- Let’s be honest. There’s a clear link with Islam (£) by David Aaronovitch, The Times
- Intellectual property is an innovation killer by Joshua Lachkovic , KernalMag
- Dumb Idea Hall of Fame by Aaron David Miller, Foreign Policy
- Nadine Dorries threatens Cameron's Party Leadership by Nadine Dorries, Daily Mail
- Boris set for party leadership? by Traci Watson, USAToday
- Anti-Israel students deface Star of David at student conference by Jonny Paul, Jerusalem Post
- Jihadist Videos on University Facebook by Rupert Sutton, Huffington Post UK
- Skintland: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose by Alex Massie, Spectator UK
- Green tax on conservatories by James Slack and Tamara Cohen, Daily Mail
- Saudi princess: What I'd change about my country by Staff writers, BBC
The Guardian: smug, arrogant and subject to special treatment
It’s time for all of us, wherever we fall on the political spectrum, to start questioning the level of influence afforded to one paper and its agenda
It must be so delightful being a Guardian journalist. Always being right. Always being morally superior.
They have undoubtedly broken some fantastic, important stories, such as Trafigura, the Wiki-leaks cable dump, and phone hacking, but this in turn has had the effect of lacing their material with a dose of arrogance; an air of the untouchable. Too often, the Guardian themselves try to be the story - look at the books from Guardian hacks about Wiki-leaks, for example.
This is a dangerous mind-set to have for any organisation whose role is meant to be questioning those in power.
All newspapers try to write eye catching, agenda setting stories; that is how they sell papers and survive. However, there is a smugness about Guardian journalists; an unchallengeable assertion that their angle is the right, and only acceptable one that leaves a slightly more bitter taste in the mouth than others. Just follow a few of them on Twitter if you don’t believe me. You’ll soon see what I mean.
The truth is that the Guardian is hardly perfect. Having instigated the closure of the News of the World, and the resulting loss of 300 jobs, it has transpired that people working for the NOTW did not cause the deletion that gave the Dowler parents false hope.
Was there an ounce of humility from the Editor-In-Chief Alan Rusbridger, or Nick Davies, whose by-line adorns the story? Not a bit of it. There was excuse after excuse, a defensive piece by Davies, and a note in the corrections and clarifications column. Given that this was a game changing, front page story, this hardly constitutes the like-for-like apology so often demanded by Guardianistas.
The point is not that Guardian journalists intentionally misled the public; I suspect the error in this case was more on the side of the police. The point is that the information suited the Guardian’s anti-Murdoch agenda, and so they went big on it, and were then unapologetic when they were found to have been wrong.
What is worse is that this huge error received very little outside criticism. The Guardian seems to have a gained a position of near unquestioned authority, which is not good for a free press, or free speech.
Imagine if The Sun had run an equivalent story, with an equivalent error, that had equivalent consequences.
Imagine if it had been the Daily Mail.
Kelvin Mackenzie rather succinctly summed up the whole thing in his performance/appearance before the Leveson inquiry on Monday, as the Guardian (oh, the irony,) reported:
“MacKenzie complained that if the Sun had hacked Tony Blair's mobile (not that it does that sort of thing) to prove his villainy over Iraq, its reporter would get six months – if the Guardian did it, the paper would win a Pulitzer prize.”
In fairness, perhaps it’s not just the Guardian. They are simply the worst example of a problem that is currently rife within the left wing and liberal commentariat, many of whose members seem content to be wannabe Polly Toynbees.
Others in this group (and I suppose I must include myself in it, as I certainly consider myself a liberal, if not a traditional left winger,) often hide behind the perception that our case is morally superior, and so we don’t have to make it properly. This has then been counteracted with an obsession with statistics (yes, I’m look at you Owen Jones and Mehdi Hasan,) which all adds up to a rather unpalatable self-righteousness, and a belief that nobody should argue against such views.
While I accept that the Guardian has found itself on a pedestal because the public buy the paper and have put it there, I think it’s time for all of us, wherever we fall on the political spectrum, to start questioning the level of influence afforded to one paper and its agenda.
Charlotte Henry blogs at Digital Politico. You can follow her on twitter at @charlotteahenry
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I take no pleasure in the demise of the power of the printed newspaper, but in the case of the Guardian it might be particularly painful. Whereas right wing titles offer opinion, understanding and accepting that not all will agree, the Guardian individually has for many years taken a stand of 'we are right there is no other stance' and increasingly this has led to extermist agendas being taken as suitable.
As a media analyst I fear the the effect of losing the accessible, totemic, well written news sources that paper versions provide. ask anyone under 21 how they get their news and the answer is that they choose, online of course. The purchase of a newspaper and the neccessity to go through it by physical action at least partly informs. As a youth flicking through the paper heading to music and sport, my eyes were often alerted by headlines to what else was happening in the world, online this effect is weakened.
But although the Guardian has an excellent online readership, increasingly I feel that this will be for those who can be bothered to hunt it out, no longer a choice of 1 in 7 to have on the breakfast table. Of course in theory this should happen to all national titles, but in practice the Guardian has had more influence than it should, simply because it has been an unthinking lifestyle choice and this has resulted in arrogance, not helped by using columnists whose views are to be frank sometimes by any measurement, rather suspect.
All that said, if I worked on the editorial staff there, the temptation to shaft NI would be very strong, but stones and glass houses do spring to mind
“People” don’t buy Guardian.
In fact its circulation is plummeting – it has the lowest circulation after the Indie; Mail and The Sun sell ten times as many copies, it is haemorrhaging money and there is a good possibility that it may soon have to charge for their online copy – which will deplete its readership even more.
The thing is that it is read by the “right” people: the chattering classes, mejia people, the la-di-da Champagne socialists, lefty politicians, feminists, councillors and teachers. In other words people who make the most noise.
Also, they and their views appear popular because BBC is the mouth piece of this newspaper. It is for nothing that BBC News is described as Guardian News Channel.
They appear all over like a bad rash.
Very nicely done. Though you forgot aggression. If there's one thing Mehdi Hasan likes more than statistics, it's ad hominem, snarling attacks and childish retorts.
What a load of self-righteaous bunkum. Not to mention serious oversights such as the smugness that prevails in every newspaper.
I don't know why Henry even bothers trying to be smart since she seems incapable of realising that her take on a subject completely undermines the point she wants to make. I call that just plain dumb. And she can't even spell names properly! It looks to me like we have one very jealous young lady here venting some spleen because she's still a famous unknown. Get over it.
i think Polly Toynbee serves a serious social purpose. It gives the delusional in our society a benchmark to aim for. Seriously, the guardian can talk sense ... the problem is it does it far too rarely and is bound by the worst kind of tribal politics. Its CiF pages do make for amusing reading especially when the irony of their statements pass them by ... 150 hippies camping outside a big church = the 99% 100,000 sign a petition = safe to ignore since the little people arent smart enough to know what they want until we tell them.
'What a load of self-righteaous bunkum' seems an odd way to counter the not so outrageous view that what is being capitalised upon in some quarters is a sense of superiority based on long past glory. And then, failing which, ad hom as a substitute for argument. A little bit of CiF for these pages. Only without the modding... 'for the sake of the community'. But as nifty a point prover as could be wished.
'BBC is the mouth piece of this newspaper'
Certainly its editorial, and editors, do seem accorded an awful lot of airtime given the less than stellar numbers they represent as kindly highlighted by James Morrison.
It always makes me ponder further the accuracy of the BBC's claim to 'speak for the public'. And if not, then who?
Julia, I think the first half of TBT's comment is pointing out the irony in what Felix has written.I'm sure Felix will be back to explain his own smug self-righteous twaddle.
I used to be a Guardian reader, but I went off it a bit because it is a little bit smug and predictable. That said, the article above is a hatful of tosh. Most of the criticisms could be levelled at other newspapers. The Daily Mail is extraordinarily self-righteous. Richard Littlejohn and Rod Liddle love nothing more than ad hominem attacks. The Express is a nasty little rag these days. The idea that one of the worst selling newspapers in Britain has a stranglehold on our national debate is just silly. When the right is ascendant in the media and politically, it feels worryingly like part of a victimhood fantasy. If you don't like it, just don't buy it.
Anyone who uses a quote by Kelvin Mackenzie to further their argument, immediately loses that argument.
The Guardian has recently published articles by Tim Montgomerie and John Bolton, hardly closet commies. No newspaper publishes articles which encompass such a diverse range of opinions, in direct opposition to its typical political stance.
If you want to talk about morality in the media, the Daily Mail/Sun/NOTW/Daily telegraph would give you a much richer vein to tap, but then that wouldn't suit your agenda would it?
I dont see the irony of the Guardian printing Kelvin Mckenzie's comment, its simply an example of balanced reporting isnt it?
Quite. Doesn't the fact that they published criticism of themselves by Mackenzie reflect rather well on them?
Unfortunately there are few. if any, serious newspapers today. Articles are referred to as 'stories' and that is what they are, stories espousing the opinion of the journalist rather than facts. When I was young the Times was considered the bastion of the British press, now it is no better than a tabloid. As for the Guardian, it is just a propaganda machine for left wing intellectuals
So, the Guardian cost 300 people their jobs at NOTW, based on false information and driven by a visceral hatred of Murdoch.
One wonders whether or not any of the journos who remain unemployed after their redundancy payments have expired would like to sue Rusbridger and the GMG. I know I would, especially if Murdoch was to state that the breaking of the Dowler story directly predicated his decision to shut down NOTW.
On a connected issue, the silence from GMG on the misdemeanours of the Mirror Group which were just as bad says all you need to know about the Guardian............shame, the sports and arts pages are excellent.
News International admitted hacking Milly Dowler's mailbox. Whether any NoTW journalist deliberately deleted any messages is really pretty minor. The unfortunates lost their jobs in a desperate attempt to protect those people who oversaw an organisation that HACKED and considered a missing schoolgirl a legitimate target.
"While I accept that the Guardian has found itself on a pedestal because the public buy the paper and have put it there"
- I think you should check the latest sales figures for the Guardian. Sales of 226,473 for November (a drop of 16.30%) put it 10th in the circulation list.
It is losing around £1million per week, and the sooner it goes out of business, the better!
That it has any position of prominence now is purely down to the BBC and its totally inbalanced use of its journalists for additional commentary on stories.
Apparently it (The Guardian) has had to issue 38 apologies over "misleading" stories (read lies) in relation to phone hacking as both it, and the BBC went on a Murdoch witch-hunt.
Incidently note the near silence from the BBC over the latest arrest of someone from the police over alledgedly leaking information to journalists. Given the Guardian (and therefore the BBC) were consistently first to announce information which should have only been privy to the police, there's no guessing where this leads, but the silence will be deafening.
In a hypocritical industry, The Guardian reigns supreme.
Should I mention its vocal abhorrence of hedge funds - whilst its completely reliant on them to stay in business, or its campaigns to stamp out tax avoidance - whilst its holding company pays precisely zero tax in the UK...