to be glad that the Guardian is making enormous losses

[longfingernails]

www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-losses-reported-to-have-escalated-by-a-further-10m-to-68-7m-for-the-last-financial-year/

Great stuff. Their chatterati condescension, Islington moral vacuum and politically correct echo chamber has been a malignant blot upon our society for decades.

Let it wither upon the Viner.

The guardian has some bad faults at the moment, however it does some amazing investigations which must cost a fortune. And the science reporting is great.but was better.
I agree some of their opinion pieces are mad- creating issues where there are none, and they love to reinforce sexist stereotypes. And have forgotten not everyone is a trustafarian.
But I still think it is a great paper and it is better to have lots of different views in print than everything coming from Murdoch.

Longfingernails what paper do you read then?

Do you not think any left leaning paper is going to be the object of derision for you, given that pretty much all journalists are middle class professionals? You seem to feel that m/c or well off people who speak out against injustice are innately hypocritical - that injustice can't be spoken of except by those who are subject to it themselves.

I fear an entirely right wing press.

I would also very much like to know what the OP reads. (But if she doesn't come back I'm going to make my own assumptions)

Billsykes The Daily Mail has "remained relevant" through appealing to the lowest human common denominators - fear, scapegoating, racism, sensationalism. It ties in with many of our baser fears, encouages people to be more bigoted and scared of the world further than their own small borders, and fosters a sense of discontent. It has only very occasionally been a force for good in some of the investigation it has carried out.
Whether the Guardian is elitist or not is no reason to celebrate its misfortunes. Most intelligent newspapers are appealing Tia narrow band of readers surely? However, it is an authoritative and reasonably balanced force for good in today's @every man for himself" culture. Like any institution it is not perfect. A world without it and full of daily mail type biased news sources will not be a good world. God help us all if that's what we choose. All the quality papers are having problems with revenues. The independent is more or less gone- TheTimes is doing ok because of the paywall; this is what the Guardian needs to do- how can it provide so much quality journalism free to readers?

Well articulated Bill.
And it is the Guardian's Seumas Milne that appears to have single handedly broken the Labour Party.

"The Guardian doesn't. It produces material which is relevant to a very small liberal elite."

Yes - they should focus more on Prince Harry, how to make money on property in London, new cures for the diseases that come with old age, and stirring up anxiety against immigration.

This is what other papers have done and it's been very popular with the masses.

Ordinary people aren't interested in the environment, in articles about gardening, or small scale businesses or foreign political activism.

OP - I think you just need a big HUUUUG.

I am glad that the Guardian has always been run at a loss. Reporting the news without fear or favour isn't an inherently profitable activity. To make it profitable you need to fill up the pages with sensationalist click bait and drivel with lots of sadface photos of people desperate for their 5 minutes of fame. If a news outlet is not making a profit then that to me is evidence that they care more about reporting the news than about money. This is a good thing IMO.

Just like the Tories, OP, you don't want anyone to oppose your views. You want to have a country where we are a one party, dictator type run government. No sign of "The Left" (aka the big scary bogeyman in your mind).

That post shows a shocking amount of ignorance. Historically it really is the left wing that has shown the largest tendency so censor, crush opposition, control the media and silence dissenting views.

The Tories are very much in favour of press freedom in comparison to the left.

Wow, what a load of vitriol. How does the Guardian going under benefit you positively?

When people start losing their jobs at papers it doesn't mean their "star reporters" usually go, it will be a load of people in other functions with no plan for cover. So... The weaker/slightly more expensive people go and the cheaper/competent people have to stay and absorb their work. Usually in areas such as sub-editing for example.

So... You get some people without jobs and some people in increasingly stressful positions - and a lower quality paper. I don't think this is something to be celebrated.

YABU

What Squeegle said

Also off to subscribe now as a direct result of this thread, so thanks for the prompt op.

So what do you want to do Squeegle? Ban the Daily Mail and have the Guardian state funded and promoted because you and a small elite have decided it publishes what people 'should' be thinking and reading? Perhaps it should change it's name to 'Pravda' while we're it's at it?

Compare this to the left wing Daily Mirror which has seen one of the lowest drops in the general trend of dropping circulation figures

What time frame are you using? Its circulation has nearly halved in a decade, a much sharper drop than rivals such as the Mail and Sun.

Bill - we have one man, Rupurt Murdoch, who has dominated the press for decades in the UK.

He doesn't even live here. He's a multi-billionaire.

A 'liberal elite' - well at least they fucking live here, and don't always just have the interests of well off people as their primary agenda!

I think right wing people are massively affronted by the thought that there are well off, educated people out there whose political ideologies don't have the well being of their own pension fund as their primary ideological focus. They NEED to believe those people are hypocrites.

OP it truly worries me that there are people like you in the world. I'll proudly drag my (working class) self to a shop every day to buy the Guardian rather than whichever vitriol filled rag you clearly wrap yourself in. Shameful and childish.

The fucking Guardian. GOD. I just...I wish it were better. I wish it wasn't the actual textual embodiment of every stupid cliche about lefties. I wish it wasn't so misogynistic and so unaware. I wish it wasn't so patrician and I wish the scorn for us plebs didn't drip off every page.

But it is all those things. I suppose we have to hope it survives so it can do its actual investigative journalism once every couple of years, as no one else does that any more at all. But god, who reads it any more? Nine people in London and nineteen in New York, I suppose.

Can we spin off the crossword though because that is normally good.

"I wish the scorn for us plebs didn't drip off every page"

I suspect you don't buy it or read it.

Your viewpoint is bizarre, OP. You plainly don't read the thing and have no idea what you are criticising. Which is fine, you don't have to, and that's the point, really. How does its existence harm you, unless of course you're tied up with Murdoch in some way? The world is full of products I don't buy, but it wouldn't occur to me to start a thread celebrating their possible demise, because no-one forces me to have anything to do with them.

Bill I actually have a crush on you. The failure to report the Cologne attacks was the end for me with the Guardian it now caught in a pc nightmare where women's rights vs migrant crisis leaves it unable to fulfilling its remit as an intelligent news source.

Surely this unbelievably goady OP is actually a deliberate and well targeted attempt to get the Guardian more subscribers?!

It's worked on me (and in turn DP who I have just mentioned it to).

Are you OK OP? You sound really pissed

That's just what I thought.

Their chatterati condescension, Islington moral vacuum and politically correct echo chamber has been a malignant blot upon our society for decades
written by someone who clearly hasn't read a copy in years, but hey, why let facts get in the way of an argument?

For all its faults, in a world where Kelvin Mackenzie is complaining to Ofcom about a newsreader in a headscarf, I think we need The Guardian.

I read and loved it for twenty years but have given up with it. It's fucking awful now. Opinion pieces on Syria written by 20 somethings who have never left London, just regurgitating what they've read elsewhere. Lifestyle pieces that are hilarious in their unattainability for anyone outside the Islington bubble. Complete refusal to discuss issues they find troubling (see no reporting on Cologne). I'm fucked off with it.
I read the ft and the economist and stick to channel 4 news now. I miss the old guardian but there we are.

minifingerz, I certainly don't buy it, you are totally right! I used to. I can't help but read it at least sometimes as it gets linked a lot in my circles. I should really write an extension like the one I have for the Mail and save myself the aggro.