The Guardian is unafraid. And it’s independent. (No billionaire bosses.) In this media climate, those qualities are as rare as they are crucial to good journalism.
The Guardian is still owned. Is still subject to groupthink from those owners. There’s near no subject where we don’t know what The Guardian will say about it. It’s just that the owners, the groupthink, are effectively the collective that run The Guardian. This really isn’t very different.
This also means that The Graun can’t change its mind.
If there is no ‘guiding force’ of an owner to appoint a new editor that will alter course, then it will be doomed to sail the Seven Seas as its readership dwindles away.
Now I mentioned this the other day. The new owner of the Speccie has appointed Gove as editor. So I will not read it again while he is there.
Such things work for good and ill.
“There’s near no subject where we don’t know what The Guardian will say about it.”
There’s near no subject where The Guardian won’t get it ridiculously wrong.
“Media climate” ie the B&MGF massive subsidy of its environmental section which keeps the rag afloat.
@Arthur the Cat
There’s near no subject where The Guardian won’t get it ridiculously wrong.
Which makes it an endless source of fun. It’s also a handy way to quickly categorize people:
Do they read the Guardian?
Do the do so just for the shits and giggles?
That whole thing reads as the blurb I usually get under the articles begging for mo’ munneh!….
“Powerful forces” threatening the existence of the poor Guardian, bent on destroying it and the “Journalistic Freedom” they represent, etc…
Honestly… If it wasn’t standard under their articles, you’d think you’d be reading the output of a froth-mouthed conspiracy theorist.
Or maybe it is, you never know with the Graun..
The Graun to me typifies the Left’s attitude to diversity; We value diversity! Why isn’t everyone just like us!?!
The Guardian is unafraid
Translation:-
Things are going badly, are about to get a whole lot worse, and deep down we know that fewer and fewer people are going to believe our bullshit.
And it scares us. Bigly.
The Guardian gets millions in grants from Gates and the EU, and plenty more in ads from the government.
All built on tax avoidance… something something something… greedy millionaires … worth about £56m in todays money so £25m of tax avoided… that would pay for a lot of environmentally friendly gender diversity nurses and so on :
“The death of CP Scott and son Ted within three months of each other in 1932 brought a very real threat to the future independence of the Guardian.
The Inland Revenue would claim full death duties, or inheritance tax, in the event of John’s death and would mean the end of the Manchester Guardian as an independent liberal newspaper.
To prevent this, John renounced all financial benefit in the business for himself and his family by transferring all the ordinary shares in the company – a stake worth more than £1 million at the time – to a group of trustees. The Scott Trust became the owner of the Manchester Guardian.”
@Swanypol
I’m not sure The Guardian allows others the same leeway for tax avoidance for what they (those others) regard as noble reasons.
Also: ‘The Inland Revenue would claim full death duties, or inheritance tax, in the event of John’s death and would mean the end of the Manchester Guardian as an independent liberal newspaper.’
Tax law’s a bitch, and the government has a rapacious maw. Who knew? But even assuming this is true, what was stopping them starting up another?
My father had a tale about a wealthy family he had known in his younger days. The father was in late middle age and decided to avoid death duties by gifting much of his wealth to his son, expecting that if he, Dad, lived for seven years (or whatever the magic number then was) the money would be exempt.
Alas, the son soon died in a car crash, Dad inherited the money back again, and shortly after died of a broken heart. So death duties were payable three times.
Looking at the guardian today, there was nothing about the us election until page 24. I wonder they think she has lost and all joy had gone for them. On twitter the trumpers are talking of a landslide and which swing states they’ll take.
Like with a big match, we will get to see.