I will stop reading the Guardian now - anyone else like to join me?

[carlajean]

This is a spin off from the previous thread about Cologne. What has made me most angry (and many others, I believe) is the refusal of the Guardian and the BBC to deal with it adequately. I can't change the BBC, but I can, and have, stopped reading the Guardian. Perhaps if enough of is said they would do this it might damage their already poor selling figures, and make them listen to ordinary women.
Would anyone else like to join me in saying this?

[0phelia]

Yes that is the point of OJ book with the word "Chav" in it's title.

[Ubik1]

I found Chavs a bit meh. He kept pointing the finger at examples of news stories in the daily mail and telegraph and I thought well...yes...it's always been like that.

Stating the bleeding obvious.

[otterlylovely]

Also, many people who demonise the working class (or rather the non working class) are die hard Labour voters, or were once, anyway. Some have gravitated to UKIP.

[WeSailTonightForSingapore]

Just jumping in to agree.

Haven't read the latest on Cologne, as I gave up reading the Guardian years ago. Mainly as I found the writing poor and everything was a damn blog or an opinion piece, not proper journalism.

Years ago I also started reading the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and Washington Post (lived in the USA). The New Yorker I think is the only publication that does proper, investigative reporting (despite its name it is very global and carries news and analysis on all major current issues, from politics to science). Their writing is superb, lots of award winners, proper research etc, and reading the Guardian or any other major news outlet, in comparison, feels like a massive disappointment.

[StepAwayFromTheThesaurus]

I also totally agree with OTheHugeManatee's diagnosis of what the problems with the Guardian are.

I'd also add in the incredible level of hypocrisy as an issue. I come away from reading the Guardian seething with anger 90% of the time.

[Ubik1]

I love the New Yorker. Real
Journalists out covering real news and often beautifully written. No preaching. Just offered to the reader.

[WeSailTonightForSingapore]

You put that very well Ubik1!

[CalmYoBadSelf]

I have got myself embroiled on The Guardian FB site in arguments about Cologne. Women's rights should not be sacrificed to protect the rights of others and to say that is not right wing

[TheNewStatesman]

I don't think there is any one ideal daily paper. I read a range, from the Spectator to the Guardian.

Prospect is a very good monthly news magazine. To anyone here who likes centrist or slightly left of center politics and is fed up with regressive left-posturing, I'd really recommend giving it a try.

[OTheHugeManatee]

Standpoint magazine also has a good range of serious writing on topical issues. It's not exclusively for one political stance either - writers range from Douglas Murray via Nick Cohen to Julie Bindel, so I'd say it covers quite a spectrum ideologically.

[claraschu]

New Yorker and NY Times are both good. NY Times has plenty of articles that aren't great, but it also has a lot of excellent articles and I think it is more balanced than the UK paper. Of course individual columnists are opinionated, but, over time, there seems to be more writing on all sides of an issue.

[scarlets]

Thanks to those who answered my question about OJ.

Another poster referred to the working class/non working class. I think that sometimes the Guardian and its readership conflates the working class/underclass. Some folk from the working classes don't appreciate this, understandably. The Conservatives tapped into this quite cleverly during their campaigning, with the "neighbour staying in bed in the mornings" stuff aimed at attracting lower-paid workers, people like that woman who famously laid into them about tax credits on Question Time six months after they got in. I know that it can be argued the Cons campaign was cynical - but they addressed something important that hand-wringers who live in naice metropolitan areas with neighbours who go off to work every morning, just didn't seem to "get".

[OTheHugeManatee]

I think it's worse than that scarlets. The Guardian is actively hostile towards low-paid working people. They love the underclass, who can be patronised and othered and felt sorry for, and plied with 'interventions' from the government and charities, designed to make them act more like well-off North Londoners.

They fucking hate great swathes of English working-class culture and attitudes though (patriotism, England flags, package holidays in Spain, hard work and a dislike of freeloaders, Sky TV, too many lights on your house at Christmas, white vans, The Sun).

NB I'm not suggesting all English working class people have those attitudes, of course I'm not. But the stereotype I just painted is recognisable, right? And The Guardian hates people like that with a virulence that's matched only by its pious grandstanding on behalf of 'the poorest and most vulnerable'.

They think people like that are vulgar, ignorant, narrow-minded primitives, brainwashed into selfish consumerism by the Murdoch press. People like that, according to The Guardian, need to be 'educated' out of their ugly, selfish dislike of mass immigration (perfectly rational if you're a self-employed decorator watching immigration flattening your hourly rate) and mean-spirited resentment of peers who chose life 'on the social' (perfectly rational again if you do your own tax return and don't earn much to begin with). People like that are 'other'.

It's class hatred, pure and simple, but very cunningly disguised as its exact opposite.

[PippaFawcett]

Can someone link to the article that has led to this thread please? I am interested in finding out what their take on it was.

[OTheHugeManatee]

I think it was more a lack of articles, Pippa, combined with a couple of rape-apologist pieces all about how the assaults were Germany's fault for being racist and sexist.

[gingercat12]

Pippa I may be wrong, but this article and the unreasonably tough moderation of comments upset a lot of people //www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/08/cologne-attacks-hard-questions-new-years-eve

Also they counterpointed the most serious allegations on Saturday with this //www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/09/my-syrian-refugee-lodger-helen-pidd

[otterlylovely]

Brilliant post Manatee - and my warmest congratulations

[SonyaAtTheSamovar]

I emailed them about my concerns at their coverage as I get a lovely circular from them once a week as a subscriber.

Waiting to hear back.

[iPost]

When it comes to pushing women down Owen Jones is at the front with a pointy stick

I love that line so much I feel it should be illustrated.

[LongWayRound]

Well, I've been reading and sometimes commenting on the Guardian's appalling comment pieces on Cologne and the aftermath: and for the first time I have had a comment deleted, within half an hour of it going up. I am genuinely at a loss to know how I infringed their community standards, especially considering the comments which are left to stand.

Could it be because part of my comment read "I would really really like to see some good investigative reporting from your journalists"?

Just when I'd been thinking of taking out a subscription to the Guardian Weekly...

[SonyaAtTheSamovar]

Don't I am cancelling mine. It has some interesting stuff from the Washington post and other international stories. Mostly shallow opinion pieces elsewhere.

I am on the lookout for something paper based though!

[BlameItOnTheBogey]

I used to love the guardian. Haven't bought one for a couple of years now. I'm sad about it. There really isn't any serious paper out there now that covers issues in a way that doesn't enrage me.