To delete my Guardian account

[Finlesswonder]

I'm fed up with them. They were always pretty heavy handed but now it's like they zap anything that doesn't perfectly tow their "party line". This morning I saw the most banal comment get deleted and I have also been modded for no reason IMO.

To top it all off I'm just so sick of seeing a "colonialism is alive and well: here's why" article literally every week.

AIBU to delete my account on the guardian and move to a new paper? Feels sad, I've been reading the G for 20 years. Where do I go?

Well I cannot read anything related to gender/crime/immigration/politics any more

but they still do some great investigative journalism

the poll should be “how many people who have read the guardian online have actually given them any money?”

it’s one thing to complain about some poor journalism but it’s not free

Yes, it's irritating as he'll, it can be annoying. But Windrush. No other 'newspaper' would have touched it. From a government proud of its many disgraceful events that's near the top.

I still like and buy the Observer. The Guardian is nowhere near that quality. The difference is the editorial decisions and the tone.

The Guardian also used to be able to laugh at itself, and had good satirical content. All now gone. I miss the days of Posy Simmonds and the Webers, which was my Guardian reading family to a tee.

I like the restaurant reviews and recipes, and the rolling political news feed. However, the rest is beyond parody at times.

I agree, OP. I'm a centrist sort of person politically but have always read the Guardian online and a more relaxing newspaper at the weekend!

I absolutely hate the Guardian now. As you say, the opinion articles are either ridiculous or just plain ignorant and nasty. I sometimes skip to the last paragraph to see how I, as a white middle-class British person, am actually to blame for most of the world's ills. I usually am!

I think it must be somehow different in the paper edition. My BIL and SIL are avid readers - though I admit they're a bit more left-leaning than me, but not much. I think the online edition is focused on attracting a younger, more radical readership (OK, 'woke', along with 'virtue signalling' are the elephants in the room here, so I guess that's what I mean). You certainly find the crazier articles more in your face than when you look at the actual paper, where I do find the arts/science etc stuff very good.

Some people call it the Daily Mail of the left and while that may be a bit harsh, it is very, very far from unbiased and trustworthy. One example I remember from about 10 years ago is:

A news report flashed up at the top of an attack on a man in a Birmingham mosque. It soon disappeared completely - I couldn't find the follow-up anywhere on the website. I checked the BBC and it turned out that it was an 'inside job' at the mosque, a case of violence between 2 worshippers. I strongly suspect that the Guardian was licking its lips at a juicy case of Islamophobia and then spiked it the minute it didn't fit the narrative.

I don't trust the Guardian much more than I trust the DM now.

It's the CP Snow quote that gets me. Where are the facts so apparently cherished?

The Telegraph is a much better read on that score. I don't have to share the politics of it.

I stopped reading after the mass sexual assaults on women in cologne. The guardian ignored it for days, and when they finally did report it, it was a hideous victim blaming piece.

Owen Jones is now, in my opinion, in full crank territory.

The Obsever is still a good read.

Dh and I were reminiscing at the weekend about how we used to enjoy reading the Guardian on a Saturday while having breakfast. Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole these days. Such a shame.

I hate this faux rallying support of the North and the working classes that it portrays, yet the majority of it's journalists reside in very privileged, upmarket areas (namely London) encouraging dining at silly prices restaurant and purchasing expensive homeware/beauty/fashion.

Additionally, there was an article some years ago about white privilege (I believe in relation to the National Trust) which was extremely offensive. I do believe that there people of colour are at a disadvantage and don't want to be sucked into a race row on this thread, however, if in said article you replace the word 'white' with another ethnicity, the journalist would have been arrested! It had massive hate speech vibes that it felt it could get away with due to wokery.

I think yabu to ask here

If you dont like something you're paying a subscription for then you cancel it thats a normal thing to do . Why start a thread?

YADNBU. I used to love the Guardian but, in the end, I couldn't stand the lies and propaganda over gender issues. The Observer does and did a cracking job on this issue (real journalism, whoda thunk it?) but the Guardian was a nightmare. In the end I couldn't stand my hard earned money funding their misogyny.

Because she's interested in other people's opinions on the Guardian. Why make a comment about it?

”I don't trust the Guardian much more than I trust the DM now.”

Sadly, with all media now, unless you have some background to the topic to judge truthfulness and bias, you need to read multiple sources or the original source of the information to work out what is likely to be the truth. The daily mail gets plenty of complaints, and usually very rightly so, however if you cut through the click bait you can find some factual reporting. And you still get occasional gems from reputable journos.

Perhaps the difference is the emotional connection so many feel for the Guardian.

Join the club! I bought and read the Guardian daily for 20 years and trusted the reporting, until a week after Cologne NYE 2005 when they finally reported the story - blaming the women. I was absolutely horrified.
Since then I have been a floating reader and won't trust any single news source.
I wasn't surprised to hear Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman had been horribly pushed out. I am surprised they still employ Owen Jones who seems to have lost the plot entirely. I hear the paper is mostly 'woke' propaganda now.

Quote your “right to be forgotten” under GDPR - most will agree instantly.

i don’t blame you basically. I used to read it but am as horrified by the bias as much as the DailyMail horrifies me.

They’re no longer a factual broadsheet which is what people want - they don’t want to read biased news. It’s just a mouthpiece rag for the Labour Party. Bet Corbyn buys it every day.

Of course YANBU. I refuse to read The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun etc. Why would you be unreasonable to do so?

I gave up on the Guardian years ago. I don't know how you have powered through the last few years op.

I ditched the Graun in favour of the Times years ago. A genuine range of opinions and excellent investigative journalism.

They're now limiting the number of articles you can read on the app before having to pay. I used to pay but I'm not sure I would now. I thought they said it would remain free, but perhaps it still is if you're not signed in off the app.

Ageee with some of what's been mentioned. Also, some of the articles are specifically (not main news) about Australia, and I don't read those. There's also some long running beauty tips article, rebranded at one point I think, with DIY beauty, but nonsense tips. Using store cupboard items to replicate make up, for example. "Can you make face powder from baking ingredients, including cocoa powder?" It's childish.

And the fact they employ people like India knight and the hideous Melanie Phillips puts me right off.

Maddy70 · Today 08:29
I think yabu to ask here
If you dont like something you're paying a subscription for then you cancel it thats a normal thing to do . Why start a thread?

I think because The Guardian is a once-great British institution. I'm glad OP started this thread because I'm interested to hear what other readers and former readers think - I now realise that it's not just me!

I really hate it now. It is indeed depressing and propagandist - there's a definite 'world view' and seemingly no room for dissent. It used to be a liberal paper (was started in Manchester, a big Liberal, free-trade city) but is now a leftist - sometimes hard-left - rag. Look at Owen Jones! I used to read it in the school library and the standard of journalism was amazing. Bernard Levin, Katherine Whitehorn etc etc. I do like Jonathan Friedman, but not many others.

Two other points: yes, as a pp has said, it's very Metropolitan elitist - they sometimes remember that people live elsewhere than London, but not a lot.
And (sorry I haven't got a link) they are known to treat their staff pretty badly in terms of firing and paying poor wages.

Agree with all the criticism here but they've been crazy in some of the heavy handed deleting they do even when it's not obviously against their agenda. A few years ago, they published an article by someone who made money writing essays for university students to pass off as their own. Basically the line was "perhaps there were some ethical questions lurking here, but hey the job paid decently, it was kind of interesting writing about various different subjects, and the writer got to do some cool things off the back of it and had the flexibility to work from anywhere so -- pros and cons, amiright?' (I paraphrase, but you get the gist.)

I posted a reasonably restrained comment pointing out how corrupt this was, how it served mainly those who were wealthy enough to 'buy' their degrees, how it undermined further the meritocracy of the university system....and it was removed within minutes of posting.

So much for the Guardian's interest about social justice.

Oh well -- if there's one good thing about ChatGpt, it's that it's put the essay-writing industry out of business.

Edited to get rid of the weird strikethroughs that mumsnet adds to my posts

I've gone from it (secretly) being a big part of my life to actually hating it.

Well that's not true at all. I like to poke about on all the channels because usually the truth lies somewhere in between. So if you read a piece in the Guardian & the Express on the same subject you'd get a widely different take.