To think that the Guardian's standards have really dropped lately

[paintandbrush]

like within the last 5 years or so. Once you look past the unbearably condescending tone and amount of PC bollocks, the quality of the writing is so poor! ie. mix-ups between to/too, stuff you would expect an intelligent 12 year old to be capable of.

I appreciate it's hard for papers to survive these days but seriously, it might help if they employed someone literate. Hate to admit it, but I've really enjoyed the Spectator's free trial thingy lately despite not being that much of a Tory. It's nice reading the scribblings of witty, educated journalists who've actually been paid.

It used to be Guardian vs. Times, now it's just sunk into Guardian vs. Daily Fail. Caitlin Moran had the right idea jumping ship.

Funnily enough I have found myself warming to the Graun in recent months. I used to read the Times until it went behind the paywall. I have no objection to the principle of paying to read content but the price felt a bit steep to me given that I didn't always read it every day - or read the whole paper. So I switched to browsing Mail Online but as a counterbalance used to also browse the Graun - on the basis that hopefully between the two there would be a middle ground!

Over the last year or so there has been a really noticeable deterioration in the Mail Online content - which is saying something. The paper has always been quite judgey as we all know, but the politics sketches were usually entertaining and the money pages were useful. Some of the health articles were interesting too. However it has become so obvious that they have slashed their budgets, as huge swathes of the 'content' are just C&P jobs from places like Reddit - and latterly MN. There are also multiple 'articles' about slebs like the Kardashians which are actually just transcripts from their TV show - there's no writing or 'news' at all.

The MN mining was annoying but tolerable until they lifted the bereavement thread. I'd stopped looking at it so regularly so hadn't realised until a friend was talking about a sad story online. She doesn't know I use MN but I recognised the story because I had posted on that thread. Went and had a look and was pretty horrified at what they'd done. Have now deleted the bookmark from my browser and I won't be going back.

I'd previously found the Graun a bit worthy and pretentious - and Polly Toynbee gives me the rage because I think she is an utter hypocrite. However they at least still do some investigative pieces. The 'long read' is very good and their consumer pages are interesting. Some of the articles are annoying and some are so up themselves that they are beyond parody; a good example was something along the lines of 'How shaving my head led to my first orgasm'. But the reader comments tend to be more balanced that the Mail Online - and I often find that reading the comments gives you more background and a better story than the article itself. Many of the commenters will skewer the Graun for hypocrisy or double standards (e.g. unpaid internships, offshore tax arrangements). I think the moderation is sometimes uneven and heavy handed but I would rather that than some of the utter bile you see at the bottom of DM articles.

I wouldn't describe myself as a Graun reader, but it's one of the few papers left that I think it worth paying for. I get the rest of my news from Private Eye (which is very good and definitely worth paying for).

I think Shins makes a good point though - the Graun hasn't given anything like even-handed coverage to issues like the Cologne attacks. I think it's a shame as it really undermines the paper's opportunity to be a serious and reliable voice, and simply plays up its reputation as a 'bleeding heart lefty liberal tories are scum' organisation.

The Guardian is far from perfect but I honestly think it's the best of the British (well English really, I'm not familiar with many of the Scottish papers so can't judge them) papers. I have had moments of being utterly appalled by them- a few years ago an incredibly privileged woman had a piece complaining that the withdrawal of child benefit from £60k plus earners was terrible as it meant she now had to shop at (oh the horror, the horror) Sainsbury's instead of Waitrose, etc, and when people responded negatively the editorial response was pathetic. But in the main I can't think of a better paper.

Any moron can see the gulf between the Daily Fail and the Guardian.

Well, they don't have the same core values. In that sense, you're right.

But in the sense of providing shrill, hectoring, self-righteous clickbait designed to whip up outrage and validate their respective readerships' worldviews I would say the Guardian and the Daily Mail are more similar than not.

The Guardian is a shadow of its former self, probably because it has shed so many members of staff over the last twenty years. You can really tell which Guardian desks still have an old school reporter because they are the desks that still produce decent copy.

One of the biggest problems the Guardian has is that so many of its "journalists" now never went through the old "reporter apprenticeship" so they don't have those traditional news values. Instead, we just get personal opinion masquerading as "fact".

I believe the Daily Mail is a scourge on Britain (and also that it gets paid to publish certain stories) but I do have to say that whenever I've been involved in a news story in some way, the only paper ever to call up to check information or get quotes has been the DM. None of the others ever bother, even though they will publish a story about it.

They are however NOT a Murdoch title and still do investigative journalism

Only on certain subjects, the mass sex assault in cologne for example got very poor coverage. They have a narrow specific agenda and the mass groping of women was not it.

I have read many stories in the G that omit so much.

I believe the Daily Mail is a scourge on Britain (and also that it gets paid to publish certain stories) but I do have to say that whenever I've been involved in a news story in some way, the only paper ever to call up to check information or get quotes has been the DM. None of the others ever bother, even though they will publish a story about it

^^ Interesting.

Well, they don't have the same core values. In that sense, you're right.

But in the sense of providing shrill, hectoring, self-righteous clickbait designed to whip up outrage and validate their respective readerships' worldviews I would say the Guardian and the Daily Mail are more similar than not.

I totally agree with this. Of course the guardian doesn't have a sidebar of shame; that would be completely at odds with its core values. What it has instead is half a paper of smug handwringing designed to reinforce the worldview of the liberal middle classes.

And it's utterly infuriating how little distinction is made between the different international editions online.

The Guardian is really a member of my family and do I find it hard to accept others' criticisms ( although of course I'm allowed to criticise it myself). I've been a reader for 50 years and would never judge it by the Family section or the increasingly ridiculous Magazine. Yes it's changed - all papers have and many have gone. I remember when the Times was a proper newspaper and I also remember the Daily Herald. I think people criticise the Guardian like they criticise socialism and Christianity - it's impossible to live up to the high standards that are believed in. I agree about journalism changing. But the Guardian is the best of a poor bunch and does have a range of opinions eg Simon Jenkins and Jonathan Freedland as well as baby Owen Jones - why is Polly a hypocrite btw?

Incidentally, it's not actually true that the daily mail does no investigative journalism. It publishes a great deal of nasty, harmful shite, but it does do investigative journalism and has even broken some important stories. I'm not sure it makes up for the rest of the paper though.

I think I'll stick with my Telegraph - neither written by left wing luvvies nor owned by the despicable Murdoch.

Investigative journalism costs a lot of money. The Daily Mail do it because they have a lot of money; albeit for the type of investigation they are interested in.
Sometimes their interests coincide with the concerns of the public and sometimes not. The money comes from clickbait on Mail Online and sales of the newspaper that everyone hates so much. Maybe clickbait is the price to be paid for more worthy journalism.

But in the sense of providing shrill, hectoring, self-righteous clickbait designed to whip up outrage and validate their respective readerships' worldviews I would say the Guardian and the Daily Mail are more similar than not

Brilliant summing up ^

Today the Mail are campaigning for us to take in the 3,000 immigrant DC.

I share your general frustrations but as ever it's liberals criticising other liberals for being the wrong kind of liberal.

The Daily Mail peddles hatred, bigotry and misogyny. The Guardian can be laughably up its own arse but it does not encourage hatred in my view.

Many of the cof pieces are utter garbage but look at the Mail online, it is truly a cesspit.

I think I'll stick with my Telegraph - neither written by left wing luvvies nor owned by the despicable Murdoch.

The Telegraph had a bit of a bloodbath of staff a year or so ago, and a US editor was hired. You could sense his presence because, all of a sudden, the Telegraph went through a phase of publishing articles and news pieces on issues that really have no traction in the UK.

Now it seems to be aiming to become an upmarket version of the DM. It's a shame because the Telegraph used to be the go-to paper for hard news coverage back in the day. Yes, it was stuffy, but the facts were always reported without bias and it reported news, rather than packing it pages with lifestyle.

It's a bit of an issue close to my heart, this, because I see the consequences of the decline of the great newspaper reporting tradition every day. No-one is watching and reporting anymore, so people in authority are getting away with murder and institutions are no longer fit for purpose.

manatee sums it up v well. Exactly what I meant, combined with the fact that a lot of Guardian readers on here are caught up in a kind of obsession over the DM and its many evils.
FTR I too am guilty of getting lured in by the Kartrashian nonsense --especially when I should be working)-

The Guardian still has some decent journalists and I look out for their articles, however, that can't arrest what has been an evident decline in quality over the last several years. It's (non) coverage of the Rochdale abuse scandal, the cologne attacks and the rampant corruption in tower hamlets was a disgrace for a supposedly serious broadsheet. The feminist articles seem like bairly disguised misandry at the best of times with opinion pieces that are so poorly researched they can only be considered click bait. The Guardian also seems to have a problem with dealing with the fact that there is a fairly unpleasant, homophobic, sexist, anti Semitic and anti western strand of Islam that is slowly gaining currency in the uk and instead of criticising or condemning it they opt instead to publish another opinion piece demanding more understanding or smearing others who have been critical as islamaphobes. Thrown in to the mix the hypocrisy over its offshore tax affairs, it's history of unpaid internships, the vast majority of its editorial staff being white public school Oxbridge graduates and the general patronising London centric 'we know best' do as we say not as we do attitude it is no wonder they are losing money and readers hand over fist.

Gosh I thought Murdoch had the dear old Torygraph in his clutches as well.
To whoever mentioned the Sun, if you've ever compared the content, the Sun is basically the poor man's Times. and western civilization is going to hell in a handcart

VoyageOfDad - I think the Guardian hate comes at least in part from a sense of betrayal. MN has historically been quite 'Guardian' in its collective outlook (at least in my observation) and to see it getting so shrill, self-righteous, hypocritical and covertly misogynist is really depressing.

I've read the guardian for over 20 years, and am their typical demographic of white middle class leftie London reader, but over the last year or two have come to increasingly despise it. Any investigative journalism is narrow, and when done, is indulged to an incredible and disproportionate degree (eg wiki leaks - pages and pages and pages for weeks). Not much other news can't be found in 2mins from cursory look at even bbc news home page. Much of the opinion/comment is again narrow (islamaphobia common theme), it's also disgusting how so much anti-Semetism is ignored. The G2 and weekend mag are laughable, written by 24yos for 24yos. Most of the good columnists left/were culled. Detest Hadley freeman and the ilk, no more than puerile sixth-form common room conversations.
Sport is just about the only truly decent remaining core element - as a pp said, prob because on the whole it would be written by journalists who actually know their stuff.

Don't know what to read any more. If the Times wasn't Murdoch I'd prob go for that.

bialystock - I've mostly given up on the daily papers. I try and read across the Graun and Telegraph on important issues, to get a vague balance, and Spectator and Private Eye among the weeklies.

The internet really seems to be killing journalism though

Rochdale abuse was a shark jumping moment for me. They put out more articles about the supposed racism blah blah blah than about the actual abuse. And then there was no real follow up on the months of protests that happened in Rochdale. They just put out a few crappy articles when the Pol Comm finally was forced out.

Oh and they are now running a whole "columnist abuse" story but they only bring in women and POC to write crappy clickbait. Why not let them actually write decent stories. I'd love to see someone like Polly Townbee sacked and replaced with a decent WOC writer.