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?

[TottiePlantagenet]

Moore's Unherd article was excellent.

[mollscroll]

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

No but then no one is friends with a bully because they like them. They are friends because they can’t not be.

[RealityNotEssentialism]

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.

Hmmmm but it’s not reciprocal here, is it? Women don’t get people who are pro-TRA fired. They don’t get told they can’t speak at events and they don’t get smeared as ‘literal Nazis’. A letter signed by 300 women wouldn’t have happened because women and other GC people haven’t got the same ability to air their views as those with the TRA position do.

And the argument that ‘you write for a paper, ergo you are not silenced’ is such a weak one. Silencing is not about forcing someone to be literally silent. It’s about bullying them at work, threatening them with rape and violence on social media, distorting their position and claiming they have said things they haven’t (Suzanne’s crime was to stick up for a female academic who needs fucking bodyguards due to death threats from her students), claiming that their opinions cause people to kill themselves, writing misogynistic shit calling them dried up old witches, targeting anyone who dares associate with them. Free speech is the ability to speak without these horrible consequences. Even in countries without free speech laws, people can still speak. They just get tortured and punished for it. But you can argue they still have a platform. Who cares if Suzanne had an article in the telegraph? That doesn’t take away from the fact that she has been accused of hate speech and has been called every name under the sun because she said women should be allowed to organise and that it’s wrong for a female academic to receive death threats for saying the same. What planet are some of these people living on? It’s genuinely quite scary.

[RoyalCorgi]

I wasn't aware that other papers were into it too. Does anyone know of any that aren't?

The Telegraph has said it's going to get rid of its branded content:

www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/telegraph-significantly-downsize-branded-content-arm-spark/1686858

I don't know to what extent other papers do it - I think most have commercial agreements of one sort or another but they do it different ways. Some, for example, will have print supplements that are paid for by a sponsor, and clearly labelled as such, but look like editorial. The Mail carries branded content on its website. I think the Times does too, but is scaling back. Not sure about the Indy. I think the Mirror and the Sun probably carry branded content in one form or another.

[TomatoesAreFruit]

@namechangeforfriday

All media except for the BBC takes funding from advertising and other sources, the guardian has never been any different. I am a journalist, I know what this industry’s like, I’ve seen unfair treatment and what Suzanne experienced is... not that. 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. The letter wasn’t even about her specifically - she wasn’t named - but a growing trend of articles the signatories took objection to. Surely they are as entitled to their stance as Suzanne is to hers? 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.

It is so frustrating, reading this, what Suzanne's crime seems to have been is being a successful middle aged female journalist who had managed to reach a stage of her career where she didn't have to face the grind of office life. A woman with the confidence and assurance to write her own opinion pieces.

If a male journalist had this sort of role, it would be seen as younger males as aspirational.

[Sometimesonly]

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

I struggle to understand how a journalist cannot see the difference between people disagreeing openly with her (something she has said she has no problem with) and people sneakily signing a letter which, mentioning her or not, was obviously done with the aim of making her feel targeted - after all, nobody came back to say "Sorry Suzanne, it wasn't actually about you, please come back". And yes, it sounds like you have a problem with people doing well and negotiating better terms than you have.

[SweetCruciferous]

Just read the list of signatories and spotted someone I went to uni with signed it

[RoyalCorgi]

Back on the theme of branded content - if anyone's interested, here's the Guardian Genderqueer Generation series funded by the Open Society Foundations:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/genderqueer-generation

I don't know about anyone else, but the OSF logo is missing on my screen (I think accidentally), and I had to click through to 'About this content' to find details of the sponsorship.

[mollscroll]

If anyone has an FT subscription you might want to comment on an article they have running today about influential women of 2020. They ask for nominations. I suggested JK Rowling for obvious reasons - with some support.

They’ll probably go with Jacinda Ardern who I can’t get too excited about. I’m guessing she’d give away our rights in a trice in return for a five minute bask in lovely Millennial righteousness.

[namechangeforfriday]

Tomatoes I barely need both hands to count the number of journalists that can write one article a week from home and achieve a high salary just from that - male and female. They are not representative of what it’s like working in the media, or of life for the vast majority of journalists. Many of them - again, including male columnists - are considered tedious, out of touch and overrated. It’s nothing to do with jealously, but these people don’t speak for the entire media workforce. Plenty of less well known journalists DO also write opinion pieces disagreeing with things, but given they’re not big names, they don’t get as much attention.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

among my peer group of other journalists, all of us who work for various national outlets, there is zero support for her.

I was about to say that’s odd, because I know quite a few journalists and none have said Great news, the Guardian is putting those pesky feminists back in their cage. But we’re the generation that fought for women’s liberation, so we’re not going to chuck it out like an old fashion magazine.

[littlebitupset]

@ScribblingPixie

If you have Amazon Prime you can read The Spectator for free. Various Guardian writers have written articles on there recently.

Good to know

[Feetoflead]

@andyoldlabour I’m going off topic but just to answer your question from upthread- an agile scrum master works in software development 🙂

[HerselfIndoors]

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

Oh the irony. She's fine with people disagreeing with her, she has been writing for many years for a paper that published views that disagree with hers. Other papers do this too, it's how columns work: they are personal viewpoints. Disagreement is not the same as pressing for a certain view not to be published. How can someone even understand the basic concept of journalism if they can't see that difference?

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 can happen when people know that expressing any view in support of what Moore has written could lead to them being bullied and hounded and possibly losing their jobs, and they have to be careful who they admit their true views to.

[HerselfIndoors]

Of course there are limits to free speech, and there are clear laws. I agree that a paper should not publish, for example, a column that incites racial hatred, and the courts would agree.

But GC views are not like that. They are in accordance with material reality, scientific evidence, and the law, so they are not presenting any such problems and don't go beyond what free speech should allow. They also argue on behalf of a group of people with a protected characteristic, being of the female sex. There is nothing wrong with that.

[Jintyfer]

@ScribblingPixie

If you have Amazon Prime you can read The Spectator for free. Various Guardian writers have written articles on there recently.

Ooh I did not know that! Thanks @ScribblingPixie 🙏

[ChewtonRoad]

I have been a Guardian and Observer reader for 35+ years, but have become quite disenchanted with it in the last three or four years. It's becoming harder to avoid wokery and painfully self-righteous navel gazing from some writers along with the determined denials of reality and biology, all of which are really fucking tiresome.

If Kath Viner or one of her minions is reading this thread, I'd say give your head a shake sharpish before it's too late, although you're very near that point of no return.

Am definitely keeping my subscription to Private Eye.

[HBGKC]

"If you have Amazon Prime you can read The Spectator for free. Various Guardian writers have written articles on there recently."
@ScribblingPixie could you tell me how this works? I've just googled but found nothing helpful.

[TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair]

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

He has a million followers on Twitter. Lots of Corbyn supporters love him.

[ScribblingPixie]

@HBGKC It's in Prime Reading to download onto Kindle/free reading app - tons of mags are in there. I haven't done it myself yet.

[OneFootintheRave]

@MaMaLa321

speaking as someone who took the paper as a default position for years, then stopped after their coverage of Cologne NYE, move on. Read other papers. There's good stuff out there. My OH reads the Guardian on Saturdays and, when I glance at it, the journalism always seems pretty poor (at least compared to the FT, which do read regularly).
I haven't missed the Guardian at all.

Yes, that coverage surprised me and opened my eyes a bit. Then after that, their bizarre edited coverage of the Lauren Jeska case.

Where can I see the list of signatories does anyone know?

[mollscroll]

Yes it was the apologia for would-be murderer Lauren Jeska that first opened my eyes to the ideological capture at the Guardian.

[ClaireP20]

@Jux

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

So true....although he does keep popping up on Jeremy Vine which makes me instantly turn over on principle. Woman hating arsehole.

[puffin321]

OJ on Jeremy Vine always makes me switch it off

[RealityNotEssentialism]

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/transgender-woman-jenny-swift-prison-death

I also remember crap like this. A whole article saying that this person who violently attacked a man with a knife should have been in a women’s prison. I see that Lauren Jeska is in a women’s prison too.