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.

Does anyone know any good deals/offers for a Spectator subscription?

I stopped reading it when they started to evangelise about "sex work"

@AfricanPlume only the usual, 12 weeks for £12, & thereafter it's £34.50 for 3 months.

It's the same whether you get print, digital or both which seems a bit silly. We have a stack of mags at least a foot tall now & never read them (I must switch to digital only to save some trees)

www.spectator.co.uk/subscription/?link=subscribeppcprom=A241C

Yes, Guardian boycott here, too, for all the reasons given.

And looking to pay subs (actual money) to other news sources - but only those that support women.

The Guardian began morphing into a vacuous, smug, decadently complacent comment-fest a long while ago, relying on self righteously writing about right wing folk devils. I blame political tribalism. Even when Labour were In government the Guardian would never challenge the party line on women’s issues.

It like losing an old friend, it was our family newspaper for decades. But the Guardian really has changed, CIF comment section is a cesspit and literally anyone and their dog can be commissioned to write a CIF article. I think that crowdsourced vibe is what brought the newspaper itself into trouble as it got less newsy and more commenty and CIF-like in content.
But you can’t have a comment-led site without rules and judicious moderation. the Guardian mods let awful things stand below the line and yet they censor the views of feminists. And anyone who points out biology.

I used to like the Guardian’s long read as the exception that proved the rule but then even that went a bit shit eg like this article about Everyone We Know’s Dilemma www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/20/bugaboo-luxury-pram-baby-buggy-stroller-parenting ]] about whether or not to buy a buggy that costs £1000? I mean, really. In the Guardian.

The fact it has under reported or refused to report mass sexual abuse of women in British towns, and of women in Europe at public events and festivals, absolutely disgusts me. The uncritical reporting and censoring around the TRA stuff is the logical conclusion.

I’ll read the Times, FT, or the Daily Mirror. Cant stomach the Mail. I do rely on the BBC broadcast news a lot though, though I notice their news website is getting increasingly chatty and think piecey.
Young people (just the ones I know) are getting their news through completely different places like Buzzfeed medium and the Verge and Vice and we should be looking at those too for a mix of coverage.

I find it quite juvenile - obvious arguments, one track politics, glaring bias, columnists (Eeeek), missing big points in stories (for a reason). It's like listening to a gobby teenager or 'social media warrior activist'.

Yes dear. Why don't you have a nice glass of milk and a lie down?

I wonder if the Guardian is getting some funding from the trans lobby or the sex trade industry.

They say they receive sponsorship for covering certain issues which they don't always declare on the copy. Plus they are making a few million from online donations/begging which has no public accountability or transparency at all as far as I can see.

That shouldn't be allowed, imo. If a news organization is going to take sponsorship in return for covering issues what they're essentially doing is producing advertorials, and those should be clearly labelled as such.

Worth checking their site for details can't 100% remember the deal but it did sound a bit vague.

Maybe they have to record size of donations and declare any source of a certain size?

I've stopped reading it many months ago, Jones completely ruined it for me, the articles from others that followed that I've seen mentioned on Mumsnet have made me even surer. It's very sad for a liberal paper to support such a misogynistic and authoritarian movement.

It's the lack of critical thinking or ANY alternative viewpoint that bothers me about the Guardian.

Taking a certain editorial view I disagree with is one thing. But when it ran a 'debate' about AWS with not one of the four contributors even considering whether a woman and trans identifying male might actually not be exactly the same thing, I gave up.

The Spectator has plenty I disagree with, some vigorously. But I like the fact it has a range of views, and it will deliberately post contradictory arguments.

Stopped reading the guardian a few months back, after many years . I can honestly say, i dont miss it in my life.
I like free news sources but i am seriously thinking of paying for timesonline, the guardian itself has caused me to #peakguardian.

Yeah I'm fine with articles I disagree with, and sometimes reading something you think you will disagree with can change your mind, or tell you something you didn't know yet. Meanwhile the Guardian is heading firmly in a stick fingers in ears and scream "I can't hear you you bigots!" direction.

The Telegraph is far more pro women than the Guardian. It's especially pro women's sport. Too easy to dismiss it as right wing.

Subbed to the Times and Spectator purely because they support women on this. Agree with OP: I don't like to give the Guardian a single click nowadays.

I was starting to tire of the Guardian's inability to call-out the misogyny and homophobia of radical Islam as far back as Charlie Hebdo, but the Cologne incidents were the nail in the coffin for me. They now seem to have disappeared down a red pill rabbit hole into a chiral dimension with their 'night is day' trans agenda. The blatant hypocrisy of this with their position on Rachel Dolezal was also too much to ignore.

Growing up white and working class, their champagne socialist tendencies always irked me somewhat, but I was prepared to accept them as you can't have everything and I agreed with their stances on many issues.

Sadly, they are now stuck in an identity politics quagmire and seem unwilling to accept that the line they take on all manner of issues is not in agreement with much of it's readership, certainly if BTL comments are to be believed (when they are allowed, which seems rarer and rarer).

I will never part with money to read it again.

As a life long unionised, Labour voting Guardian reader if you had told me 3 or 4 years ago that I would be reading The Times via a short stint with The Telegraph I wouldn't have believed you.
. It was when it changed into a left-wing version of the Daily Mail that I thought enough was enough.
I started to notice with the Times and the Torygraph I take twice as long to read the paper as the quality of the writing was so much better meaning I don't bale half way through the article from boredom.
I freely admit now looking back that with regards to my media sources I was in a bubble only reading my own opinions in other people's writing.
I have enjoyed having my views challenged.

I have a theory on this that people who aren't actually sure of their views, possibly because they've adopted them on the basis that they're the "correct" ones to have, can't cope with having them challenged because any challenge or alternate viewpoint might lead to them changing those views (because they're not based on anything other than the approval or disapproval of others), and that's why they prefer to exist in the media bubble.

I was a life-long Guardian reader, too. Cologne was the last straw for me. The way women were blatantly thrown under the bus to protect the Guardian’s officially sanctified, above criticism, patriarchal misogynistic pet minority.

They also ran countless articles of minimising and whataboutery on Rotherham, Rochdale etc etc.

So many women stopped reading it because of Cologne. Yet when you talk to left wing men about this, they're often completely nonplussed as it didn't register with them.

They say they receive sponsorship for covering certain issues which they don't always declare on the copy. Plus they are making a few million from online donations/begging which has no public accountability or transparency at all as far as I can see.

That particularly pisses me off because it's the most expensive of all the newspapers in the U.K for the print copy.

I'm one of many on here that subscribes to the Times. Not only do I get access to the daily editions but also to archived content going back 200 years. I don't agree with all the views but overall it's terrific value.

The telegraph can be a bit Tory but their lifestyle (women section) is actually measured, varied and many of the writers are labour supporters

Good point Lemony - I was surprised to find when I took out a sub that the Telegraph has Joan Smith writing for them on a semi-regular basis! And yes to whoever pointed out upthread that they cover women's sport seriously. They have the wonderful Maggie Alphonsi writing a lot of their rugby coverage.

Indeed @HairyBallTheorem Bryony Gordon writes for them too ... she’s sometimes a bit on the nose but she is fantastic about writing on mental health and it’s importance.
The Telegraph is also pushing quite a few stories about motherhood and loneliness recently which is good.

Their female columnists rarely mince words.