Hadley Freeman leaves her Guardian column

[ArabellaScott]

I can completely understand this, but it is sad to see how the Guardian has become so diminished in the past few years.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/18/opinion-writing-has-changed-a-lot-since-i-started-out-its-time-for-something-new?fbclid=IwAR2otpLMDz7GHEZ3NL0mbOcIhUFGmOZOaOUj_1mNqAo4GiQ4HMlmLbF7LjY

[Royat]

@RiotAtTheRodeo

I enjoyed many of her columns. Was nauseated by her regular columns defending Woody Allen.

Didn't know about this. Really shocked. I thought I had read pretty much all her columns

[RiotAtTheRodeo]

www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/03/allen-v-farrow-woody-allen-mia-farrow-documentary-is-pure-pr-why-else-would-it-omit-so-much

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/29/do-i-really-care-woody-allen-comes-out-fighting

www.theguardian.com/global/2018/feb/03/actors-condemn-woody-allen-hadley-freeman

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/11/moses-farrow-id-be-very-happy-to-take-my-fathers-surname

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/09/woody-allen-publisher-wrong-drop-memoir-let-him-speak
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/soon-yi-previn-woody-allen-mia-dylan-ronan-farrow

Just a selection of her obsessive defence of Woody Allen. I'm sure there are many more. But, hey, as long as she's gender critical, who cares...

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

You might as well say "as long as she's pro-TRA, who cares". In my experience, the Woody Allen Defence Squad draws from all members of society, as does its nauseated opposition.

In fact, in my opinion, the overlap between people who are pro-TRA and pro-Allen is far more sizeable than the overlap between feminists and the pro-Allen people. I'm basing that on the not very scientific method of recognising an awful lot of FWR regulars from past condemnations of WA in
the Woody Allen threads in AIBU. I learnt a lot about WA, none of it complimentary, from MN feminists in AIBU.

[NutellaEllaElla]

Omg it's ok not to like every single thing a person says. It's a bizarre thing to expect and it isn't some gotcha.

[AnyOldPrion]

[quote Didactylos]Andyoldlabour

Of course the beauty of stats is that one can pick and choose the figures to demonstrate whatever picture you find most politically expedient

Fully vaccinated
Portugal 82%
Iceland 80%
Malta 81%
Spain 77%
Denmark 74%
Ireland 72%
Norway 65%
Italy 65%
UK - 64,95%
( Where did you get the 66.5% figure from? your own link quotes a 64,95% fully vaccinated figure from 16th Sept)

All figures from ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=GBR[/quote]
Norway’s on 82%, according to government figures.

I hope Hadley finds a niche elsewhere. The Guardian continues in its fall from decent newspaper to irrelevant sideline.

[PersephoneJames]

@KimikosNightmare

I could blame Brexit for this – a difference of opinion that pretty much broke this country

Did it ? I was a Remainer and I'm sure Freeman was too. I do get a little tired of the dramas Remainers come up with. ( and was extremely amused that Johnson was correct in not joining the EU vaccination scheme)

How so? The EU has vaccinated more of its population than we have?

[OnlyTheLangOfTheTitberg]

@RiotAtTheRodeo

www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/03/allen-v-farrow-woody-allen-mia-farrow-documentary-is-pure-pr-why-else-would-it-omit-so-much

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/29/do-i-really-care-woody-allen-comes-out-fighting

www.theguardian.com/global/2018/feb/03/actors-condemn-woody-allen-hadley-freeman

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/11/moses-farrow-id-be-very-happy-to-take-my-fathers-surname

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/09/woody-allen-publisher-wrong-drop-memoir-let-him-speak
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/soon-yi-previn-woody-allen-mia-dylan-ronan-farrow

Just a selection of her obsessive defence of Woody Allen. I'm sure there are many more. But, hey, as long as she's gender critical, who cares...

You’ve just absolutely proved Freeman’s point. “Oh noes, this person likes something against the orthodoxy of the group to which she loosely belongs. Dismiss! Dismiss! The purity spiral must be maintained at all costs!”

[NecessaryScene]

If she's 'obsessively' defending Woody Allen, from what I've seen it seems to be because others are repeatedly making unfounded claims.

It's the same sort of thing as Jesse Singal 'obsessively defending' Abigail Shrier or Glenn Greenwald 'obsessively defending' Trump.

As journalists, each have ended up deeply researching the evidence about Allen, childhood transition, and Russiagate, so find themselves reasserting that evidence in response to others whose narrative doesn't align with the evidence.

Certain people just do get really obsessed with pointing out lies and errors, even when directed at Bad People. The only way to stop them is to be more accurate when attacking Bad People. (And if they're that bad, how hard can that be?)

That sort of character is going to often overlap with being GC - annoying pedantry about facts and evidence.

Not that all Allen defence will becoming from that direction, of course - I can see that a pro-TRA pro-Allen overlap also makes sense ideologically, regardless of evidence.

[VladmirsPoutine]

Turns out Woody Allen wasn't all that creepy is a bit of an odd hill to die on.

[highame]

Misleading. Other countries started vaccinated younger age groups in some countries because of hesitancy in some older groups. In the case of millions of doses given, we are just behind Germany
www.statista.com/statistics/1196091/covid-19-vaccination-doses-in-europe-by-country/

Best wait and see, because we have less vaccine hesitancy in this country, so somewhere down the line, we should end up with better protections.

It just shows how divisive and politicised everything is becoming. Even vaccine programs now used 'as evidence' for something??

[Abhannmor]

@VladmirsPoutine

Turns out Woody Allen wasn't all that creepy is a bit of an odd hill to die on.

Except she seems to have died on a quite different hill.

[BernardBlackMissesLangCleg]

@VladmirsPoutine

Turns out Woody Allen wasn't all that creepy is a bit of an odd hill to die on.

yet again, way to prove her point

sheesh

[VladmirsPoutine]

I'm not particularly interested in her position on Woody Allen and haven't actually followed much if any of her work. As I said once you've read one column from one of them you've read them all.

[EarringsandLipstick]

@sashagabadon

I’m also a Hadley fan and sad to see her leave the Guardian but no doubt she’ll get offers from better newspapers. I never see her on the telly as a talking head or panellist or commentator. I bet she’d be good at that.

She's not leaving the Guardian!

[WarriorN]

Oh no! I've only just seen this.

Understandable though.

[LobsterNapkin]

You’ve just absolutely proved Freeman’s point. “Oh noes, this person likes something against the orthodoxy of the group to which she loosely belongs. Dismiss! Dismiss! The purity spiral must be maintained at all costs!”

Yup.

It should be no surprise people have different opinions about WA, given that the people who were actually involved have differing opinions of what happened, and were all potentially unreliable witnesses for various reasons.

[LobsterNapkin]

Anyway, I think it's too bad in that her columns were reliably readable, even if not something I was interested in especially. It looks to me like they are trying to cut costs, but at this point it seems like a hopeless gesture, the more they cut the less they offer and the fewer readers they'll have.

I personally think she might be better off to go elsewhere, the Guardian is looking less and less like something you want on your resume, but maybe she'll have more time to freelance for other publications as well now.

[RiotAtTheRodeo]

You’ve just absolutely proved Freeman’s point. “Oh noes, this person likes something against the orthodoxy of the group to which she loosely belongs. Dismiss! Dismiss! The purity spiral must be maintained at all costs!”

What is this 'oh noes' baby talk??

My first comment was that I enjoy many of her columns I'm just way way over her Woody Allen obsession. Presumably that's allowed?

[Franca123]

So you can't be gender critical and think the claims against Woody Allen are highly unconvincing? Urm..... OK. I'll apply my critical faculties to only some questions then.

[RoyalCorgi]

@VladmirsPoutine

Turns out Woody Allen wasn't all that creepy is a bit of an odd hill to die on.

But perhaps passionately defending the principle that someone deserves to be presumed innocent until proven guilty is a less odd hill to die on?

[MoonlightApple]

I wonder if debating were taught more widely in schools then people would be happier engaging constructively with people they disagree with?

I mean if Obama and Bush junior can be friends (and even Paddy McGuinness and Ian Paisley) then surely the rest of us can give it a go. Maybe some people would discover they had more in common than they thought

[PermanentTemporary]

I agree moonlight.

Probably the best thing we as parents could do for our children right now is try to debate ideas with them. I haven't much clue on how to do this tbh.

[viques]

Sad to see her go. There does seem to have been a night of the long knives with quite a few of the guardian columnists, not the Suzannes and the Hadleys, but some of the more low key, slightly frivolous ones , I have read quite a few swansong columns in the last few weeks. Not really bothered to see them go, they were padding rather than comment, but I am very sorry when columnists of Hadleys stature leave. It diminishes the Guardian to the point where I am worried that soon I will find I only have their gardening and food columns to read.

[Freespeecher]

MoonlightApple

Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley? Though the latter replacing Peter Kay would be quite the partnership.

[WeAreTheWeirdosMister]

www.ncl.ac.uk/ncla/events/item/eventhadleyfreemaninconversationwithrachelhewitt.html she's doing an event, if your interested