Suzanne Moore left the Guardian

[DialSquare]

I've just seen this on Twitter. That'll be even more lost readers then. Not that I'm one of their readers.

[AntsInPenzance]

Not to derail, but obituaries are just news articles announcing the death of someone, with details of their life.

[AcornAutumn]

Am I the only person who thinks LF and SM would have a perfectly civilised chat?

[RealityNotEssentialism]

I think Lawrence Fox may have MH issues, or at least that’s how it came across from an interview I read about him a few months ago. I am not sure his new role as a figurehead for the far-right is helping him at all.

[KingscoteStaff]

All the names here

[BraveBananaBadge]

Laurence Fox does strike me as a bit of a wind-up merchant really, so I give him a wide berth for that in general. Other than that I’d probably take a look at an interview between him and Suzanne Moore as it would presumably give more context than any lesser journo looking for their ‘gotcha, bigot!’ viral moment (or alternatively, going in with an agenda and sucking up to him to stir the pot). She has bags of experience, and her younger critics can’t and won’t appreciate that, but I digress.

Those who immediately associate JKR with transphobia will do the same with him and racism - and sack them off without any critical thought, is kind of what I was getting at. And the attempt to dismiss GC feminism as being an evil anti Semitic far right effort is a stupidly popular conspiracy theory for the hard of thinking.

[SunsetBeetch]

@BraveBananaBadge

It is good to see the DM go into that kind of detail, but they segued into the issue of cancel culture as a whole and don’t think it did any good by tacking the example of that idiot Lawrence Fox on the end, as it risks linking GC thinking with being racist/ far right etc.

Also, good God I wish people who comment on that website had a brain cell between them. Under that story could be a place to start a decent debate, but it’s just an absolute embarrassment.

I know, it's like they don't understand what they've just read.

[CaraDuneRedux]

Now you all need to answer this, if Suzanne starts writing GC for the DM and suddenly starts a conversation with Lawrence Fox, how high is she on your list.

Because of course by writing for the DM, Suzanne Moore's suddenly going to abandon a lifetime's committment to socialism and turn into Katie Hopkins .

What do you mean by "conversation"? Do you mean "interview"? Because part of a journalist's job is interviewing people whose views they disagree with (often with the intention of using probing questions to hold those views up for scrutiny).

If you mean "fawn all over", I think this would be vanishingly unlikely.

[Floisme]

As I remember, Suzanne Moore wrote for the Mail on Sunday at one stage. They didn't (again as I remember) try to change her, and there were no staff petitions about anything she wrote. I think her and Lawrence Fox in conversation would be a hoot.

[RealityNotEssentialism]

Now you all need to answer this, if Suzanne starts writing GC for the DM and suddenly starts a conversation with Lawrence Fox, how high is she on your list.

Bit of an odd question. You can defend someone’s right to free speech without actively agreeing with what they say.
As for an imagined conversation with Lawrence Fox? Depends on what she says as to whether I agree with her doesn’t it? If she says stuff I disagree with, the fact that she’s Suzanne Moore makes no difference. I’m not going to champion someone for whatever she says just because she’s a woman. I agree with what Suzanne says now but if she were to start writing racist and misogynistic stuff, I would change my mind. I also think there is a line in journalism. I don’t agree with the right-leaning columnists like Amanda Platell but I don’t think she should lose her job. I do however think it was right for Katie Hopkins to lose her job for making overtly racist remarks.

And although the DM has the odd piece by someone who writes critically about gender, it also has a lot of ‘women should be tradwives’ stuff. I think they had something nauseating yesterday about women getting a ‘mummy wage’ from their husbands that they could ‘spend on little luxuries’. So I don’t get the sudden reverence for the DM on here because in general it’s pretty misogynistic.

[Quillink]

highame Moore should talk to Fox or anyone else she wants to talk to. It would not change my positive view of her 30 year career centering women.

I see where you are coming from, BTW. I'm not quite in the same place, but in a similar reflective process.

[highame]

I have spent the years since the referendum trying to come to terms with my MC superiority and the affront I felt at people voting against my wishes - that sounds truly terrible doesn't it. However, that's what the divide in our country is. Those whose views are thought out and refined and those whose views are thought out and have no edge.

I felt a peace descend when I finally realised that democracy, free speech and women's rights were more important to me than my intellectual snobbery. I may not like what you say but I will defend your right to do so. I heard Lawrence Fox talking in depth and whilst I am not a follower or a fan, he didn't say anything I deemed idiotic.

Now you all need to answer this, if Suzanne starts writing GC for the DM and suddenly starts a conversation with Lawrence Fox, how high is she on your list.

[TirisfalPumpkin]

I am looking forward to her ‘tell all’ piece.

And yeah, if the Times scoops her up, that’s Suzanne Moore and Janice Turner in one publication - and that food section. Eminently subscribeable.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Friends, in unison ‘That man is Bobby Gillespie of^ Primal Scream’^

Betty drinks beer.

[BraveBananaBadge]

It is good to see the DM go into that kind of detail, but they segued into the issue of cancel culture as a whole and don’t think it did any good by tacking the example of that idiot Lawrence Fox on the end, as it risks linking GC thinking with being racist/ far right etc.

Also, good God I wish people who comment on that website had a brain cell between them. Under that story could be a place to start a decent debate, but it’s just an absolute embarrassment.

[CaraDuneRedux]

Now that article is definitely the DM having a good day - hell of a lot of material, covered very clearly.

[Jumbogirl]

And once again it's the DM highlighting a woman's right to speak out and the hallowed Guardian doing the hounding - it's sure been a strange old year

[Jumbogirl]

So another woman hounded out of her job for not being on message www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8958283/Columnist-Suzanne-Moore-quits-Guardian.html

[ShadyBansheeThing]

I've just checked and the science editor I was thinking of, Fiona MacRae, is now freelance and not Mail staff, but she has a microbiology degree, is a respected science writer and may have been behind the science articles I liked. Whereas a non-science journalist trying to write about something with a political agenda is more likely to misrepresent, or just not understand.

[ShadyBansheeThing]

Sorry CaraDune I apologise! It absolutely is not good on representing what science means in relation to current affairs and issues, and making sense of statistics (like most media). But it is good, IMO at covering apolitical science stories, often quite obscure ones, and has often surprised me with the amount of detail and coverage, which is more relevant to me. I'll retract what I said and say it often covers interesting science.

I am not a scientist but I work in a related area. I wouldn't for a second take what the DM says on a science topic as an accurate report (nor the BBC or most other mainstream sources) but I do often find things there that lead me to find out more via primary sources.

[CaraDuneRedux]

the DM while being appalling in many ways, is good on science.

Sorry, as a research scientist, I'm scraping my jaw off the floor at this one. It isn't. It really isn't. It scaremongers, it gets fringe figures to comment on areas of science where it doesn't like the peer reviewed science for political reasons (climate change, for example).

In some respects, I don't like the DM bashing on here - it has done some genuine campaigning journalism, and broken stories other papers wouldn't touch (I think they broke the Rotherham child abuse scandal, for example). But science is definitely not one of its strong points. Or medicine.

[ShadyBansheeThing]

What a disaster. I could just about continue to consider the Guardian an actual newspaper because they still had some journalists who dared to cling to reality. The way they're going they will just become a tragic mouthpiece for a dangerous ideology.

I've known Kath Viner in the past, long time ago so I can't say what she's like now, but she struck me as someone who wants to be seen as in with the cool kids. She's allowed wokery to come before critical thinking capacity or even the concept of debate.

Like others I've abandoned the Guardian now and I read the Times, the TELEGRAPH! and the i, plus tabloids if I find them in a cafe or whatever. The Sun has always had some good journalists and writers, and the DM while being appalling in many ways, is good on science.

I'm still left wing and feminist. The Telegraph is eye-poppingly elitist and if I buy the Times I know I'm adding to Murdoch's millions. But the experience of reading a range of different views, written by people who understand coherent argument and logical thought processes, is so refreshing.

[ArabellaScott]

I'm a bit jealous, Betty.

[ListeningQuietly]

How many paying readers will they lose by trampling on women's rights ?
bearing in mind that young woke folk get their news on Facebook and Instagram and twitter

[HecatesCats]

Nice work Betty

[ChattyLion]

What a fucking mess. The Guardian needs more journalists like Suzanne Moore, not less.

Honestly, the Guardian’s senior management needs to take a very long hard look at themselves and working culture they are leading when their staff get up petitions against each other’s politics. WTF.
Loving The Scream getting involved..