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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 ha

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 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.
- erichurkman 8y ago
  The big issue with opinion sections is in the era of newspapers, it was obvious you're reading the opinion section. You might get a tease on page 1 to "Read Bill Clinton's views on Bernie Sanders' presidential chances on page 4" but it was clearly in the Opinion section, separated from 'real' news. In the era of online news, opinion sections are blended with news. Even The Guardian falls prey to this: go to https://www.theguardian.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/. Click the Opinion tab. Click any of the opinion pieces. The primary navigation reverts to having 'News' highlighted. Worse, in reader/mobile view modes, the label "Opinion" does not show anywhere.
  - OJFord 8y ago
    Fwiw, The Times doesn't do this, even in the app. It's not a great app, but the one thing it gets right is behaving quite like a newspaper - even down to navigation to select which of the past 6 days' (plus today's) editions you'd like! (What it gets really wrong, and refuses to accept is a bug every time I report it, is that when the edition updates at 9am/noon/5pm/midnight if you have an article open it randomly jumps to a completely different article that now occupies the spot on which you clicked to open the initial one.)
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    Are we seeing the same site? I see that Opinion is still highlights in the tabs, it says "Opinion" in orange, and that's on mobile. The background is pale pink, but that's more subtle. https://ibb.co/W5PzZRb https://ibb.co/W5PzZRb
chrisseaton 8y ago
> and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?) Because when you go into every news story already convinced that the left are in the right in a given situation then your reporting is compromised.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  No paper is strictly objective and it's not supposed to be. I think that's completely fine as long as the direction is clear and the reporting is accurate. On the other side of the spectrum we would have, for example, The Wall Street Journal. While I personally believe that some of their opinion writers are even worse than some of The Guardian's opinion writers there's no doubt that The Journal delivers some stellar world class journalism. Or would you apply a different standard there?
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I think people can at least try not to bring their bias to work, or failing that actively declare that your reporting is designed to campaign for a particular politics. The Guardian doesn’t even attempt that. They approach reporting like an angry anonymous Twitter account.
    - Emma_Goldman 8y ago
      There is no such thing as impartial journalism. You have to select and interpret events. You cannot but do so from a particular perspective. The Guardian does a far better job than most newspapers at upholding accuracy in their writing. They don't lie to or manipulate their readers.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - chrisseaton 8y ago
        How come for example the Times manages to include opinion pieces by views across the political spectrum and the Guardian doesn’t? The Guardian don’t even pretend to be trying.
cosmodisk 8y ago
While obviously it is much better than the likes of Daily Mail,it is still far far from being really good. A lot of articles are often opinionated and present journalist's opinion in a much stronger way than the facts themselves. Also,there are many poorly researched articles,where one feels that the journalist is clearly out of his/her depth..It's very similar ro Stacey Dooley,who covers amazing subjects, however the questions asked are like something you'd expect from 6th grade school journalism contest...

olivermarks 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.

erichurkman 8y ago
The big issue with opinion sections is in the era of newspapers, it was obvious you're reading the opinion section. You might get a tease on page 1 to "Read Bill Clinton's views on Bernie Sanders' presidential chances on page 4" but it was clearly in the Opinion section, separated from 'real' news. In the era of online news, opinion sections are blended with news. Even The Guardian falls prey to this: go to https://www.theguardian.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/. Click the Opinion tab. Click any of the opinion pieces. The primary navigation reverts to having 'News' highlighted. Worse, in reader/mobile view modes, the label "Opinion" does not show anywhere.
- OJFord 8y ago
  Fwiw, The Times doesn't do this, even in the app. It's not a great app, but the one thing it gets right is behaving quite like a newspaper - even down to navigation to select which of the past 6 days' (plus today's) editions you'd like! (What it gets really wrong, and refuses to accept is a bug every time I report it, is that when the edition updates at 9am/noon/5pm/midnight if you have an article open it randomly jumps to a completely different article that now occupies the spot on which you clicked to open the initial one.)
- Symbiote 8y ago
  Are we seeing the same site? I see that Opinion is still highlights in the tabs, it says "Opinion" in orange, and that's on mobile. The background is pale pink, but that's more subtle. https://ibb.co/W5PzZRb https://ibb.co/W5PzZRb

chrisseaton 8y ago

> and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?) Because when you go into every news story already convinced that the left are in the right in a given situation then your reporting is compromised.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
No paper is strictly objective and it's not supposed to be. I think that's completely fine as long as the direction is clear and the reporting is accurate. On the other side of the spectrum we would have, for example, The Wall Street Journal. While I personally believe that some of their opinion writers are even worse than some of The Guardian's opinion writers there's no doubt that The Journal delivers some stellar world class journalism. Or would you apply a different standard there?
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I think people can at least try not to bring their bias to work, or failing that actively declare that your reporting is designed to campaign for a particular politics. The Guardian doesn’t even attempt that. They approach reporting like an angry anonymous Twitter account.
  - Emma_Goldman 8y ago
    There is no such thing as impartial journalism. You have to select and interpret events. You cannot but do so from a particular perspective. The Guardian does a far better job than most newspapers at upholding accuracy in their writing. They don't lie to or manipulate their readers.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      How come for example the Times manages to include opinion pieces by views across the political spectrum and the Guardian doesn’t? The Guardian don’t even pretend to be trying.

cosmodisk 8y ago

While obviously it is much better than the likes of Daily Mail,it is still far far from being really good. A lot of articles are often opinionated and present journalist's opinion in a much stronger way than the facts themselves. Also,there are many poorly researched articles,where one feels that the journalist is clearly out of his/her depth..It's very similar ro Stacey Dooley,who covers amazing subjects, however the questions asked are like something you'd expect from 6th grade school journalism contest...