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.

I don't read the Guardian because of it's selective view of what it will report and how it reports it.
After I do the gym, I always have time to skim through the papers while I wait for my husband. It's always interesting to take a particular story and see how various papers cover it.
Today there was a story in the Daily Mail on how the activist Ntokozo Qwabe (the Rhodes scholar who complained that walking into his college, under the statue of Cecil Rhodes, felt like racial violence) refused to give his waitress a tip, scrawling 'give us back the land' (this was in South Africa). She was reduced to tears, and he posted on his facebook page about how great he felt about that.
The Times covered it - not the Guardian.
I know it's not of earth-shattering importance, but it's emblamatic of the Guardian's attitude of what news is.

So Lucy - which paper is not selective with what it chooses to cover? The idea that it is only the Guardian is frankly ridiculous .

Mmmm yeah, it's not like the Daily Mail has an agenda is it? I mean it's not as though 50% of their articles are about the 'evils' of immigration is it?

That story about the activist who failed to tip and made a waitress cry was in Saturday's Mail Lucydogz. If your gym leaves newspapers lying around for that long I'd have stern words with them about their tidiness.

He does sound like a thoroughly unpleasant person, but little different to many of the people who turn up on MN threads to boast about withholding tips.

I also have my doubts that the waitress was left in tears by the neo-imperialist's decision not to tip. I think waitresses know the score whether it's a political point or just people being tight-fisted.

Oh no agenda at the Mail
They love immigrants, working mothers and anyone over the age of 30 trying to have a baby

Yep, the DM does have an agenda (and it was in today's paper) but my point was that the Guardian (a respectable broadsheet) is just as bad.

The Guardian is as bad as the DF because they both have agendas? Mummmm might depend a tiny little bit on what the actual agenda is don't you think?

The Sun/Times burying the Hillsborough story was so bizarre. I'm assuming few of the 1989 Sun staff remain, so them digging their feet in and sticking such a major news story on page 8 in some kind of act of defiance just made them look like utterly petulant tossers.

I thought the point of the thread was to say that one expected higher standards of the Guardian?

limited Just out of interest, the article in The Times today explained that the waitress was in tears because she is having a difficult time personally (ill parent, etc) and this unpleasantness just hit her harder because of that. He sounds like a twat in my opinion and I would like to see his scholarship withdrawn.

I was appalled at The Guardian's obvious attempts to obfuscate about the Cologne attacks which showed their hierarchy of political correctness. Women (particularly white western women) are very low down on that list

They have somewhat redeemed themselves by their recent coverage of Boots and chain pharmacies defrauding the NHS and grinding down their staff

He sounds like a twat in my opinion and I would like to see his scholarship withdrawn.

He sounds like a twat to me too Kummerspeck but wtf? Luckily Rhodes Scholarship funding is not in your remit and will be dealt with by the university.

Ntokozo Qwabe, the person in the story, is someone in the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. He sounds unpleasant from what the Daily Mail quoted from his comments on his Facebook page about the incident where he failed to give a waitress a tip and gave historic land-grab by whites in South Africa as a justification. But who knows?

The waitress may have been going though a hard time. But I'm sure that like waitresses the world over she is used to people refusing to leave a tip and dressing it up as ideology rather than plain meanness.

The Times is behind a paywall that I will not breach - for monetary rather than ideological reasons. However, I do buy the Daily Mail on Saturdays for their excellent TV guide and political and social views.

Haha there's lots of things we should all be glad are not within my remit limited
I tend to think the point of a scholarship is to encourage people with great potential to study and be able to improve the world, rather than just developing superior knobbishness. Judging someone and treating them badly on account of the colour of their skin or their origins is racism and I hope the university authorities will deal with that in the same way as I hope they would deal with this if the roles were reversed. Probably unlikely though

Exactly lucydogz, my point was just that I do like aspects of the Guardian and wish they would bother to maintain their respectable status by employing someone other than a few twentysomething English Lit students who don't know the difference between effect/affect. I could do better than that tosh fgs.

Gary Younge's piece on Gerry Adams today is gobsmacking. Gerry's crass tweet is ok because the man is practically Gandhi apparently.

Voyage you really do need to learn how the rules about tweets

1. One tweet by someone even mildly left wing or not pro- British government = hatred of humankind/ deserving of eternal damnation/immediate casting out of society
2. One tweet by anyone on the right, racist, sexist, islamaphobic, disabilist, mysoginist =it's a joke/youthful indiscretion/ taken out of context/ disproportionate/ lessons have been learned

Voyage I agree that someone's entire career can't be disregarded after one stupid tweet. However, I have rather different views on Gerry Adams' career than Gary Younge. That's what I was getting at. I have rather more close-up knowledge of Gerry's life, work, friends and modus operandi than your average Guardian journalist but Gary Younge could have done the most basic research before depicting him in that crass laudatory way.

Voyage glad to have been some help

Bourdic you forgot "anti British" which is why Gerry's murderous past is glossed over here. He's a freedom fighter doncha know.

Oh Voyage - now I have to teach you the rules of 'opinios

1. Any opinion in the Guardian is wrong , is the work of the devil and should not be allowed
2. Any opinion written in the DF is right and should not only be allowed but should be treated as a God given fact

HTH

shins - I don't want this thread to turn into one about the rights and wrongs of the Irish Problem but suffice it to say that the 'murderous past' of the Unionists in N.Ireland also has much to answer for. You simply cannot imply IRA = bad, , everyone else = good. The situation was far more complex than that and it deserves more respect when being referred to. There were atrocities and suffering on both sides. Gary Younge's article could be discussed sensibly without such an ill- informed gibe.