The Guardian has morphed into The Daily Mail (so elect Corbyn and ignore them)

32 thoughts on “The Guardian has morphed into The Daily Mail (so elect Corbyn and ignore them)”

1. Don’t forget the cronyism: Alan Rusbridger hired his daughter on under his wife’s maiden name a few years back: http://ukmediawatch.org/2009/11/16/latest-on-the-bella-mackierusbridger-affair/

   Then there’s the GMG’s pay packets which largely conform to the ridiculous executive pay inflation seen all over the world. Pensions and bonuses aside, the editor in chief’s topped half a million before being humbly trimmed a bit once the recession really bit. Over his recently concluded tenure, chief executive Andrew Miller maintained a running average of a bit under £1 million – http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/guardian-chief-andrew-miller-nets-22-million-despite-newspaper-losses-9590825.html

   Other newspapers are at least halfway honest about their ideological bent; The Guardian has not been socialist in the least for decades now, its rightward course largely corresponding with that of the Labour party over the past two decades.

2. I just wrote this in a Guardian Comment on Corbyn, after someone there complained of a link given to this article being completely removed – and I mean completely – the whole otherwise innocent thread was deleted! I’ve not caught them do that before – remove the whole thread. (And fortunately I caught the link before it was gone)…

   And my reply too – totally gone. Not just crossed out – removed like it never existed.

   You have become a dodgy paper The Guardian.

   PS. That linked-to article listed the board of directors The Guardian has had since 2008, when it changed direction and became a corporate identity. The article suggested that The Guardian now tows an establishment line. It’s been clear to me that The Guardian has had no political direction since even before that time – mainly just endless ‘content’ and a rather-foggy liberal agenda. All the evidence suggests to me that its ‘content’ is chosen under the auspices of those directors.

   You make off this free ‘Discussion’ Guardian – it’s part of your content and your pull – and you know it. Are you going to start deleting everything you don’t like? (like the Daily Mail did when Thatcher died)?

   I’ve never seen more complaints on here than regarding your treatment of Corbyn – both in the content drive and in the level of deleted comments.

   1. See also below about this phenomenon; but the following comment was allowed.

      You are not allowed to mention certain things on CiF, as I know; mention Kafka at your peril or Memory Holes.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole

      A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents…. such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.

3. I have had several Corbyn related comments deleted which were not (and I realise you have to take my word for it) in the slightest bit offensive – I merely questioned The Guardian’s blatant and relentless anti-Corbyn copy.

   1. I post as captainbeefheart. I’m being pre-moderated for the second time, and so I have to self-censor or my comments don’t appear.

      Replying to an article attacking the tube train drivers, my comments about the NUJ, The Guardian and their pay rates were ALL deleted soon after they appeared.

      It’s Kafka-esque, as Moderators are anonymous and they cannot be challenged.

4. One day later and we got an article from their somewhat deranged art critic:

   http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/jul/27/labour-should-win-turner-prize-disastrous-piece-of-performance-art

5. Sorry. This is untrue. The Scott Trust has not been wound up & it still runs the Guardian. I am a Corbyn supporter. You do him no good with these tactics. Who runs Sodium Haze?

   1. It’s the Scott Trust *Limited*

      Big difference.

      1. The old Scott Trust was wound up and replaced by a limited company in 2008.

6. I’m not here to either defend or attack the Guardian but you are wrong to say it is owned by Apax. GMG is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, in which all the shares are owned by seven Trustees, including Will Hutton, Larry Elliot and Alan Rusbridger. The Scott Trust cannot pay dividends to its shareholders. GMG formerly had a joint venture with Apax whereby GMG held 50.1% of that shares in Auto Trader and Apax held to other 49.9%. In early 2014 GMG sold it’s shareholding to Apax, so that Apax now owns 100&% of Auto Trader. Apax does not own any of the Scott Trust or GMG.

   1. So which is it Sodium haze ? – get yr facts staright if you want to be listened to

   2. David is correct. This seems to stem from a misreading of wikipedia who state:

      “The Scott Trust Limited was “secured for generations to come” after the Guardian Media Group (GMG, a subsidiary company) completed the sale for £619 million of its 50.1% stake in Auto Trader on 4 March 2014. Apax Partners, a venture capital firm, increased its share to become the sole shareholder in the business.”

      But ‘the business’ in the last sentence refers to Autotrader and NOT the Guardian. There is a primary source for the actual ownership details: look at the annual return on this link which lists the directors who are also shareholders: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06706464/filing-history
      Some research into these people, their backgrounds and political leanings would be useful. As it stands this article is wrong and harmful to the cause its author supports. Please makes some corrections.

      1. That has been corrected. Thanks for pointing that out.

7. Guardian of the unfair, unjust status quo.

8. Interesting piece, and the anti-Corbynism is undeniable, but Apax Partners do not own Guardian Media Group. They are majority shareholders in the Guardian’s “Auto Trader” division, all GMG shares are owned by the GMG itself.

   1. yep – we fixed that now.

9. Its also untrue that the Guardian has been anti Scottish independence, its provided almost totally uncritical coverage of the fascistic SNP and yes if you live in Scotland you will understand where I am coming from, thank god it at last did some decent investigative journalism this week into the SNP cronyism with big business that pulls the veil slightly on its neoliberal agenda, they put the tories to shame with their privatisation of public assets

   1. your hatred of the SNP rather explains your glee at the way The Guardian covered the indyref.

   2. Leaving aside the bizarre claim that the SNP have somehow privatised more public assets than the Tories (like what FFS?) — and they’re somehow not supposed to engage with business? (and then presumably they’d be censured for that too) — the Graun has been nothing but anti-SNP in its coverage of the referendum and since. As the article says, you could post to hundreds of hysterical anti-SNP rants and only a couple of articles by Monbiot and McKenna as counterpoint. And then there was the hysterical attempts at the canonisation of St Francis of Murphy, which backfired spectacularly in the faces.

      No, the article above is as correct in its summation of the Guardian’s Scottish coverage as it is in its summation of the coverage of Corbyn (which I notice has now descended to the level of ‘Jeremy Corbyn wears sandals with socks. Waaah Don’t vote for him.’

10. This is a terrific breakdown of the interests behind the Graun! Check out this site, which has a a great section called Guardian watch

    http://off-guardian.org

    1. thanks for that – good to be reminded.

11. The actual problem with theGuardian.

    You could compile the exact same inverse article to the one you did here. Maybe not exactly the inverse in this situation, but close enough when you filter out “news” and direct commentary on news.

    Most of those articles are commentary.Those commentators are brainwashed by the narrative too. Actual “news” of people like Blair said this is also narrative. The narrative was started by, and pedaled by the Telegraph.The narrative has been supported by Labour candidates who are trying to win.

    The commentators are not immune to propaganda.
    EG… So rather than commentary on what Blair said, ripping it apart to comment on its substance. They have been sucked into commenting generally on the situation of the manufactured narrative. What Blair said is just a drop in the ocean of the narrative.

    the problem is that theGuardian are talking about the narrative.
    They should, but they need to be aware that that’s what they are doing. They need to make sure people know that they know, and address the narrative as context, even on the commentators articles.

    Best example. Benefit Scrounger narrative… used as a way to justify shrinking the welfare state. EVERY single “benefit scrounger” story should have context of scale and what the narrative is used/abused for, added.

    1. The Guardian has become a content pipe. It’s an endless stream of Opinion, with quantity always above quality. The Editorial (in its broad sense) must know that probably 9 out of 10 of its now-many pieces on Corbyn have been really negative. That isn’t reflecting the real world. Where is the balance? And where is the represntation? The pience today on “sandals” was really unpleasant. If the Guardian is the paper it claims to be it would have to consider the serious balance and representation issues here.

       Either the Guardian has no real direction at all any more (which I have often questioned) or it is specifically anti-Corbyn. It’s one or the other. They can’t hide behind the ‘Opinion’ they publish, that’s for sure. Although they may think they can – they are hardly the ‘Golden Generation’ of journalists they seem to think they are. They are hardly George Orwells on the political front. Unfortunately we just don’t have that quality of journalists or essayists any more. More obviously it’s the same with politician as a whole – it’s been a bad time for them for years. Which is why we need Corbyn so much.

12. Hmm. Not so sure.

    The purpose of the Scott Trust, even in its new limited company incarnation, is to support the newspaper. Its investments subsidise the paper, which loses money and couldn’t survive as a going concern without that financial support. The editor has always sat on the board of the Scott Trust, but there has never been any indication that the board sets editorial policy. Not once. You haven’t provided any indication or evidence of that, you’ve merely noted that some of the board members used to work in banking and finance (not surprising when the Scott Trust’s entire purpose is to make money to fund the newspaper) or from “posh law firms” (are there any other kinds of law firm?) and are making insinuations by association. This is lazy stuff.

    As for Corbyn – the links you’re quoting are pretty much universally comment pieces. The commentators are paid for their opinions and they give them – should they change their opinions, perhaps, so they agree with yours? You’ve also failed to note that they have published several pro-Corbyn comment pieces from the likes of Owen Jones, John Harris and others in the same period. Fewer than the ones which are broadly sceptical of Corbyn, yes, but still there and, again, the commentators/columnists are paid for their opinions, if their opinion is that they don’t support Corbyn it’s not your business.

    This is all pretty lazy, tinfoil hat stuff, really, with a fairly transparent ‘vote Corbyn!’ diatribe crowbarred in at the end.

    Must try harder.

    1. Its extraordinary to me that a media behemoth like The Guardian needs people like you to defend it.

       (a) Do you seriously expect me or anyone to believe that nobody runs the Guardian? That the editor has carte blanch to print whatever they please, that the tone, content, editorial and advertising are things that the board of The Scott Trust Ltd just shrugs their collective shoulders about? The profit making company The Scott Trust Limited appoints the editor, sets the commercial direction of the newspapers it owns and has total responsibility for their overall development. The Guardian is beset by the same pressures around cut price churnalism, advertising revenue and its relationship to power as any other commercial media giant. The Scott Trust Ltd is a commercial board, the governing body of The Guardian and The Observer. As a battle scarred former employee of committee politics I can well imagine the prickly and swiftly terminal conversations that would ensue if any of its senior employees decided to take the assets of the GMG in a direction the board didn’t want it to go.

       (b) The links I provided were but a fraction of the naked anti-corbyn bias which is hysterical now more than ever. I suppose its just a concidence then that there are ten patronising smears against Corbyn for every one in favour?

       I could have added another ten pages of snide insults drooped casually into live blogs, thinly veiled put downs in supposed news pieces, gushing puff pieces for Yvette Cooper and recently added swipes from more pet hacks – but I do try to get people to read this stuff and eight pages of links ain’t gonna help with that.

       To put it even more simply – a nine year old could see the unashamed bias of the Guardian against Corbyn and its praise for Blairite wash out Cooper but if you don’t want to see it you won’t. If you’re happy with it fine – but a lot of us are fed up of engaging in some kind of weird double think in which The Guardian floats in a progressive independent wonderland when it clearly doesn’t.

       (c) If you want to toss around insults and patronising put downs then my advice to you is to go and work for The Guardian.

    2. Half the Guardian’s content is ‘Comment’ now. You seem to be suggesting that means they no longer have any control over whether to publish it or not! Or indeed over the Comments’ representational qualities taken as a whole.

       The Guardian either has no editorial direction any more (partly perhaps), is run by complete fools (you have to wonder), or has a decidedly centrist political approach to British politics today (which it very clearly does from the top).

       ‘Comment’ is a lot cheaper than employing a decently-sized fold of truly talented journalists, and the sheer amount of content that the paper pumps out almost hourly is bourne of the newspaper’s highly Capitalistic Mail-esque content-flow philosophy. It’s how they make their money – advertising from return visits. Content, content, content. Ahem.

       Maybe if they actually represented people a bit more they could sell a few more newspapers?

       They are actually taking a huge risk given their circulation, as people will not easily forget how badly the Guardian has been behaving lately. I do predict a lot of editorial turnaround if and when Corbyn wins the leadership battle though. When they see the political landscape and the reader support I doubt they will have much of a choice.

13. I put a comment at the end of today’s article by Chris Elliott supposedly analysing Guardian coverage of Jeremy Corbyn. I criticised their portrayal of Corbyn as far left. I complained about the incessant statements that he will make Labour unelectable and gave detailed and reasoned comments on why I thought he would get a lot of backing from voters. Finally I suggested that the much smaller Guardian I remember from the late 60s carried more information than the current editions. There were no expletives, no libels, no ad hominems, no blasphemy, nothing in bad taste as far as I am aware.

    This was on the comments section for about two hours and then it disappeared without trace.

    What are they frightened of?

    Incidentally I learned about this blog from one of the comments to that article. I wonder if it will still be up there tomorrow.

14. Saw the following comment on a Guardian article and was surprised that it had no approval votes. Tried to vote for it and it didn’t work, although the comments on either side of it would accept votes. Coincidence I’m sure.

    Gelion Spitballa 30m ago

    0
    1
    Meanwhile:

    the average family has lost £1,600 a year under the Tories, and most people (as they don’t get bonuses) are still only getting less than 1.5% pay rises.

    Energy companies are using their cartel status to rip off consumers.

    At least half of the jobs created since 2010 are 0 hour or minimum wage.

    Manager / worker pay disparity has never been worse.

    The housing market is broken for most people, with a small number of BTL landlords profiting.

    There is another £21 billion in cuts coming.

    And the rich and well-off have been getting richer since 2010.

    Just examples of Broken Britain under the Tories. We need Labour back in one form or another. Tory-lite, Miliband was not.

15. I believe that the direction of The Guardian and other major newspapers like The New York Times is related to another problem that these media have and that is in recent years they have been sacking staff (both journalist staff and administration support) at all levels of their organisations to the extent that their work cultures and histories, and any values, standards and principles that were developed and maintained over the years associated with their organisational cultures, have been destroyed.

    All that remains is overworked and underpaid staff who are inexperienced reporters and who can be easily misled into believing that they should just be stenographers for government and corporate spokespeople or accept their press releases.

    We should have seen this coming when The Guardian decided to rely on its Komment Macht Frei sections for informed commentary and analysis (or citizen journalism as it liked to call them) with the result that the KMF sections blew up in its collective corporate face.

    1. I agree entirely. Do read the excellent book ‘Flat Earth News’ by Nick Davies on this topic.

16. Thank you for posting your interesting analysis of what the Guardian publishes, and who it is that publishes it. I think you might have mentioned the Morning Star as providing a very different daily angle on the news, rather than leave it as if “they’re all the same.” It might be interesting to hear why it is that so many liberal-minded and leftish people still think the Guardian is anything but another right-wing newspaper. Perhaps it is because it does at times have articles that do look into issues other than from a Daily Mail standpoint and that seems to satisfy readers who do not rise to the level of examining the nature of the society we have in Britain – the dominance of the banks (see your mention of their representation on the Guardian’s board) and are happy with minor adjustments that do not get to the heart of analysing the underlying reasons for the constant problems that working people face, including those faced by many who buy the right-wing Guardian.

17. It seems to this Observer that the rot began to set in many years ago when the original radical newspaper, The Manchester Guardian, turned its back upon its birthplace, the original radical city which was the father of our modern society and of all that was good in historical political development, and decamped to the capital, a completely unnecessary move which was an expression of mute confirmation with the increasingly absurd, and ultimately very damaging, shift of emphasis toward the currently overwhelmingly dominant mantra that ‘Extra Londinium non est vita!’. Once cosily ensconced in, and under the mesmeric narcosis of, Gomorrah – sorry, London, The Guardian became gradually softened-up, and corrupted until it became merely that further organ of the Metropolitan ‘chattering classes’ (self-appointed) elite we see today!

    Long-retired journalists and other oldsters who remember, or were associated with, The Manchester Guardian, still lament its passing by observing that the present London-based Guardian is but a pitiful and pale imitation of its very great radical predecessor.

    In the light of the ‘against the grain, enforced’ drift north to Media City in Salford, which it is alleged by the London-based and biased press, many Metropolitan BBC journalists had to be dragged kicking and screaming to, only to find their fears were entirely manufactured and unfounded, one dreams of an utopian future in which The Guardian returns – like the original Biblical prodigal son – to its welcoming and forgiving father, the original radical and progressive city which the modern world pretty much owes its existence to…

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