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.

Bourdic - I think she is a hypocrite because she expects people to live by the kind of standards that she won't apply to herself. She privately educated two of her children and has a holiday home abroad. It rather dilutes the effectiveness of your message if you are lecturing people about climate change and second home owners for pricing out locals, or that private education is divisive and harmful to society when that's exactly what you've done to feather your own nest.

I don't necessarily disagree with everything she has to say, but I find her do as I say and not as I do attitude is a complete turn-off. I dislike Diane Abbott for the same reason.

Voyage - I interpreted that as meaning that the Graun is very inconsistent in applying its own standards to its own dealings. Tax havens and unpaid internships being the two that immediately spring to mind.

I read an interesting article yesterday about Beyonce's new album and how it empowers black feminists - which was written by a white journalist. This is at odds with the Graun's stance on cultural appropriation; how exactly does a white journalist truly appreciate a black feminist woman's position? Likewise the stance on the Cologne attacks - feminism matters, but refugees pip the post and if its women being sexually attacked by refugees, then the women must be secondary as it doesn't fit with the 'agenda'. These are comments which have been called out by the Graun's own readership BTW.

Daily

I read an interesting article yesterday about Beyonce's new album and how it empowers black feminists - which was written by a white journalist. This is at odds with the Graun's stance on cultural appropriation; how exactly does a white journalist truly appreciate a black feminist woman's position?

I have been disturbed for some time about how the Guardian approaches anything that could be seen to align with issues of race or ethnicity. There's almost a kind of neo-colonialist mindset behind their perspectives. There's never any sense that people from minority communities have any kind of individual agency; they are all defined through markers that the Guardian has decided to align to their ethnicity and anyone who falls outside of these markers somehow does not belong to that ethnic identity and a lot of these markers are nothing more than aspects of socio-cultural performance.

So to the Guardian writer, Beyonce's performance of what they naively perceive to have the markers of "black feminism" therefore is black feminism -- regardless of what actual black feminists might think about it (which I suspect most people would actually like to know). The truth of the thing is not important, only what the Guardian writer perceives.

Sometimes, it's as though behind it all is a Victorian entomologist, busy categorising specimens according to his own made-up classifications and pinning them onto a green baize board.

The Guardian is a pile of wank.

Voyage - no it's a consistency thing, I think! The fact that equality is king, but there is a hierarchy so that some things are more equal (very George Orwell). The Cologne attacks being a good example. Women are struggling for a voice and equality, but a refugee comes further up in the hierarchy. They don't want to report on anything that might suggest that anything other than a wide-open border is a bad thing, therefore it's given minimal coverage. Another example is Camila Batmanghelidj - she was absolutely feted by them and the Graun only started to report on the irregularities, when it became absolutely apparent that they couldn't avoid it any longer.

Werk - that's a great analogy. I don't delve too deeply into the technicalities of feminist discourse or cultural appropriation. I find the whole insistence on labelling things to be counterproductive - but I am not an expert, nor have I been on the receiving end of that struggle (I'm white). So I stick at the 'be nice to everyone and don't be evil' side of the debate and leave the intricacies to those better informed than I. However I read that article and felt so uncomfortable that it was written by someone white. By all means comment that you think it's a great album - and even debate what it says about the advancement of feminism and giving a voice to people who have been marginalised. But don't claim it as a victory for black feminists - how would you know? What qualifies you to truly understand exactly what it means in that context? It really jarred me that an article on black feminism was written by a white woman; The Graun can't seriously be suggesting that there isn't a single WOC that they could have commissioned a piece from instead?

They're all suffering from plummeting revenue, and the Guardian's sunk a lot of money into its international digital standing while running down the creative departments to a bare minimum; the staff photographers were the first to go, then the staff writers, then the subs, now the desk editors. It's just a load of 'content editors' running around C&Ping stuff from Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post and Twitter - but then when none of us really want to part with £2 for a print Guardian or whatever a Times/Teleg paywall sub is, what's the solution?

I don't think the Graun is anti-women. I think it is inconsistent - and it's this 'Ooh we'll support X cause until Y cause comes along' approach that draws the criticism. However the fact that it does try to report evenhandedly (even if it doesn't always get it right) means that it will attract comment. Taking the high moral ground means that you present yourself as a target. I admire them for doing it though rather than plumbing the depths like the Mail does.

I want to like the Economist but I just find it too dry. Standpoint is good - and I quite like the FT profiles.

Taking the high moral ground means that you present yourself as a target. I admire them for doing it though rather than plumbing the depths like the Mail does.

I am convinced that Paul Dacre is certain that he is on the moral high ground. Though it is a different set up, I am equally convinced that people at the Guardian think they share it with him. All are unconcerned about being targets. That's what zealots are like.

I am convinced that Paul Dacre is certain that he is on the moral high ground.

I once heard that Dacre doesn't look at the online version of the Daily Mail, which suggests he could possibly be unaware of how bad it actually is.

I adore the Guardian and will never stop reading it.
Fab paper, streets ahead of the others. The only one that represents my views and that has the mix of social/psychology I'm interested in

Mail Online is a separate operation from the Daily Mail. Even as a reader, once told, you should be able to see that if you compare the paper and the online edition. I realise that most MNetters either can't bear to admit to doing that, or just can't tell the difference, so they're just going to have to take my word for it. Simply put, MailOnline is younger, brasher and more aimed at the US where a vast number of their readers are.

Paul Dacre is, I guess, ultimately in charge of both of them. However, MailOnline makes an enormous amount of money. It is also heavily skewed towards the US, a place where Dacre worked and greatly admires.

Even if he doesn't approve of it, I can see why he turns a blind eye to it. Not that that makes him a benign presence in the newspaper office.

I'm a lifelong Guardian reader, but even I can see that their biggest problem is that they simply cannot handle any issue which challenges their blinkered PC liberal leftie worldview. Instead, they try to ignore the issues or at worst retreat into blatant apologism and denial.

This was particularly evident after the Rotherham child abuse scandal, the Cologne attacks and the Trojan horse scandal in Birmingham, which they argued was a "witch hunt triggered by a hoax".

A couple of hours after the Paris terrorist attacks they published an opinion piece which tried to portray the terrorists as victims of racism and discrimination.

Sorry werks, that was in answer to this:

I once heard that Dacre doesn't look at the online version of the Daily Mail, which suggests he could possibly be unaware of how bad it actually is.

I think it may not be to his taste, but in what way is it bad in comparison to the print version? Spellings. I'll give you that?

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

Although oddly the Mail comments confound expectations occasionally. There was a terribly sad piece about a young woman who had been convicted of inducing a late abortion and the comments were overwhelmingly sympathetic to her. There have been other recent articles which surprised me.

I still buy the Guardian but not every day. I find it increasingly irritating.

A couple of hours after the Paris terrorist attacks they published an opinion piece which tried to portray the terrorists as victims of racism and discrimination.

Did that make it into the print version? I don't read the print version but sometimes read it online. But I realise that just like the Daily Mail and Mail Online, they are different entities and what might work for one, doesn't work for another. Many people don't realise that.

CiF and various other Guardian blogs are unpaid, just like at the revered Huffington Post. It's the prestige apparently. Prestige never put food on the table. At least the Daily Mail pays, and often quite well.

I wasn't bothered about it being anti whatever, it's just the general poor literacy that bothers me.
Would read a copy lying around at lunch but not prepared to part with my pennies for the pile of tosh it's become. If I wanted to hear from the Marxist Tendency, I'd be reading the New Statesman.

Once again, hats off to Manatee -betrayal is quite accurate. It's like watching an old friend turn into a complete wanker.
Owen Jones has a lot to answer for (but let's not make this about him, it's all been said on the thread about his book).

I used to read it everyday, but, following their skewed coverage of Cologne, have stopped. I take the Financial Times every Saturday and spend the week reading it, and feel it's the best paper around, with some excellent journalists.
However---my DH still takes it. Whenever I read anything in it, it's , as Ophelia says, 'a pile of wank'.

incedentally, a friend of mine works in Foreign Aid, and had friends who provided evidence of widespread corruption. No paper would touch the story - except the Daily Mail.

I would link to articles from The Times but you have to pay to read them

I agree that the Guardian has become irritating in its approach and coverage. I wouldn't say it's anti women, but in news items where misogyny intersects with culture or race, women are immediately on the second tier in terms of reporting. It's a depressing trend in the paper and sometimes just a little embarrassing in what's not being discussed, or considered. The lifestyle bollocks passing itself off as interesting is just laughable too.

On a completely different subject, though, David Conn's Hillsborough long piece this week, mentioned by previous posters, was wonderful. The paper should be producing much much more writing like this, across the board.