail websites.

I suspect this will backfire on them big-time.

Now I only have MN to come to for stimulating and robust debate!

I noticed, looking at the online version, that a piece by Giles Fraser about secularism, religious hatred and racism in France had its comments closed - after it had attracted nearly 800 comments. That hardly seems to me to be shutting down debate

I reckon that about 90% of the commenters in that thread pointed out that his argument was terrible. This is the Guardian "shutting down debate and censoring dissent"

I liked that article, but that's beside the point

It kind of is though niminy - we have opposite views on the article but both of us think that the views of the commentariat got a fair airing even though they were mostly very critical of Fraser's opinions.

Yes, you're right. I don't think free speech was in any way stifled there.

The point is that the Guardian isn't even making a pretence of being fair and balanced now. I suppose that's a good thing really, as people won't make the naive mistake of thinking that it is. It's not wrong to have concerns about misrepresentation in the media. And the Guardian did completely misrepresent the assaults in Cologne, and minimise and dismiss the experience of the victims. I suspect that's what led to this announcement about not opening comments, as they clearly couldn't handle the deluge of criticism they were getting BTL.

Since when did any newspaper seriously pretend or claim to provide completely "fair" and "balanced" coverage? All the mainsteam UK press has a pretty overt agenda on most subjects, and the Guardian at least represents a number of different political viewpoints (can't think of many papers with journalists as far apart politically as Matthew d'Ancona and Owen Jones). And because it doesn't have a paywall, it invites a much wider spectrum of opinion BTL than, say, the Telegraph.

I suppose the problem for left leaning folks is that the rightward drift of the guardian on some issues has left a segment of the political spectrum without a serious mainstream voice, but I suspect that most of those posting on this thread lean rather more right than left. (Happy to be corrected, if you want to nail your political allegiances to the mast - FWIW, I'm an old fashioned liberal, which puts me in nowhere land either far to the left or somewhat to the right of the guardian's usual editorial position).

The problem you identify is the heart of the matter. That and its obsessive focus on certain strands of identity politics. You really shouldn't make assumptions about the political leanings of the people on this thread, it's patronising and uncalled for. It's certainly wrong in my case.

As I said, I am concerned that they blatantly misrepresented the situation in Cologne to the point of lying by deliberate omission, and a lot of readers shared that concern. People were very frustrated with the coverage. They weren't all frothing bigots.

Their coverage of Corbyn in the Labour leadership race was similarly poor, their agenda was transparent, and may have contributed in small part to him winning, which would be a spectacular own goal.

They are losing touch with many of their core readership. I have pretty much given up on them, so it's not my problem any more, but it's gone downhill in recent years. It used to be a much better paper.

I'm not talking about MN. But I'm sure you know everything.

I don't think a few disgruntled MN'ers really represent their core readership.

I disagree, MN in general has positioned itself, with the help of the general theme of the forum, been proud to be associated with the 'typical guardian readership', the grun has been used in many posts as the difinitive voice of reason.

The only place I've heard it panned is on here

To be honest it's getting pretty much panned everywhere in liberal circles /forums and has ultimately reinforced a lot of the pre conceptions that many of its opposition ridiculed it for.

As much as it is their right to not warrant responses on specific subjects, implementing it under the guise of trolls/brigading etc doesnt correlate with there open historic stance on these topics, the signifanct change in narrative cannot be just be brushed of as right wing propoganda etc, it's far more nuanced than that.

i do agree though that if we are to critise the press the grun comes further down the list.