The Guardian: now kind of irrelevant?

[CrotchBurn]

I mean with the online version. There used to be a time (only four or five years ago I'd say) where almost all articles were open for comment, and you could really get stuck into reading users' debates. You'd get some smart and informed posters discussing stuff in detail, it was really interesting.

Now it seems basically one out of every ten articles only ( if that) has comments enabled. There used to be a weekly thread where some posters even had their own little community. What's going on?! For a few years now it's felt like a proper ghost town.

To be honest the hounding of suzanne moore was the final nail in the coffin for me personally. But even putting that aside - you used to have these articles ("the UK is an evil place!", "why men should hate themselves!" Etc etc) but at least "below the line" was a laugh.

Anyone noticed the same?! Where else is good with an interesting collection of posters comments?

The term feminist as if it is derogatory.
I'm a feminist but I'm also a humanist.
I want fair treatment for everyone. But say anything about women's issues and you are a n evil feminist.

Haven’t RTFT. The Guardian is fast becoming a parody of itself. The recent cost-cutting measures have led to a too-high proportion of articles by any old bod, most of whom can’t write. They never allow comments on genuinely interesting or controversial topics.
I still read it (I like John Crace, Marina Hyde, Nick Cohen, Andrew Rawnsley and Rafael Behr) but they won’t get a penny from me while they toe the transgender misogynist line. I HATE Owen Jones, what a sanctimonious pillock.
Never thought it would happen but I prefer (and I’m happy to pay for) the Times these days.

I HATE Owen Jones, what a sanctimonious pillock.

Get in the queue. I've been at the front waving that placard for YEARS. Now suddenly even card carrying, Labour voting Guardian readers can't stand him. Why does nothing make sense any more?

Trouble is with most of their commentators- they get things wrong too often! And the used-to-be-funny ones just aren’t anymore which is a shame ( except Tim dowling who seems to carefully avoid politics)

And quite a few of their columnists were laughing on Twitter about the poor policewoman knocked of her horse in the summer on The Strand. That made me see them differently and I can’t unsee it

I agree. I do not live in UK so it was my way of keeping up.
I used to love the comments.
There seems to be less debate and seem to “toe the party” line. No dissenting views which is what makes good debate.
I used to pay online subscription - not now.

I used to sit opposite a guy at work who spent probably five hours a day in writing in the guardians comment section - I wonder what he does now? Work maybe?! He was a really clever guy and made some insightful comments.....

My Guardian subscription is coming up for renewal soon and I'm torn. The Suzanne Moore thing felt like the last straw HOWEVER if the Guardian disappears then we'll be stuck with a massive right-wing press and no dissenting voice, and that scares me.

OJ trades on his northern accent which I even believe he's hammed up over the past few years. He's been so long in Guardianland he's practically a north londoner now.
Some of the less frequent columnists I cant help but think....I wonder who you knew to get into the Guardian because it's clearly not down to your insight or abilities.

PS I also miss GU Talk. I remember sneakily reading it for hours at work. September 2001 when there was a thread about a plane crash in New York which I didn't click on but kept coming back to the top of the list until I realised that something had happened.

I like John Crace and Tim Dowling, but do not read them as religiously as I used to

The Guardian’s news reporting is top-notch, especially their international coverage. I don’t really read the lifestyle stuff or opinion unless I want a laugh. I can’t fathom why anyone would bother to read reader comments.

@VikingNorthUtsire

@VikingNorthUtsire I really miss GU Talk, too. Many happy hours wasted at work.

I used to be a staunch Guardian reader but now prefer to get my news from LinkedIn, of all places. If I were going to subscribe to a UK newspaper it would The Times.

The Guardian's circulation has dropped to approximately what it was in 1947 and now tops only a Glasgow-based tabloid (can't recall the name now) and CityAM, which is distributed weekdays in and around London.

@VikingNorthUtsire

My Guardian subscription is coming up for renewal soon and I'm torn. The Suzanne Moore thing felt like the last straw HOWEVER if the Guardian disappears then we'll be stuck with a massive right-wing press and no dissenting voice, and that scares me.

I feel like too about the right wing bias in our media.

Newspapers are becoming less and less relevant as sources of information these days anyway though -- the publications and their political biases are already largely irrelevant for people in their 20s, who get much of their news from social media now, and for my DD's generation (she is 10) they won't mean anything.

Of course bias on social media is a whole different ballgame with a different set of challenges etc and probably even harder to solve. It is important to support sources of proper reporting that are not financed by the Tory right and that's the thing that worries me about the demise of the Guardian.

On the other hand they have completely ballsed this up and I don't feel any particular obligation to bail out the Guardian due to years of profligacy. Which is why the stupid begging letter at the bottom of every article winds me up so much.

I don't know what the solution is really, very frustrating. But I can't help feeling that the Guardian isn't the answer to this long term.

I don’t even believe their straight forward reporting any more. They have printed blatant lies about trans issues, about “transphobic” comments by Martina Navratilova/JK Rowling/whoever the latest witch who needs burning is, and puberty blockers. As such, I don’t trust anything else they publish unless I can see a particular journalist’s history. It’s notable that the Observer often publishes much better balanced articles on Sundays, as if there is some internal revolt. If the rest of the week was like the Observer, I’d probably subscribe, but hell will freeze over before I give them money to publish misogynist articles that cater to their woke American readership.

@NotBadConsidering

I don’t even believe their straight forward reporting any more. They have printed blatant lies about trans issues, about “transphobic” comments by Martina Navratilova/JK Rowling/whoever the latest witch who needs burning is, and puberty blockers. As such, I don’t trust anything else they publish unless I can see a particular journalist’s history. It’s notable that the Observer often publishes much better balanced articles on Sundays, as if there is some internal revolt. If the rest of the week was like the Observer, I’d probably subscribe, but hell will freeze over before I give them money to publish misogynist articles that cater to their woke American readership.

The Guardian and The Observer are two separate papers, with two separate editors, which is why they have different editorial stances. There's no 'internal revolt'.

HOWEVER if the Guardian disappears then we'll be stuck with a massive right-wing press and no dissenting voice, and that scares me.

That's kind of how I feel too. I get really bloody annoyed with the Graun and how things are presented in the worst possible light, possibly for political ends, but what else is there? The Times is OK, but it's a very expensive sub, then there's the even more right wing Telegraph, or the advert-laden Independent which gets very click-baity (and crashes my browser if I've got more than a couple of news stories open, so God knows what they're loading pages up with). Which leaves you with the Mail, Express and the tabloids. I know there's the FT but it's bloody dry and devoid of the sort of things I enjoy from the Guardian like the How to Eat/Jay Rayner/Nigel Slater/Ottolenghi stuff.

At least it's free, I suppose. I can't bring myself to pay a sub to them when they benefit from harming people via their reporting style (as a case in point, there were some very dramatic articles about universities going bust, which caused a huge amount of stress, and nothing of the sort happened) and their stance on women.

So we are stuck with a women hating paper that is otherwise our only non right wing shit rag? ... how did it come to this?!

Is the Times less misogynistic? Is the Saturday Times any good - maybe I’ll switch my weekend Guardian... ?

I like the articles from John Crace, Marina Hyde, Tim Dowling.

Rest of it.. meh.. take it or leave it.

The Guardian really is the best UK paper in terms of reporting standards. None of the others comes close, except perhaps the FT but its remit is much narrower. The Times isn’t bad for UK political coverage but a lot of its other news reporting is either dodgy or days (even months) behind other outlets.