Guardian more mainstream?

jrey1981

Just wondering if anyone shares my view that The Guardian has become more mainstream and probably moved rightwards in general?

Some readers have recently stopped buying the paper after they smeared Chomsky last week...

flogen

What do you mean by some readers? People you know or is it some kind of online "revolt"?

mike65

What no more leaned articles by Polly Toynbee about the oppression of single minority ethnic vegans in the workplace? Shame!

Mike.

jrey1981

flogen wrote:

What do you mean by some readers? People you know or is it some kind of online "revolt"?

Bit of an online revolt by readers of www.medialens.org - I know one of the Media Lens editors

flogen

I'd imagine that The Guardian knows there's enough print media on the right, and they have a pretty nice grip on the educated left readers. This article, and I've only had a brief glance at the Media Lens piece, seems to go against the grain of the average piece and may have either slipped by or was pushed by an over zealous writer. I don't think that the paper will move to the right or even to the centre, it's just happy to get more readers with its new size and look.
Personally, living in the UK I find it to be the only paper worth reading, I know it's a liberally bias paper, but that's better than the right wing crap (Mail, Times, and pretty much all the tabloids). The only other left wing publication is the London Indo, and that's far too leftwing for my liking.

mike65

I just visited that site, I love the way the anti-establihsment blogs belive they and only they know the truth.

Mike.

jrey1981

I think you will find the Media Lens argument is very well-founded and has quite a bit of support.

As far as I can recall Chomsky has written in the Guardian before, so the smear by the interviewer was probably unexpected...the piece sticks out like a sore thumb when compared with her fawning interview with Blair

I prefer the Independent myself, but dip into the Guardian for Media supplement, business news and some of their columnists

savoyard

When I lived in the UK I alway bought the Guardian and rated it highly, but it does seem to have changed a bit with the new format. I bought the last time I was in Ireland and there was a front page article on the Tory leadership race, a purportedly straight piece of reporting. In it, they were describing David Cameron as being "born in 1966, the year England won the world cup". .

WTF?:rolleyes: Kind of comment I expect from the Sun, not a serious newspaper. In general, I think the quality of the articles has decreased with the new format.

They also insist on putting news from the Republic on the pages headed "National News". I, and others I know have complained and asked for an explanation, but none were given. ....

I still get the Weekly Guardian sent to be and it is a great round up of international news.

monument

I've only read the London Indo a few times, but I'd find it very har.d to believe that an Indo group newspaper could be truly be more 'leftwing', liberal, etc then a newspaper who’s trust and reviews protects such.

As for the idea of no longer reading a paper because of one mistake or even a few, that’s nonsense.

flogen

monument wrote:

As for the idea of no longer reading a paper because of one mistake or even a few, that’s nonsense.

Indeed, it's a bit odd to reject a publication because one article suddenly doesn't say what you want it to say. I mean, are these people too afraid to have their ideas challenged? do they feel that their only refuge has been invaded by blood-thirsty Right wingers dying for war?
Fair enough, if you are at all aware and you pick up a copy of the Guardian you expect a left wing slant, but should you always get it? It's like living in a bubble if you run a mile from a different point of view.

monument

What a supprise...

Corrections and clarifications

The Guardian and Noam Chomsky

Thursday November 17, 2005
The Guardian

The readers' editor has considered a number of complaints from Noam Chomsky concerning an interview with him by Emma Brockes published in G2, the second section of the Guardian, on October 31. He has found in favour of Professor Chomsky on three significant complaints.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,,1644017,00.html

And here's the report I was talking about, 'Living Our Values 2005'...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/values

Markham

Despite being most famous for his virulent left-wing rhetoric, Chomsky is a professor of linguistics.

So if you're going to get your facts even slightly blurry at any time in your journalistic career, an interview with a notoriously belligerent pedant with a flair for linguistic complexities is not it.

His responses show that he clearly went through the interview, eviscerating every mildly cancerous error.

Bet the reporter got a sever bollicking for that.

jrey1981

Media Lens gave a good response on it and found a snippet that actually complimented Chomsky from 1996 in the birthdays section in The Guardian

monument

Medialens’ response to the correction is weird at best. They accept the fact that the correction would be made with only one complaint (from Chomsky, or any reader), but they ramble on.

If Medialens had been reading the Guardian’s reader’s editor’s column every Monday, they’d already know that while he might get a greater amount of complaints in recent times, most are repeats. And while massive repeated complaints might get greater attention from the paper’s main editor (to reassure the readers, or whatever), the practical affect is the same as one complaint – the reader’s editor will deal with the most important complaints first.

As for their previously complaints “organising a robotic and ignorant response”, maybe I’m wrong here, but, that really reads as a ‘organising a robotic, thus ignorant response’, if so, what do they want? A personally crafted response to every complained?

What is apparent is that the Guardian should better inform it’s readers about it’s complaints system – maybe information styled as full-page adverts.
As for Medialens’ sensationalism “THE GUARDIAN BACKS DOWN” etc, the Guardian, while publishing Brockes’ interview, they never actually formed an official views on such, they did not stand behind the interview when it was challenged, the reader’s editor investigated, and agreed with Chomsky about the errors in the interview. For them to ‘back down’ they would have first had to back the Brockes’ work… do Medialens have an independent reader’s editor I can complain to?

blockhead

I stopped buying the guardian some time ago. It was'nt the writing. It was the graphics. They became appalling with headlines in such feint colours, fading into the newsprint so much that you could hardly read them (maybe it's my age) and the use of vomit inducing pale colours, lower case newspaper title and a really messy front page. Maybe I'll try it again....

jrey1981

monument wrote:

do Medialens have an independent reader’s editor I can complain to?

You can email them through the website - I wont post the address up on here