9 ms·

That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors. I would

That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors. I would pay £5/month to the Guardian and be happy for them to take a 30% administrative cut if they ring fenced the rest for writers I want to support. The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. Only experimenting with democratisation of commissioning and hiring is going to break it out of the nepotist trap it has fallen into.

zoul 9y ago
> The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. What makes you say that?
calcifer 9y ago
> The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. > nepotist trap it has fallen into. Would you care to elaborate on these a little bit? I'm a long time supporter of Guardian and this is the first time I've seen a nepotism complaint.
- gadders 9y ago
  I guess it's Alan Rusbridger employing his wife and daughter: http://www.anorak.co.uk/393065/reviews/nepotism-watch-the-guardians-rusbridger-mackie-family-are-looking-for-comment.html/ http://www.anorak.co.uk/393065/reviews/nepotism-watch-the-gu...
  - calcifer 9y ago
    Nice find, thank you. If this is true, the Guardian should definitely address it. I'll probably write to them myself after investigating a bit.
  - 0898 9y ago
    OT: Are you the same gadders who used to hang out on the Popbitch board?
    - gadders 9y ago
      Yes, but I left that life behind. You had the same username there?
      - 0898 9y ago
        Kind of. I'm not the 0898 from Popbitch. I just stole their handle on Hackernews.
        gadders 9y ago
        What was your popbitch handle then?
monksy 9y ago
I would agree with the concept of only supporting the writers that you like. I used to like the Guardian because they had good journalism. However, the opinion pieces are absolutely atrocious and detract the quality of the paper. For example, there was an article in my google now articles recommended from the guardian that was "Milo Yiannopolous has huge support in Australia, men must call him out."
- calcifer 9y ago
  That opinion piece is titled "If Milo Yiannopoulos has huge support in Australia, men must call him out". I wasn't aware of the article before your post, but now that I've read it, I don't see anything controversial (much less "atrocious") in it. Care to elaborate?
  - te_chris 9y ago
    Some men feel weirdly threatened by the possibility of a world where their less than stellar behaviour towards women might be called out. Every comment like the one you're replying to is the same "I loved X until they lost all credibility and became biased by Y" where Y = calling out shitty MRA/Alt-right activist figures.
    - monksy 9y ago
      Nice try at attempting to slander my character or political stances: but no dice for you. This isn't about my own personal stances. It's about the publication and if you can call it news. I'm really not sure where the MRA or comments on women came from in my original comment. The Guardian (And the BBC) used to my main source for international news, and cultural trends until about 2012ish. That's when they started heavily featuring columnists that put out articles similar to the one that I mentioned. I wrote a letter to an editor with a concern, it got ignored. I stopped taking them seriously (as a whole) and reading as a primary source.
      - thewarrior 9y ago
        I don't get what you're saying at all . Publishing opinion pieces that advance a socio-economic agenda is one of the things I expect of a news paper. If you don't agree with it you can disagree with it in the comments, write a letter to the editor, or stop reading. But I like opinion pieces.
ChrisSD 9y ago
Ring fencing a percentage for specific authors sounds like a good idea but in practice you end up giving a portion of editorial control to wealthy donors. This is not good for any independent news media.
- caoilte 9y ago
  Theyre already doing that with the sponsored content section and some really worrying companies (eg Facebook). Individual contributions towards specific causes could very easily be capped if they were worried about distortion. In practice, as the UK Labour party has shown - create the right structures and you can drive out mega donors. The UK Labour party has gone from majority funded by millionaires to majority funded by small donors. The guardian could very easily take up the same democratic clarion call. But they don't want to.
gadders 9y ago
The Scott Trust was created to avoid the paying of inheritance tax.
vanderZwan 9y ago
> That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors. They undoubtedly keep track of which articles generate most clicks. Then again, clicks are a terrible metric.

zoul 9y ago

> The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. What makes you say that?

calcifer 9y ago

> The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. > nepotist trap it has fallen into. Would you care to elaborate on these a little bit? I'm a long time supporter of Guardian and this is the first time I've seen a nepotism complaint.

gadders 9y ago
I guess it's Alan Rusbridger employing his wife and daughter: http://www.anorak.co.uk/393065/reviews/nepotism-watch-the-guardians-rusbridger-mackie-family-are-looking-for-comment.html/ http://www.anorak.co.uk/393065/reviews/nepotism-watch-the-gu...
- calcifer 9y ago
  Nice find, thank you. If this is true, the Guardian should definitely address it. I'll probably write to them myself after investigating a bit.
- 0898 9y ago
  OT: Are you the same gadders who used to hang out on the Popbitch board?
  - gadders 9y ago
    Yes, but I left that life behind. You had the same username there?
    - 0898 9y ago
      Kind of. I'm not the 0898 from Popbitch. I just stole their handle on Hackernews.
      - gadders 9y ago
        What was your popbitch handle then?

monksy 9y ago

I would agree with the concept of only supporting the writers that you like. I used to like the Guardian because they had good journalism. However, the opinion pieces are absolutely atrocious and detract the quality of the paper. For example, there was an article in my google now articles recommended from the guardian that was "Milo Yiannopolous has huge support in Australia, men must call him out."

calcifer 9y ago
That opinion piece is titled "If Milo Yiannopoulos has huge support in Australia, men must call him out". I wasn't aware of the article before your post, but now that I've read it, I don't see anything controversial (much less "atrocious") in it. Care to elaborate?
- te_chris 9y ago
  Some men feel weirdly threatened by the possibility of a world where their less than stellar behaviour towards women might be called out. Every comment like the one you're replying to is the same "I loved X until they lost all credibility and became biased by Y" where Y = calling out shitty MRA/Alt-right activist figures.
  - monksy 9y ago
    Nice try at attempting to slander my character or political stances: but no dice for you. This isn't about my own personal stances. It's about the publication and if you can call it news. I'm really not sure where the MRA or comments on women came from in my original comment. The Guardian (And the BBC) used to my main source for international news, and cultural trends until about 2012ish. That's when they started heavily featuring columnists that put out articles similar to the one that I mentioned. I wrote a letter to an editor with a concern, it got ignored. I stopped taking them seriously (as a whole) and reading as a primary source.
    - thewarrior 9y ago
      I don't get what you're saying at all . Publishing opinion pieces that advance a socio-economic agenda is one of the things I expect of a news paper. If you don't agree with it you can disagree with it in the comments, write a letter to the editor, or stop reading. But I like opinion pieces.

ChrisSD 9y ago

Ring fencing a percentage for specific authors sounds like a good idea but in practice you end up giving a portion of editorial control to wealthy donors. This is not good for any independent news media.

caoilte 9y ago
Theyre already doing that with the sponsored content section and some really worrying companies (eg Facebook). Individual contributions towards specific causes could very easily be capped if they were worried about distortion. In practice, as the UK Labour party has shown - create the right structures and you can drive out mega donors. The UK Labour party has gone from majority funded by millionaires to majority funded by small donors. The guardian could very easily take up the same democratic clarion call. But they don't want to.

gadders 9y ago

The Scott Trust was created to avoid the paying of inheritance tax.

vanderZwan 9y ago

> That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors. They undoubtedly keep track of which articles generate most clicks. Then again, clicks are a terrible metric.