The Guardian: I'm boycotting it

[Merchfach]

I've been reading the Guardian since I was 16, so that's 40+ years — and now I'm boycotting it. Every week there seems to be a pro-trans article on the front page of the online version and not a mention of the difficulties WPUK are having holding perfectly legal meetings to discuss changes to legislation. All power to Hadley Freeman and the other feminist staffers trying to raise the issue but it's too little and too late.

I'm looking for an alternative news source and for the first time in my life I'm actually considering the Times or the Telegraph, neither of which have been allowed over my threshold till now. I'm told the FT is good source of well-researched news but I don't think I can afford it.

Any other Mumsnetters in a similar situation? Any recommendations? I don't even want to click on the Guardian on line: it's dead to me and I'm not going to forgive and forget this betrayal.

We have a Times subscription and it seems to give a balanced perspective. I'd support them for Janice Turner's stance alone.

Yes I have stopped reading the online version.

I still have the Observer delivered on Sundays but am going to cancel. Just have to persuade DH, who will def not be keen on replacing it with the Sunday Times.

I’ve stopped buying it too. It’s the glorification of sex work and portrayals of the ‘happy hooker’ career path which turned me off it.

It all seemed to suddenly get very misogynistic.

I’ve been buying it for as long as I can remember (way back when media jobs section was thick and you’d actually find a job there). 30 years I reckon. Stopped about a year ago.

I took out the 3-months-for-£3 online subscription to the Times recently. The coverage of the actual news is good, the iPad app is really good because it feels like an actual newspaper. I don't agree with some of the viewpoints the columnists put across, but that's not an issue for me considering they're one of the few papers that is willing to put across a GC viewpoint when required.

I used to get the guardian as my free newspaper at waitrose. I then moved onto the telegraph because I could read the others online. It was a toss up between that and the mail, and there was never much to read in the guardian anyway. Then they started to let you get the times. So now I get that on a Saturday. The crosswords are good and Janice Turner is good and some of their recent campaigns have been interesting.

So there really is no alternative leftish news source that hasn't turned on feminists?

Who'd have thought it would come to this? Lifelong Labour voter and feminist Guardian reader now with no party to vote for and no paper to call her own.

I stopped reading the Guardian when their family pages at the weekend disappeared up it's own star. I read the Times and am pleasantly surprised at the editorial freedom they give their columnists. They have wildly differing opinions presented in the same paper. I agree that Janice Turner needs to be supported to say what she says and The Times needs to know she is supported and their editorial choices in allowing her a voice are supported.

I currently have subs to both the Telegraph and Times (will probably have to decide one way or the other when the Times' cheap deal runs out). Telegraph is a lot cheaper (and when I first took out the sub came with a year's free sub to the Washington Post as a perk, which was great because I was able to follow the first year of Trump's presidency).

I took out the Torygraph sub as a conscious "do not live in a bubble" decision post Trump, so I do it in the knowledge that there are people who write for them whose opinions I detest (Farage, for e.g.) - but while I may detest those opinions, I need to know they're out there, and need to know what they're saying (actually I apply the same principle to the Graun these days, though I'm sufficiently pissed off with them that if they put it behind a paywall I would not subscribe).

The Telegraph actually has a surprising number of good young women columnists writing interesting stuff. It also has victim-blamey articles which have me tearing my hair out. I'm also learning a lot from their business pages (for me, making the effort to read both Chakraborty from the Guardian and Evans-Pritchard from the Telegraph I think gives a much more balanced view of the economy). Their journalism, especially the foreign journalism, seems very well sourced.

Still getting used to the Times - like a PP I really like the fact that their app feels like a print newspaper. You sometimes have to dig a bit to find stuff, but again this could be because I'm not used to it yet. And they are of course the only mainstream newspaper currently carrying gender-critical stuff.

I'm very pleased with the FT for backing the investigative journalism needed to break the President's Club story.

One thing that really strikes me is how much better the Times and Telegraph are at covering foreign news than the BBC. I don't actually think this is down to wilful neglect by the BBC, I think they've just had their budget for foreign news cut to the bone (to overpay their male newsreaders - there was a great cartoon in the Torygraph of a female newsreader saying "And now my colleague will read from the autocue more expensively..."). So they haven't got enough correspondents on the ground when a story breaks (I particularly noticed this with the failed coup in Turkey - the Telegraph's live reporting was much better).

Up it's own arse rather than star! prudish phone

Both The Times and The Telegraph both still seem like actual newspapers, whereas the Guardian has fallen into a clickbait rabbit hole and doesn't even want to get out. Their international news section is still actual news, mostly, but everything domestic and most US news is a mess.

I'm astounded so many people still read newspapers to be honest.
There are much better, free and less agenda-driven news sources out there.

The Mirror and the Morning Star have quite good a balance of feminist views.

I can't read the Guardian and left it behind long ago.

Another one here that stopped subscribing recently.
Same reasons, but especially the pro 'sex work as a career choice' line that dominates. They never open the comments on those articles either, so no feedback allowed.

I'm so tired of many of the regular opinion writers and the way the other side of the GRA debate has been virtually ignored. Of all the papers, I'd have expected the Guardian to demonstrate critical thinking but it continues to present a one-sided picture of the situation.
I find it unbelievable that it's come to this from the paper I used to read.
A few exceptions, like Hadley Freeman when she's given the chance, but it's not enough to save that paper from the dominant misogynistic tone.
Really can't bear Owen Jones and his ceaseless, one-way, narrow minded rants about subjects he clearly has no experience or understanding of.
I read the Economist & Private Eye & get my daily news from various sources but I feel 'newspaper homeless' as well as 'politically homeless' at the moment.
Think I'll end up getting a subscription to the Times.
Any other suggestions welcome!

Surely you should anyways be getting your news from a variety of sources. And be flexible when it comes to voting preferences rather than just always voting for one party. Keep them on their toes.

Merch

Same here.I now have a weekend subs to the Times ,clinched by Janice Turners brave pieces.
Despite 50 years with the Guardian,it has been surprisingly painless.

deydododatdodontdeydo, what would those alternative sources be, please?

I do want something with some editorial control and accountability. I met someone who worked for Buzzfeed the other year who was leaving because of concerns about lack of editorial standards. The Telegraph and FT and Economist have always had a good reputation for the standard of their reporting and they seem accountable in a way that online sources aren't.

Agree with all those who are lamenting the decline of the Grauniad. It's now a general interest website full of recipes and sex tips and lifestyle stuff with a bit of news attached. Breaks my heart and I'm sure it breaks the hearts of many working there too.

Yes, dumping the Guardian, it's got worse and worse.

I an recommend the New Statesman - weekly

Another one here who's swapped from the Guardian to The Times. Took a little while to get used to but now I love it. Some of the columnists don't reflect my views, but it's interesting reading their perspective and the tone is generally respectful and reasoned.

On the rare occasion I check out the Guardian online it now seems so shrill, like sticking your head into a kitchen when there's a stovetop kettle shrieking away

deydo which ones do you recommend?

Sorry, just seen OP asked that earlier

Yup. Gave up the Guardian ages ago. Full of brocialists who couldn't give a shit about women as long as they can virtue signal in peace.

I thought the New Statesman might be the answer but I found it too cosy. I like my news hard — factual, complicated if the situation is complicated, with insight into historical/ political context. If I'm going to watch any news on TV it's Channel 4. Newsnight has lost any edge as far as I'm concerned.

Have an uncomfortable feeling that I might actually enjoy the Telegraph or Times, if I can deal with the right-wing opinions of certain commentators. Just wish my money wasn't going to the vile Murdoch or the Barclay brothers but if the left can't keep its standards up then what are we to do?

Pick a bit here, a bit there. No loyalty to any particular site.
I don't really trust any news sources, so I read them all with skepticism.
The most mainstream one I will look at is bbc news website.

I’ve also stopped buying the main paper, but I do still buy the Observer, and sometimes the Saturday Guardian. I’m going to drop the Saturday one and possibly the Observer too. I subscribe to the Times now, they are the only paper with any balance on women’s issues.