The Times newspaper is left wing

[Thatsenoughcoffee]

The Times has been moving to the left for years. They’re trying to compete with The Guardian as much as The Telegraph. They try to reflect the politics of the middle and governing classes which veer left.

It’s a high quality publication, but as a conservative I read it knowing there will be many left-wing writers whose opinions I disagree with. Hugo Rifkind is one example.

The news stories also veer left - for instance the recent attack on the finances of the Royal Family which was carried out in conjunction with Channel 4. There is also a lot of focus on Gaza and not much support for Israel.

My feed on X by contrast is properly right wing. And also low status.

AIBU to think The Times is left wing?

I agree I don’t find the guardian really ‘left’ in a real political sense, it’s ‘lefty’ in a social way but it’s more classically liberal in a political way. I generally think trying to judge people by the paper they read is a but silly too (although I have to remind myself of this too) because I tend to read the guardian because it does the best reporting on things that interest me, but it’s not like I read everything in there as gospel and agree with everything it says - which goes for any reader of any paper. There is also a spectrum of columnists in most papers, which there should be. Even with trans issues, the observer (so the guardian I practice) publishes Sonia Sodha who is GC and Gaby Hinsliff who I always think is scrupulously fair in everything she writes. So there is even a spectrum on those issues.

I do love Andrew Neil’s 1pm show on Times Radio but that’s just for elections.

The periodical I most like is The Critic. That’s the closest to traditional conservatism and it features many gender critical writers.

There isn’t a newspaper I entirely like, but in terms of articles read I’d guess for me it’s 40% Times, 30% Telegraph, 10% Jerusalem Post, 10% Mail Online, 10% others.

But yes constructing an echo chamber on X also isn’t helpful (and it may end up being demented) so I try to keep at least slightly open to other viewpoints.

@EricTheGardener "I would say the Times is pretty centrist overall but has columnists and opinion pieces from both sides of the spectrum. Which is kind of what you'd want in a paper, no? So you're getting a balanced view?"

Perhaps people don't want a balanced view. The Mail, Express, Sun, Telegraph and Guardian all exist to make money, and they do so by pandering to a specific target market. The Mail was founded as a propaganda vehicle and hasn't really shifted from there - there's always money to be made by telling people what they want to hear, even if most of it is made-up bollocks.

I didn’t judge the poster’s views by which paper she read. I judged her on her belief that The Guardian is as far to the left as the Mail is to the right.

Times reader here.

It's centrist.

Times writers who are on the 'right' tend to be more liberal conservatives who, from today's perspective, may appear to be rather liberal/centrist, even left-leaning.

It's not left wing! All last week it had bloody James Dyson and Jeremy Clarkson whingeing about their farm land tax dodge being closed.

I think that the Tory party has moved to the right and so the Times looks more centrist, but Melanie Phillips for example is not a left wing columnist

^ This

If you live in a far-right bubble of the Mail, Express, Telegraph and GB News, it might seem left-wing, but it is far from it. People live in such echo chambers, they are unable to recognise bias. The Times is a Murdoch paper and as such is inherrently right-wing.

I suspect it is more the case that you, and others, have moved to the right, OP, rather than that The Times has moved to the left. The fact that it isn't a far right publication doesn't mean that it is left wing.

You seem to be equating "right wing" with "populist". The Times is catering to a relatively educated audience, which sets it apart from a lot of the content on Twitter etc, but it still leans to the centre right. Of course, a lot of people in the UK right now are leaning towards the far right these days, so it's all relative.

What does it mean to say that your Twitter feed is "low status"?

Good!

It’s far too right wing and establishment for me.

I read the Times, imo its more "in the middle" than anything else.

@Thatsenoughcoffee
I don't think either of the examples you give-examining the finances of the royal family or reporting on the suffering of the people of Gaza are particularly left wing. Could you come up with some more?
And Hugo Rifkin writes for the Times, The Spectator and is pro Israel in his views. So he is hardly the voice of the left. I would class him as Libertarian Right.

Don't find it leaning left at all. Still find it pretty centre-right personally, though get annoyed with occasional DM type stories (mostly about bloody Harry & Meghan). Have found the strong anti-Labour reporting slightly off-putting, even though I am deeply unimpressed with them myself thus far. But I wonder whether that's just because they weren't equally attacking the Tories... after today's slightly savage article on Kemi Badenoch I suspect that may just be because there wasn't much going on rather than a distinct lurch to the right. Reader comments can be pretty strongly right-wing sometimes, but at least they allow them.

I definitely prioritise balance and accuracy in my media, I strongly dislike overt bias and misleading journalism. Thus, I absolutely despise The Guardian! (and the DM, I consider them equal in hateful, dishonest, tabloid awfulness). I don't really bother with the Comment sections though so my opinion's based almost entirely on the UK, World and Business pages. I think The Times is definitely the most centrist and accurate of the 'standard' papers, I also read the FT and Economist. I used to read Private Eye but I feel that's gone a long way left recently and is no longer balanced, accurate or even funny unfortunately.

Yep.

The DT has veered wildly to the right making the Times and FT look relatively left wing. They are attempting to be the paper of record still and I wouldn't describe them as left wing.Compare the same story in the three different papers and you will see points of difference.

The Times is generally the paper of the establishment. Conservative with a small c, carefully centrist.

If you think that is left wing, you have lost yourself to crazy populist Trumpism.

I find it centrist

This seems highly unusual to me... genuinely curious. What do you read that you feel at home with and what do you read to challenge this?

Oh yeah this was juts a general comment on judging people by the paper they read- not aimed at you!

Right wing left wing aren't particularly useful categories anymore imo. At the very least it's worth distinguishing between the cultural/social and the economic. Some are very right wing (conservative) socially but economically left, favour socialist policies etc. Some are the opposite, very socially liberal - and economically liberal too, free markets etc but are called ring wing, which imo, is highly inaccurate!

@rumblegrumble ive seen this before on MN regarding the guardian and I think it is just mistaken to pitch the guardian as the left wing reflection of the mail. It’s a completely different standard of journalism. The guardian isn’t a tabloid and it’s more like the opposite to the telegraph than the mail. The paper I least enjoy reading is the Telegraph for news BUT it’s very telling that the guardian and the telegraph essentially cover the same culture features including books and opera etc. They are pitched at quite a similar group in terms of income and interests in that respect which the DM
is not. I also think ‘balance’ is a bit of a red herrings the telegraph is not balanced, it has an agenda, which is fine. You can’t despise a paper for having a stance, that’s the point.

For me the best comment on newspapers comes from JK Rowling - when Rita Skeeter tells Hermione ‘the Prophet exists to sell itself’ in Order of the Phoenix 😂 it actually helps me to remind myself of this. Papers don’t exist to be a public good.

My partner and I have radically opposing views so, in our house, you can find anything from the Daily Mail to The Guardian. I do like The Times although I still remember the 5-or-so-year-old article in it which it said that we should probably be comfortable with encouraging smoking as the smokers dying younger saves the general public a lot of money. Which I find an interesting though experiment.
As far as TV, I am more of a Channel 4 person but I recently started having a glance at GB News morning show and it seems quite balanced, as in they usually have both left-leaning and right-leaning panel guests. I haven't progressed to watching the rest of the their programmes, I'm not that way inclined but, again, I am prepared to consider the viewpoint.
There is nothing worse than living in an eco-chamber and outright dismissing anyone's political views without attempting to understand the full picture and the thought process of someone who poses an argument.
Take, for instance the US election. Yes, on the surface, it's abhorrent and some people struggle to believe that anyone would vote for a man of Trump's character. But, while, some voted for him as a personality, I think the truth is that most people voted because they saw a personal economic benefit of doing so. Which is something I can understand.
Would I personally join Reform? No. But I am happy to have a conversation with someone who supports them and try and understand their reasoning. I did read through their manifesto before the election. I though it was poor, not because of the political views of the party but because it lacked the detail and was basically just a list of soundbites. I wasn't convinced they knew what to do if they ended up in power.

For comparison, here is the very left wing Hugo Rifkind addressing his fellow lefties about why Trump got in:

https://archive.ph/S3f03

And here’s an actual conservative explanation:

nypost.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-the-colossus-comeback-king-of-american-politics/