Reading the Guardian

[littlebitupset]

Always read the Guardian but didn't fully realise what was happening to Suzanne Moore until she left. Am horrified at her treatment.

I'm now conflicted with some of the remaining columnists, who I previously admired but now wonder how they can stay and, in my opinion, look like they support the signature list that went around even if they didn't sign it. (I don't know who did sign it).

Hadley Freeman springs to mind the most.

Where is the solidarity?

[namechangeforfriday]

@RoyalCorgi

I’m afraid to say that among my peer group of other journalists, all of us who work for various national outlets, there is zero support for her.

That is simply not true. I know very many journalists who support her wholeheartedly.

I’m sure other journalists do support her but I don’t personally know any who do. I did say ‘my peer group’. Clearly the Guardian do publish dissenting views like Suzanne’s because, well, they published her column. There has been no response from the editor to the letter saying the paper will stop publishing such views. The irony is that if the letter had said the opposite, that 300+ people felt women were being silenced (and let’s not even get started on the huge public platform Suzanne and other gender critical people have) and they wanted the editorial stance to be gender critical, in response to a column stating trans women are women, I doubt the same people commenting here about removing someone’s right to voice their opinion would hold the same view. The issue isn’t even with the topic or the content of Suzanne’s column, or the letter. Either you believe in people’s freedom to voice their opinion, or you don’t. And for the record I don’t like Owen Jones.

[MondayYogurt]

Hadley

[Orangeblossom7777]

The Times and the Economist are good

[Orangeblossom7777]

also theconversation.com/uk

[TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair]

She had an incredibly cushy role filing one column a week and never having to go into the office and being paid more than most journalists will ever achieve. As an op-ed writer and a supposed champion of free speech she should be open to the notion of people disagreeing with her.

Does this 'zero support' in your peer group have anything to do with jealousy, by any chance? Because it's hard to read your comment about her having a cushy role and not jump to that conclusion tbh. Apparently JK Rowling is very disliked by lots in children's publishing, too. People can really lack self-awareness about the reasons why they maybe don't like someone, unfortunately.

Also I really don't think hers is an issue of not liking people disagreeing with her. That's journalism for you, surely? The letter that was signed was Orwellian. It was bullying, too. How many people have signed similar letters en masse about people like Jeremy Clarkson or Rod Liddle in the past? I mean, can you even imagine it? They have certainly written some really unpalatable stuff over many years and there are many other journalists and readers who very strongly dislike their work. Look at Owen Jones pairing up with Frankie Boyle for a paid event, too. I am staggered if you think this issue is about Suzanne not being able to take people disagreeing with her. It's like witnessing someone standing on the edge of a cliff with an extraordinary sea view, but looking back towards the fields going, 'nothing to see here. Just a few cows and some grass.'

[KiposWonderbeasts]

Nick Cohen has been very supportive of her too.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

doubt the same people commenting here about removing someone’s right to voice their opinion would hold the same view.

Bollocks. Everyone who regularly posts on FWR is increasingly aware that free speech includes free speech for the other side, AND free speech for people with the absolute worst of the worst views.

We bloody love sunlight round here, and denying the TWAW lot freedom to speak leaves the general public in the dark.

[queenofknives]

I cannot understand why anyone would go into journalism (or book publishing) if their response to differing opinions is to call for censorship and cancellation. What kind of a journalist calls for fellow journalists to be cancelled? A shoddy one, for sure. It's really pathetic to see the standards our once great 'fourth estate' have fallen to. I'd be embarrassed to call myself a journalist if I had no respect for journalistic integrity. It's disgraceful.

[Sometimesonly]

I have been reading The Guardian on and off for 30 years, many of them as a subscriber. Like a pp said, I wouldn't even read it for free now. Even my dad who has been a reader since it was The Manchester Guardian no longer buys it.

[PotholeParadies]

If the letter was not about Suzanne Moore specifically, why did signatories not ask media outlets to clarify that it was not about Moore in the reporting at the time? Surely they must have been horrified it was being interpreted as a campaign directed at her at her only. What did they do to remedy the misunderstanding?

Consider this article in Pink News, about the letter, in March, which even uses Moore's name as a tag for the article. Did they contact PN about it?

The signatories join a growing movement against the paper’s repeated anti-trans coverage, precipitatedby a controversial columnfrom Suzanne Moore.

On Thursday more than 200 feminists wrote toThe Guardianrejecting Moore’s argument that trans rights threaten women, and stating that the views expressed in the paper are not representative of women or the wider public.

This was followed on Friday by another letter signed bymore than 2,500 people,expressing the same sentiment.


www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/03/07/hundreds-guardian-staff-letter-to-editor-pattern-transphobic-content/

[RealityNotEssentialism]

Of course it was about Moore. The trans person who resigned 3 weeks after having already left said that they were resigning due to Moore. The idea that it was just a coincidence is gaslighting in the extreme.

[NewlyGranny]

To quote Wilde - or Lady Bracknell - it "...reminds one of the worst excesses off the French Revolution."

And as history shows, revolutions turn and devour their children. Watch and wait.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

@RoyalCorgi

I've been telling him for months that it takes external funding from 'philanthropists', which I think is inexcusable in terms of press ethics.

It's not any different from taking advertising. The Guardian publishes articles that are paid for by the Open Source Foundation, and they are clearly marked as such. It also publishes articles sponsored by a range of other organisations, again clearly marked as such.

Other newspapers also take funding for sponsored content, though I believe the Telegraph has recently closed down its sponsored operation.

There is a wider issue here of course, which is how newspapers are to make money when they offer their articles for free.

I think it is different from taking advertising: you know when you see a car ad pretty much what the company is espousing. A little symbol indicating the Open Philanthropy Foundation.... well, you've got to dig. Its basically advertorial, but it doesn't say so.

I wasn't aware that other papers were into it too.

Does anyone know of any that aren't?

[WitchFindersAreEverywhere]

@Sometimesonly

I have been reading The Guardian on and off for 30 years, many of them as a subscriber. Like a pp said, I wouldn't even read it for free now. Even my dad who has been a reader since it was The Manchester Guardian no longer buys it.

Yes, and it’s a sad feeling that I now actively avoid the Guardian.
Times and Private Eye for me.

[SunsetBeetch]

@littlebitupset

Any recommendations of alternative newspaper? All seem right wing though maybe The Independent?

The Independent is just as bad. Known woman-haters Jane Fae and CursedE both write for them

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/far-right-feminism-womens-rights-racism-mumsnet-ukip-tommy-robinson-a8793451.html%3famp

www.independent.co.uk/author/gemma-stone

[GCAcademic]

And the fact that all your journo friends agree with you is hardly helping. We are supposed to be hearing a range of views and yet apparently all the journalistic profession thinks the same way. This is a problem. And also clearly not true outside of your bubble.

Yes, this problem in the media is exactly the same one that we see in academia. The narrow elitism of so-called liberals. I blame these people squarely for Brexit and the rise of the Right. Their lack of self-awareness and barely-concealed contempt for anyone who does not subscribe to their way of thinking (often working-class people) is astounding. I avoid Twitter now because it depresses me to see these privileged, bullying ideologues in action. The backlash against this is going to be brutal and we are all going to pay the price.

[lanadelgrey]

As in academia there will be people at the Guardian who want to speak out but are afraid or uncertain about whether to do so. I don’t think many jobs in the media are necessarily cushy and it’s disingenuous to say that as the journalist who posted above would no doubt like to rise up to ‘cushy’ level. Like any job in which there are some prominent figures, your currency can go up as well as down.
One of the guardian’s points in the past was that it let opposing points of view flourish.
Watch the interview on unherd, Suzanne lays out her points better there than in the article

[MidClegs]

@MorrisZapp

The Guardian jumped the shark years ago. Their Saturday listings guide painstakingly lists nightclubs as if the grime massive are finding out which underground clubs to smash by buying a fucking newspaper.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

Yes, this problem in the media is exactly the same one that we see in academia. The narrow elitism of so-called liberals. I blame these people squarely for Brexit and the rise of the Right. Their lack of self-awareness and barely-concealed contempt for anyone who does not subscribe to their way of thinking (often working-class people) is astounding.

Paul Embery was on Triggernometry this week promoting his new book, ‘Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class’

It’s on my Xmas list:

www.amazon.co.uk/Despised-Modern-Loathes-Working-Class/dp/1509539980?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

Moore’s Unherd piece touches on similar topics.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

Speaking of which, it seems unthinkable that a working class girl who left school at 16 would ever grow up to have a Guardian column nowadays.

We’ve definitely gone backwards.

[Judashascomeintosomemoney]

As an op-ed writer and a supposed champion of free speech she should be open to the notion of people disagreeing with her
Irony Klaxon!!!!!

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

and let’s not even get started on the huge public platform Suzanne and other gender critical people have
If you can see the platform under the Twitter pile-on.

[lanadelgrey]

She says in the interview that she had stand up rows with Peter Hitchens and others at the Mail and the. Sat down and chatted to him the next day. News rooms used to be full of arguments and swearing. It was face to face and through the odd snidey remark in columns not through secret sneaky petitions signed by people who then moaned when their names game out. D’oh this was at a media organisation that published the Panama papers. And Moore had won the Orwell prize for her Guardian work a few months earlier.
She says she has no problem with people disagreeing with her - columnists are supposed to be controversial and opinionated. But she was the one doing the heavy lifting when others on staff couldn’t write what they wanted and women couldn’t get commissioned to write about women-centrered feminism.

[TottiePlantagenet]

I had been a proud Guardian reader for decades. No longer. We only take it now on a Saturday but I'm actively looking for alternatives. Hadley is pretty much the only highlight left.

But I can't bring myself to buy into any Murdoch-owned newspaper, it will require such a change in my self-identity!

[Jux]

Surely no one listens to Owen Jones? I don't know one person who has anything good to say about him.