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>'The Guardian has proven to be one of the few sources of reliable, in-depth reporting on the Brexit shambles.' In many ways, The Guardian is a remarkable pape

>'The Guardian has proven to be one of the few sources of reliable, in-depth reporting on the Brexit shambles.' In many ways, The Guardian is a remarkable paper. It does not publish falsehoods, or - for the most part - appeal to the worst in people. It is committed to the defence of civil liberties, and to ensuring that journalism is open to everyone, regardless of their income. But it's coverage of Brexit is highly partisan. It is not unreliable in the sense of being inaccurate; it is simply one side of the conversation.

duxup 7y ago
To be clear I'm not targeting you with the following comment. > highly partisan I don't know what anyone means by that anymore. I'll see people cite such things but and then they'll state "look at the front page now" and list articles. As if the front page has to have two or more opposite articles for every topic, or a paper must provide a ying to every yang (and possibly proportionately) like we can't handle it if we don't see our POV explicitly cited anymore... This is really more of a side rant, for all I know I would entirely agree with your statement if I read the guardian more.
- Emma_Goldman 7y ago
  I'll give you a clear-cut example: Whenever anyone calls on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party to support a second referendum, they will publish it on the front page of their website. They are trying to amplify those voices which agree with their position - to reverse Brexit, or at least engineer a soft Brexit. They do not give those voices in and around the Labour Party which oppose a second referendum a hearing.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Would not the call for a referendum maybe be a bigger deal than the status quo? Just for arguments sake here.
    - Emma_Goldman 7y ago
      What's the status quo? Surely it's not the Labour Party. They are in opposition. They oppose May's deal. And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee. In terms of opinion, the left is split between those who want to reverse Brexit, and those who don't. The former is the dominant position among metropolitan areas, the professions, the better-off, and in London in particular. In that sense The Guardian is reinforcing the dominant outlook of liberal opinion-makers; the one that already finds most voice in public debate.
      - duxup 7y ago
        I wish I read it enough to discuss it deeper, but I really don't. I do often wonder if if folks describe the "right" way to cover things if that would be the least bit flexible / allow for anything they don't like beyond a % of coverage or whatever measurement they use.
      - m_t 7y ago
        > And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee. But don't they do that already? I've seen JRM quotes in every brexit live feed on The Guardian.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      It might be news, but then framing matters. Is it described the way a scandal is described? This is akin to losing an election and refusing to step down. If Trump loses in 2020 and starts making claims that voters didn't understand the consequences of their vote and demands another election be held, do you think the headline would be as tepid as the ones describing calls for a new referendum? I'm not from the UK, and didn't support Brexit, but democracy is literally at stake here. If Brexit doesn't happen, at least in my opinion, the mirage of democracy in Britain is lost.
      - NLips 7y ago
  - rat87 7y ago
    That's not partisan that's idealogical Partisanship means supporting one party, you're describing ideology supporting a decision
Freak_NL 7y ago
Newspapers are inherently partisan; that's fine, as long as the reader knows what they stand for. You can have a political signature, yet perform fairly objective journalism.
- Emma_Goldman 7y ago
  I agree that there's no escaping partisanship. But a paper will have a stronger editorial line on some issues, than others. The Guardian have an almost totally one-sided line on Brexit. I do not agree that there is such a thing as 'objective journalism'. There is accurate journalism: a commitment to not telling falsehoods. But how your select and interpret events is never 'objective' - it is partisan.
CaptainZapp 7y ago
I'm an avid reader of The Guardian and donate 50EUR a year. Of course it's partisan on Brexit (as is The Economist, btw) and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?) That said, I think it's one of the few remaining quality papers in the UK, which provides overall accurate reporting. What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section. But that's fine too. If it's too crack-pottery I'm alsways free to ignore it. Their Long Read section[1], though, is fantastic long form journalism and that alone justifies my yearly donation. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read EDIT : Slight clarification
- olivermarks 7y ago
  I'd suggest the Guardian has more of a neo liberal 'slant' rather than a 'left wing' one. They completely ignore that the Labour party has always been very sceptical about the EU for example and are all in on retaining the status quo around the current EU organization. There is no critical writing about it there. They also ignore the left of the Labour party. 'The Full Brexit' for example. https://www.thefullbrexit.com/about https://www.thefullbrexit.com/about
  - notahacker 7y ago
    It's funny you say that, because the same Chris Bickerton articulating the fringe view that true left wingers should get behind the leader of the Conservative Party's proposed Brexit deal at the other end of your link is also to be found expressing the same view in Guardian comment pieces... The Guardian has many arguable faults, but not finding webspace for rather niche left wing schools of thought isn't one of them.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  > What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section. Absolutely. Opinion pieces in a newspaper are not meant to represent the view of the paper, or even to pretend to be objective; they are by definition opinionated and form an essential part of the public debate. A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of opinion pieces and letters from readers. A good newspaper balances the opinion pieces placed, and will leave out obvious falsehoods.
olivermarks 7y ago
I agree, the Guardian is highly partisan. I look at it most days as it has a very clear position. What I find surprising is that many people who share the Guardian view of the world think it is impartial, where in actuality they are crowd funding an echo chamber of belief reinforcement. I feel the quality of their writing has gone way down in the last few years, with far too many judgmental opEds dominating.
billfruit 7y ago
Its coverage of the Labour party is also very partisan, very anti-Corbyn. I also wonder the free model, dependent on ads and donations are leading the Guardian to have more click-bait articles than would a subscription paper. Also their football coverage looks as if written by Manchester United fanboys.
dtf 7y ago
On Brexit: it's worth noting that Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, is a long time Eurosceptic and committed supporter of Brexit. He regularly pens pro-Brexit articles in an otherwise largely Remain-slanted paper (although obviously he's coming from a Lexiteer angle), and this amusingly confuses many Guardian readers in the comments. On Falsehoods: as far as I know, Luke Harding's scoop on Manafort meeting Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy has not been stood up, and seems to have gone quiet. While not a deliberate falsehood, this is an embarrassing misfire. But I do agree it's a remarkable paper, one I'm happy to contribute to.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
"It does not publish falsehoods, or - for the most part - appeal to the worst in people. " Bias, fawning, highlighting some to the detriment of others is 'falsehood'. The Guardian does this quite a lot. The best example of the problem with the Graun and their type of news is their historical coverage of Hugo Chavez, and to some extent Maduro, which has put this in perspective for me. Chavez and Maduro are exactly the kind of people we should fear: they appeal to ostensibly 'positive things' like 'food for the people' - and they can do some of that when handed Oil wealth - but in reality of course they are just greedy, violent, corrupt, populist megalomaniacs, that literally destroy entire nations. (This is part of the grand political deception carried out largely in the last century in countless nations.) Though the G's view on Chavismo has softened by 2018, the problem is they were huge supporters of him early on. They were big believers in the construction of what we now can see as a fairly ruthless, authoritarian strong-man style dictatorship. The Guardian et. al. were firmly in the Chavismo flag-waiving camp for a better par of a decade, and helped him construct his narrative. The 'data' is hard to contradict in 2018, but it was pretty clear back in 2009 that there were terrible things afoot that the Guardian really didn't seem to be concerned about. This is the problem with the kind of coverage offered by the G, and why it's 'just another source'. Some contemporary views of Chavismo from the past: "Hugo Chávez showed that the west's ways aren't always best" (2013) [1] Some really funny and sad fawning with the facts, that we only understand in retrospect: "https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data" https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezu... [2] "Hugo Chávez kept his promise to the people of Venezuela" [3] "Hugo Chávez: an unfinished revolution" [4] (note this is an Editorial) Here is a detailed articulation (local Venezuelan source) specifically about the Guardian's recent misrepresentations. Should note - this article is probably biased, but there are some facts in here. [5] [1] (2013) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/mar/11/hugo-chavez-west-ways-not-best https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezu... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hugo-chavez-people-venezuelan-president https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hugo-c... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/hugo-chavez-unfinished-revolution-editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/hugo-c... [5] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13269 https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13269
maximus1983 7y ago
I totally disagree. The Guardian has outright lied about people I have personally spoken to. They also constantly call people Alt-Right. I actually emailed them about them calling people Alt-Right (which is a very specific meaning these days) and they wouldn't give me a definition, which means they don't know what it means. There are events that I was either a part of that they have lied about by carefully omitting the truth or using the good old scare quotes. Their opinion pieces are written by awful hypocrites that constantly demand increasing censorship of the internet in the UK. It looks like their e-begging has worked. I was hoping it was going to go under. BTW. I generally hate all the press in the UK. This includes both left wing and the right wing rags. They all lie or misrepresent the truth when it suits their narrative.
mruts 7y ago
Is this a joke? Guardian is one of the most biased far-left papers in existence. They report falsehoods all the time. One off the top of my head is how they were claiming that high frequency trading was bad for mom and pops. I'm a finance person, so this individual article stuck out to me.

duxup 7y ago

To be clear I'm not targeting you with the following comment. > highly partisan I don't know what anyone means by that anymore. I'll see people cite such things but and then they'll state "look at the front page now" and list articles. As if the front page has to have two or more opposite articles for every topic, or a paper must provide a ying to every yang (and possibly proportionately) like we can't handle it if we don't see our POV explicitly cited anymore... This is really more of a side rant, for all I know I would entirely agree with your statement if I read the guardian more.

Emma_Goldman 7y ago
I'll give you a clear-cut example: Whenever anyone calls on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party to support a second referendum, they will publish it on the front page of their website. They are trying to amplify those voices which agree with their position - to reverse Brexit, or at least engineer a soft Brexit. They do not give those voices in and around the Labour Party which oppose a second referendum a hearing.
- duxup 7y ago
  Would not the call for a referendum maybe be a bigger deal than the status quo? Just for arguments sake here.
  - Emma_Goldman 7y ago
    What's the status quo? Surely it's not the Labour Party. They are in opposition. They oppose May's deal. And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee. In terms of opinion, the left is split between those who want to reverse Brexit, and those who don't. The former is the dominant position among metropolitan areas, the professions, the better-off, and in London in particular. In that sense The Guardian is reinforcing the dominant outlook of liberal opinion-makers; the one that already finds most voice in public debate.
    - duxup 7y ago
      I wish I read it enough to discuss it deeper, but I really don't. I do often wonder if if folks describe the "right" way to cover things if that would be the least bit flexible / allow for anything they don't like beyond a % of coverage or whatever measurement they use.
    - m_t 7y ago
      > And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee. But don't they do that already? I've seen JRM quotes in every brexit live feed on The Guardian.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    It might be news, but then framing matters. Is it described the way a scandal is described? This is akin to losing an election and refusing to step down. If Trump loses in 2020 and starts making claims that voters didn't understand the consequences of their vote and demands another election be held, do you think the headline would be as tepid as the ones describing calls for a new referendum? I'm not from the UK, and didn't support Brexit, but democracy is literally at stake here. If Brexit doesn't happen, at least in my opinion, the mirage of democracy in Britain is lost.
    - NLips 7y ago
- rat87 7y ago
  That's not partisan that's idealogical Partisanship means supporting one party, you're describing ideology supporting a decision

Freak_NL 7y ago

Newspapers are inherently partisan; that's fine, as long as the reader knows what they stand for. You can have a political signature, yet perform fairly objective journalism.

Emma_Goldman 7y ago
I agree that there's no escaping partisanship. But a paper will have a stronger editorial line on some issues, than others. The Guardian have an almost totally one-sided line on Brexit. I do not agree that there is such a thing as 'objective journalism'. There is accurate journalism: a commitment to not telling falsehoods. But how your select and interpret events is never 'objective' - it is partisan.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

I'm an avid reader of The Guardian and donate 50EUR a year. Of course it's partisan on Brexit (as is The Economist, btw) and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?) That said, I think it's one of the few remaining quality papers in the UK, which provides overall accurate reporting. What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section. But that's fine too. If it's too crack-pottery I'm alsways free to ignore it. Their Long Read section[1], though, is fantastic long form journalism and that alone justifies my yearly donation. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read EDIT : Slight clarification

olivermarks 7y ago
I'd suggest the Guardian has more of a neo liberal 'slant' rather than a 'left wing' one. They completely ignore that the Labour party has always been very sceptical about the EU for example and are all in on retaining the status quo around the current EU organization. There is no critical writing about it there. They also ignore the left of the Labour party. 'The Full Brexit' for example. https://www.thefullbrexit.com/about https://www.thefullbrexit.com/about
- notahacker 7y ago
  It's funny you say that, because the same Chris Bickerton articulating the fringe view that true left wingers should get behind the leader of the Conservative Party's proposed Brexit deal at the other end of your link is also to be found expressing the same view in Guardian comment pieces... The Guardian has many arguable faults, but not finding webspace for rather niche left wing schools of thought isn't one of them.
Freak_NL 7y ago
> What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section. Absolutely. Opinion pieces in a newspaper are not meant to represent the view of the paper, or even to pretend to be objective; they are by definition opinionated and form an essential part of the public debate. A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of opinion pieces and letters from readers. A good newspaper balances the opinion pieces placed, and will leave out obvious falsehoods.

olivermarks 7y ago

I agree, the Guardian is highly partisan. I look at it most days as it has a very clear position. What I find surprising is that many people who share the Guardian view of the world think it is impartial, where in actuality they are crowd funding an echo chamber of belief reinforcement. I feel the quality of their writing has gone way down in the last few years, with far too many judgmental opEds dominating.

billfruit 7y ago

Its coverage of the Labour party is also very partisan, very anti-Corbyn. I also wonder the free model, dependent on ads and donations are leading the Guardian to have more click-bait articles than would a subscription paper. Also their football coverage looks as if written by Manchester United fanboys.

dtf 7y ago

On Brexit: it's worth noting that Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, is a long time Eurosceptic and committed supporter of Brexit. He regularly pens pro-Brexit articles in an otherwise largely Remain-slanted paper (although obviously he's coming from a Lexiteer angle), and this amusingly confuses many Guardian readers in the comments. On Falsehoods: as far as I know, Luke Harding's scoop on Manafort meeting Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy has not been stood up, and seems to have gone quiet. While not a deliberate falsehood, this is an embarrassing misfire. But I do agree it's a remarkable paper, one I'm happy to contribute to.

sonnyblarney 7y ago

"It does not publish falsehoods, or - for the most part - appeal to the worst in people. " Bias, fawning, highlighting some to the detriment of others is 'falsehood'. The Guardian does this quite a lot. The best example of the problem with the Graun and their type of news is their historical coverage of Hugo Chavez, and to some extent Maduro, which has put this in perspective for me. Chavez and Maduro are exactly the kind of people we should fear: they appeal to ostensibly 'positive things' like 'food for the people' - and they can do some of that when handed Oil wealth - but in reality of course they are just greedy, violent, corrupt, populist megalomaniacs, that literally destroy entire nations. (This is part of the grand political deception carried out largely in the last century in countless nations.) Though the G's view on Chavismo has softened by 2018, the problem is they were huge supporters of him early on. They were big believers in the construction of what we now can see as a fairly ruthless, authoritarian strong-man style dictatorship. The Guardian et. al. were firmly in the Chavismo flag-waiving camp for a better par of a decade, and helped him construct his narrative. The 'data' is hard to contradict in 2018, but it was pretty clear back in 2009 that there were terrible things afoot that the Guardian really didn't seem to be concerned about. This is the problem with the kind of coverage offered by the G, and why it's 'just another source'. Some contemporary views of Chavismo from the past: "Hugo Chávez showed that the west's ways aren't always best" (2013) [1] Some really funny and sad fawning with the facts, that we only understand in retrospect: "https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data" https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezu... [2] "Hugo Chávez kept his promise to the people of Venezuela" [3] "Hugo Chávez: an unfinished revolution" [4] (note this is an Editorial) Here is a detailed articulation (local Venezuelan source) specifically about the Guardian's recent misrepresentations. Should note - this article is probably biased, but there are some facts in here. [5] [1] (2013) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/mar/11/hugo-chavez-west-ways-not-best https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezu... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hugo-chavez-people-venezuelan-president https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hugo-c... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/hugo-chavez-unfinished-revolution-editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/hugo-c... [5] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13269 https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13269

maximus1983 7y ago

I totally disagree. The Guardian has outright lied about people I have personally spoken to. They also constantly call people Alt-Right. I actually emailed them about them calling people Alt-Right (which is a very specific meaning these days) and they wouldn't give me a definition, which means they don't know what it means. There are events that I was either a part of that they have lied about by carefully omitting the truth or using the good old scare quotes. Their opinion pieces are written by awful hypocrites that constantly demand increasing censorship of the internet in the UK. It looks like their e-begging has worked. I was hoping it was going to go under. BTW. I generally hate all the press in the UK. This includes both left wing and the right wing rags. They all lie or misrepresent the truth when it suits their narrative.

mruts 7y ago

Is this a joke? Guardian is one of the most biased far-left papers in existence. They report falsehoods all the time. One off the top of my head is how they were claiming that high frequency trading was bad for mom and pops. I'm a finance person, so this individual article stuck out to me.