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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Guardian job cuts

405 replies

MummBraTheEverLeaking · 15/07/2020 15:11

twitter.com/ben_bt/status/1283351434717782016?s=19

A lot comments standing up for women. What was that phrase again, go woke.....?

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16
Collidascope · 17/07/2020 13:25

@ThePurported

And our journalism should be grounded in the principle that trans women are women

Why should a newspaper adhere to a principle that basically means 'men who say they are women, are women'? What has it got to do with journalism?

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman. Complying with it has, predictably enough, led to "trans women are women! Trans is the adjective and woman is the noun!" And so many people who should know better have fallen for this lie that was only ever a kindness. I know we can't use TIM (trans identifying male) but there must be something else. Dysphoric male, transgender male, so on.
MarieIVanArkleStinks · 17/07/2020 13:44

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman. Complying with it has, predictably enough, led to "trans women are women! Trans is the adjective and woman is the noun!"

'People?' Like those people who menstruate?

Seems to be good enough for women, after all ...

DeRigueurMortis · 17/07/2020 13:47

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman.

Ironically I've always thought it should be the other way round ie a trans woman is a woman who has transitioned to be a man and vice versa.

Collidascope · 17/07/2020 13:53

@DeRigueurMortis

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman.

Ironically I've always thought it should be the other way round ie a trans woman is a woman who has transitioned to be a man and vice versa.

My husband (also gender critical) constantly confuses them (or perhaps more truthfully, doesn't confuse them). If he talks about a trans man, he almost always means an actual male.
RoyalCorgi · 17/07/2020 13:54

Somewhere along the way they thought that by doing so they would gain access to some sort of public service magic money tree (licence fee for the graun perhaps), forgetting that their funding actually had to come from somewhere.

Alan Rusbridger took a massive gamble. When he first built the Guardian website, he was determined to make it bigger and better than everyone else's, and pretty much succeeded. The gamble was thinking that they didn't need to charge for content because they would attract advertising and sponsorship. You could have job ads on the site, classified ads, consumer ads, plus you could get big companies to sponsor specific sections. At the time it must have seemed like a risk worth taking. What he didn't foresee was that the advertisers simply wouldn't follow, and that 90% of advertising would end up going to Google and Facebook.

To make it worse, the Guardian cannibalised its own print readership, so print sales fell and so advertising in the print edition fell. And of course the website took away readers from other print newspapers, hastening the demise of print in general.

The thing I really don't understand - and this is where I agree with you - is why they continue to pursue this model when it clearly doesn't work and is never going to work. Their website now is enormous, it has tons of content, it has editions in Australia and the US - the whole thing must cost a bloody fortune to produce. Why relentlessly pour money into giving away a product for free? What other sector does that?

DeRigueurMortis · 17/07/2020 13:55

I spoke with DSD earlier today.

She really doesn't want to see the Guardian go under.

She tells me it provides an essential service to herself and female friends in so far if any potential boyfriend gloats about being a reader then they know to run in the other direction away from what's undoubtedly an insufferable woke bro with a superiority complex.

GrinShe might be young (early 20's) but she's switched on as hell and fully on the GC train.

MrsNoah2020 · 17/07/2020 14:05

The thing I really don't understand - and this is where I agree with you - is why they continue to pursue this model when it clearly doesn't work and is never going to work. Their website now is enormous, it has tons of content, it has editions in Australia and the US - the whole thing must cost a bloody fortune to produce. Why relentlessly pour money into giving away a product for free? What other sector does that?

I agree. Lots of other publications started online without a paywall. But, once it became apparent this business model was doomed, they changed tack. The only paper I know of that makes money without a paywall is the DM, and that has 10 times the Guardian's readership, so it can attract advertisers.

stumbledin · 17/07/2020 14:14

Just going back to some earlier comments about how from the start of CiF the moderation of comments was so anti woman and anti feminist that even liberal feminists would get them selves blocked.

And I just remembered that I use one of the many emails I created to endlessly sign up again (and this was before trans was an issue) I still have for facebook.

So I now have the pleasure of using this banned person to comment on their facebook page. And you would be surprised how many on facebook think like mumsnetters - or at least think that women should be given a voice. And thought that Nasrine (sorry forgot her last name) who wrote a bit like BB (trust the Guardian to never say anything once, but twice to make sure their accolytes get the message) that there is no cancel culture just old people blocking lovely young woke people. Nice to be able to say to them that they are part of the cancel culture and have people agree!

And also going back to the issue of news coverage the BBC is also making cuts. Losing Andrew Neil is no hardship but to see them say actual news broadcasts will just become discussions about content already broadcast is just like the end of anyone thinking the news is about researching and reporting facts found. TV seems to be filled with people who know nothing about anything but are allowed to sound off on every topic. Or in fact there seesm to be a rota of them and they turn up on all channels.

I rely on the BBC World service that actually treats its listeners and ground up adults with an interest in facts, rather than BBC aimed at a home audience who they seem to think are immature teenages who are only interested in personalities and entertainment.

What a position to be in. Having to contemplate subscribing to the Telegraph so as to have a source of news. Shock

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 17/07/2020 14:21

They must have thought they'd find a way for the site to pay for itself eventually, but given how high their costs must be (if 300 staff members signed the letter about Suzanne Moore then how many staff total do they have?) it would have to bring in a lot of money, and no serious paper has figured out a way to do that without a paywall. Entertainment coverage might close the gap a bit, but that's never been their strength. Basically they've been trying to do something that other papers long since accepted wasn't possible, and needed to focus on how they were going to bring in more money a long time ago. Asking for donations just isn't a sustainable business model with the kind of costs they have.

If the Cologne article hadn't happened and the editorial stance hadn't become progressively less reasonable since I'd be really sad to see them go under, and I'm still a bit sad because of what they used to be, but if they're not going to fix either the editorial bias issues or the lack of sustainable business model then there's not much anyone can do to help them really. They seem to primarily want to serve a reader base that's American, super woke, and not really willing to pay for what they're offering because they've become accustomed to the idea that it'll be available for free. That's just not a viable business plan.

DonkeySkin · 17/07/2020 14:40

I really feel it's time to stop using the term trans woman.

Absolutely, yes. It makes clear debating and thinking around this issue impossible.

I don't understand why so many 'GC' feminists are happy to keep unthinkingly repeating this propaganda term. Aside from anything else, it makes no sense to argue that men cannot be women, and at the same time refer to men as '(adjective) women'.

RoyalCorgi · 17/07/2020 14:41

if 300 staff members signed the letter about Suzanne Moore then how many staff total do they have?

I think a lot of the staff who signed were IT staff - with a website that big they need a lot of people in IT. Though you're right, they do have a lot of journalists as well.

Going back to MrsNoah's point, I'm also curious about how Mail Online makes money without a paywall. The Mail's print circulation remains pretty robust, which is interesting.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 17/07/2020 14:46

IT staff would presumably be quite well paid, and if the website isn't generating much money that goes right back to my point about an unsustainable business model. Trying to push out one of their better known names (Moore) is also a poor business decision. They really do seem to think that OJ and his mates can keep the ship afloat all by themselves via the power of retweets.

TeiTetua · 17/07/2020 15:25

Sorry, I've forgotten what "The Cologne article" was, but searching for it did turn up some op-ed pieces about the Cologne (and elsewhere) incident, which told the truth as seen by women who tried to be fair to everyone, but not hide the facts. I'd actually call these articles good liberal journalism.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/08/cologne-attacks-hard-questions-new-years-eve

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/08/ive-never-experienced-anything-like-that-cologne-in-deep-shock-over-attacks

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/09/the-left-must-admit-the-truth-about-the-assaults-on-women-in-cologne

Binterested · 17/07/2020 15:54

Agree about not saying transwoman. I’ve seen somewhere on another thread that we can say MTF trans person. Is that the case I wonder ?

It’s not perfect but it’s clearer than transwoman.

IloveJKRowling · 17/07/2020 15:57

I don't have a Twitter account either. Twitter is famously misogynistic, lots of women have left or not joined on that basis.

What they're seeing is the tip of the iceberg.

Apileofballyhoo · 17/07/2020 16:26

MTF transperson sounds fair.

KayakingOnDown · 17/07/2020 16:49

TV seems to be filled with people who know nothing about anything but are allowed to sound off on every topic

Radio is going the same way. I had to complain to the BBC this week about a piece on local radio which had 4 contributors sound off about a topic none of them knew anything about. I am on a professional body of experts in this area. We have an online presence and are easily contactable, yet we weren't consulted or asked to comment. Instead they chose journalists, politicians and professional 'commentators' to make vague and silly statements on an issue none of them had any authority to speak on.

BBC news, quite a long time ago, started to prioritise discussion over actual reporting, and interviewing each other rather than bothering to source actual experts.

RoyalCorgi · 17/07/2020 16:54

TeiTetua The first of those links you give - the article by Gaby Hinsliffe - is the one that people are unhappy with.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/08/cologne-attacks-hard-questions-new-years-eve

People felt that Hinsliff was trying to minimise the seriousness of the attacks. This paragraph in particular upset some people:

"Liberals shouldn’t be afraid to ask hard questions. Young German women thankfully enjoy historically unprecedented economic and sexual freedom, with their expensive smartphones and their right to celebrate New Year’s Eve however they want. The same isn’t always true of young male migrants exchanging life under repressive regimes, where they may at least have enjoyed superiority over women, for scraping by at the bottom of Europe’s social and economic food chain. It is not madness to ask if this has anything to do with attacks that render confident, seemingly lucky young women humiliated and powerless."

The other issue that annoyed a lot of people was that the Guardian barely reported the story initially. Afterwards, the coverage mostly consisted of these three handwriting comment pieces. (The last one you link to was by Deborah Orr, who subsequently lost her column at the Guardian, and then died a year or so later.)

DianasLasso · 17/07/2020 17:50

There's several things worth noting about those articles Tei.

First off the date stamp. It took over a week for the Guardian and BBC to even admit anything had happened - the German papers (Frankfurter Allgemeine etc) and US papers (I happened to have a Wash Po sub at the time) were reporting it within 2 or 3 days. There was a distinct feeling (there were multiple threads on this at the time) that the Guardian and BBC were deliberately holding back from reporting (as they did with Rotherham, etc.) because they didn't want to report anything that might fuel anti-immigrant sentiment. Now this of course is important, and the second of the links you give importantly puts it in context by reporting a lot of Arab immigrants to Cologne saying "not in my name." But complete censorship of news this major - which went on for the best part of a week - is not acceptable.

Second the number of victims. At the time of the attacks, the German penal code only categorised an attack as sexual assault if a woman could show she physically fought back. Freezing with terror, or being unable to move because of the press of the crowd meant no "official sexual assault" took place. This meant that official figures for the number of victims was way below the number actually assaulted - and the Graun and BBC stuck rigidly to an editorial line of "only the official figures can be reported" while other (mainstream and respectable media outlets both in Germany and the US) were noting that the actual number of victims was far higher.

Finally there's Hinscliffe's victim blaming and minimising - "it was just mugging for mobile phones" (she wasn't the only person doing this - Jess Phillips in what I hope was a rare lapse said roughly "worse things happen on Birmingham New Street station every weekend). Whereas in fact the two scary things were (1) it appeared to be an organised "flash mob" planned in advance via social media and (2) there was some circumstantial evidence to suggest it was a form of taharrush gamea, a form of organised sexual violence used for instance in Tahir Square in Egypt in 2005 with precisely the intention of making the public sphere (and in the case of Tahir Square, political engagement) off limits to women. (There are a number of organisations within Egypt and nearby countries campaigning against this phenomenon). Now it might have been, it might not have been, but it was worth reporting on in a nuanced way, not dismissing the whole event as "well, if they will flaunt their mobile phones."

Now it was always going to be an incredibly hard event to report decently. "They" (unspecified other) are raping "our" women is one of the oldest and most pernicious forms of propaganda (lent credence by the fact that it's so plausible, because rape within war is pretty much universal - the "bad guys" do it, the "good guys" do it, all races, colours and creeds get in on the act). So it was difficult to find the right editorial line which captured the facts, put it in a wider context, explained why it appeared to be a new and scary phenomenon and not just "New Street on a Saturday night". But the distinct feeling I and a lot of women got watching this horror unfold in real time is that the BBC and Guardian didn't want to report it at all because it didn't match their general editorial line.

MrsNoah2020 · 17/07/2020 17:59

BBC news, quite a long time ago, started to prioritise discussion over actual reporting, and interviewing each other rather than bothering to source actual experts

Oh god, yes. And half of each interview will be taken up by reiterations of their elaborate titles ('our deputy chief Washington correspondent' or whatever), which mean nothing to most listeners, and by thanking each other at length. This doesn't leave much time for actual analysis, so we get some banal observation of the bleeding obvious, in a breathless tone as if it's the scoop of the century, "President Trump will be looking to win a second term". No, really?

I used to listen to 3-4 hours of R4 news each day but I have stopped completely because I can't stand the banality, the laziness and the self-congratulation. I now much prefer news-based podcasts, and shows like The Briefing Room, which use experts and tell me something I don't already know.

MrsNoah2020 · 17/07/2020 18:00

Great analysis, @DianasLasso

DianasLasso · 17/07/2020 18:06

This article from the Independent www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/cologne-new-years-eve-mass-sex-attacks-leaked-document-a7130476.html gives some idea of the actual scale of the attacks.

Incidentally it did at least force Germany to finally update its sexual assault and rape laws to bring them into line with much of the rest of Europe, where you are presumed not to be in a state of perpetual consent, and instead of needing a clear no (or as it was at the time a clear no plus physically fighting the guy off) the absence of a yes makes it sexual assault/rape. (I fear that as with all other countries, the problem is you still have to prove it, and as we know in the UK, what looks on paper like a decent law on rape is in practice absolutely fucking useless).

DianasLasso · 17/07/2020 18:21

BBC - 5th January (so five whole days after it took place) - one rape and dozens of cases of "sexual harassment".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35231046

Washington post (admittedly a retrospective seven months after events) - www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fnews%2fworldviews%2fwp%2f2016%2f07%2f10%2fleaked-document-says-2000-men-allegedly-assaulted-1200-german-women-on-new-years-eve%2f
As many as 1200 assaulted.

However by 5 days after the event it was clear that the number of victims was over 100, and that it wasn't just "sexual harassment" but rape and serious sexual assault. So that was a clear editorial decision by the BBC to minimise the scale of the assaults. And the Guardian made a similiar editorial decision to minimise the scale of the assaults.

I think this was the point when I realised that lying by omission could distort the news as seriously as flat out lying. I remember being incandescent with rage at the BBC and Guardian, when I realised that they were prepared to deliberately under-report an event like this because "fuck it, women get raped every day, it's only women, and it doesn't fit with the rest of our editorial policy that immigration is on the whole a good thing" (Ironically an editorial policy I agreed with and still agree with - I still think immigration is a positive thing for a country, and giving refugees help is a good thing. But I sure as hell do not like being lied to because of misogyny.)

I will stop ranting now!

RedToothBrush · 17/07/2020 19:51

@RoyalCorgi

if 300 staff members signed the letter about Suzanne Moore then how many staff total do they have?

I think a lot of the staff who signed were IT staff - with a website that big they need a lot of people in IT. Though you're right, they do have a lot of journalists as well.

Going back to MrsNoah's point, I'm also curious about how Mail Online makes money without a paywall. The Mail's print circulation remains pretty robust, which is interesting.

The 'sidebar of shame' as its known brings in clicks for celebrity gossip which ultimately subsidises the more news worthy articles.

They also don't write a lot of original material. I lot of content is (quite literally) copy and pasted from elsewhere by non journalists (often including original spelling mistakes or other errors!) so it's cheaper to put on the website.

ScrimpshawTheSecond · 17/07/2020 20:23

I don't use Twitter, either. Hellsite. I also think it's at least partly to blame for the ailing health of newspapers & trad media.

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