The Guardian's U-Turn... why?

[SPOFS]

Let's face it, the Gaurdian do not care about women. This is evident from much more than their previous stance on self-id.

So, why have they suddenly at the eleventh hour (as in right before the consultation closes) changed their mind about there being "no debate"?

I wonder if it's anything to do with their circulation figures...

Graham Linehan
‏*@Glinner*
Has Owen Jones resigned from the Guardian yet? He’s spent the last few years calling women bigots for saying the same thing that his editors just said. Presumably he doesn’t want to work for bigots? Or is he just an unserious person who you shouldn’t take seriously on any matter?

It's so when it goes through the TRAs can say "we'll everyone's POV was publicised, and the right side has won".

Completely ignoring that info was suppressed by TRAs bullying the GC with their battle cry of "suck my lady dick" until the 11th hour.

I think that most TRA’s - including those in Govt, BBC and Guardian - have come to realize over recent weeks that the ‘no debate’ strategy has failed.

So they are adopting a new strategy. They will say, “Yes, we recognize that there are differences of opinion; we will listen to women’s concerns; when the GRA is reformed it will retain provisions to safeguard women.”

As the fuss dies down a little the steady erosion of women’s rights will continue ‘under the radar’, backed by deep pockets, intimidation of individuals, strategic litigation.

This is what the “U-turn” amounts to.

howard97A I think so, too. Now they have found that threats and violence won't cow women into silence they are going the route of 'appealing to women's kindness', while eroding women's rights.

waspsnest has it. Totally cynical. It's a fake display of "balance", carefully timed to be too late to have any actual effect, there simply so they can point to it after the event to say "look, our coverage was balanced..."

There are rumours circulating that little OJ has parted company with the Graun...

Lisa Muggeridge's take:

Guardian: Permission to speak has been granted.

seen Little OJ recently? Or has he self-combusted in a cloud of righteous woke champagne socialist ire?

Oh noooooo: Link fail!! Here Lisa is:

It's a fake display of "balance", carefully timed to be too late to have any actual effect, there simply so they can point to it after the event to say "look, our coverage was balanced..."

I wouldn't be so sure. I think you're attributing a degree of sophistication and forward-planning to the Guardian editorial team that they don't necessarily possess. I think it was much more likely a panicked response to the belated realisation that yes, there are issues here (see eg Karen White) and Oh, quite a lot of our readers are women, and they might have views on this, and Oh Christ, perhaps we have come down too strongly on the other side. Maybe taking little OJ's word for it wasn't such a good idea after all. Is it too late in the day for a reverse ferret, and will anyone notice?

The Guardian does of course ask its readers to make regular donations, but that's slightly different.

No, it also asks people to front up monthly.

Print circulation is less than 150k but they have 500k making monthly payments (to include print subscribers). So at least 350k making monthly payments. Plus another 300k making at least one one-off payment.

www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2017/oct/26/guardian-reaches-milestone-of-500000-regular-paying-supporters

That's in October 2017. So I was wondering if theirs had gone down while Times online subs had gone up.

Do we have any circulation figures for The Guardian vs The Times?

June 2018

I am with Hackmum. I don't think it's a cunning plan. They were going to notice eventually and it's taken the frantic whirl of activity in the lead up to the consultation ending, and the clear evidence resulting from that that it's not just a tiny group of dinosaur-bigot-terfs who aren't for self id, to finally get it into their thick skulls that their newspaper is at risk if they carry on as they have been.

Thank you, LiverpoolReSisters. I didn't realise The Guardian had such low figures! I also used to be a reader, but now subscribe to The Times.

What?!? It's actually at the bottom? It has less readers than The Daily Star?!?

How can I get their circulation figures from 2-3 years ago? I want to see how many readers they've lost...

It's about a cunning a plan as Baldrick's recipie for Trench Coffee.

Anyone seen this? Seems someone thought they had the guardian by the short & curlies, assured they'd have a pro-TRA slant in coverage. Wonder what happened to persuade them to change their stance?

Verify

Probably grandiosity,why would the Guardian make any 'undertakings' to R Kaveney

Funny you should mention that - Jane Fae's claim to be talking to both YHA & Girl Guides, when neither will confirm (so either same grandiose claim or they know admitting would show them up to have questionable judgement) has a similar whiff about it.

Does make you wonder how much the influence here is imagined or imposed with menace til the spell breaks...

A government survey puts the number of transgender prisoners in England and Wales at 125, which is likely to be an underestimate.

They still don’t include the fact that @60 of those trans identifying men are sex offenders. They just couldn’t spit that bit out.

The paper Guardian has a small readership but the website is hugely popular. Second most read news site in the UK IIRC.

Probably grandiosity,why would the Guardian make any 'undertakings' to R Kaveney

Precisely. How arrogant to assume that only your personal viewpoint should be allowed in the national press.

And if anyone did make "undertakings" to her in the way Kaveney implies, they have no journalistic integrity whatsoever. Shameful.

I think it may be a commercial decision. I expect the the GC online articles in The Times and The Spectator get a higher number of hits than many articles. This is good for advertising revenue!
I have been wondering if the volume of GC articles in those publications have increased over time because it is good for business. They seem to have become more and more frequent and seeing as we are talking about commercial businesses I think this may well be the case.

I used to donate to the guardian online and never read The Times... I quit subscribing a little while back and am now considering a Times subscription.
Didn't see that coming.

LangCleg: "No, it also asks people to front up monthly."

Well, yes, that's what I meant by "make regular donations".

The point is, to read the Guardian online you don't have to subscribe, whereas to read the Times you do.

The Guardian's misfortunes are its own doing. It has seen print sales plummet in the last 10 years, but then so have all the newspapers (the Times's print sales have held up better than most, but they're still have of what they were 10 years ago). The Guardian's previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, came up, Baldrick-style, with a cunning plan. If he put all the print content online for free, along with additional web-only content, he could attract a huge worldwide audience and, with it, massive online advertising.

The first part of the plan succeeded. The Guardian is the second most-read news site in the world (the first is Mail Online). But the second part failed big time. Instead of flocking to the Guardian, brands chose instead to advertise on Google and Facebook which, between them, now attract about 80% of online advertising.

The Guardian is now stuck. People don't buy the print edition because all the content, and more, is available on the website. It can't really ask for subs because much of its audience is in the US and Australia and the payment mechanisms would be too complicated. So it has resorted to asking people to make monthly donations for small rewards, such as tickets to events where Guardian journalists talk about journalism. They have actually done quite well with this model - from making a huge multimillion pound loss a couple of years ago, they are now close to breaking even. But whether that is a sustainable model is open to question.

I bought a Times subscription yesterday. It's great, really happy with it.

And I have a .ac.uk email address so it's only £2.20 a month

I wrote "have" when I meant "half". "half of what they were 10 years ago." Pressed Post without checking.