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And who are the Media Reform Coalition? Only one person is named on their website (Natalie Fenton). Of the two chairs I can find, both are Labour members. Schlosberg is firmly in the Corbyn camp. So on the face of it, the MRC are as open as to their funding sources and the people who work for them than the IEA or the TPA.
I don't think it's to do with an anti-capitalist argument. It's to do with brand spread. The Guardian doesn't sell a shitload of papers when compared to pretty much everyone out there but it does get around the world via social media and it's name is known. Paywalls do damage that spread. Look what happened when the Sun went for the paywall: views tanked and someone twigged that pages behind a paywall don't get retweeted and liked and shared on social media so the newspaper's influence dropped. As such, we got this:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/17/sun-political-site-sunnation
Which was actually a big success in terms of what it set out to do ie. to get plastered all over social media.
As dippy as the Graun can get on the feminist and SJW front, their work on Cambridge Analytica et al has been superb.
The uncomfortable truth is that it probably comes down to getting access to some form of quality journalism from a variety of prejudicial angles ;-)
I don't naturally find I correlate with any one party (and certainly not now that the big 2 have fractured so much)
In my youth I seemed to lean a bit centre-right, and now, as a generalisation more Liberal. Socially I'm more left, on defence, more right, on public spending evidence based as far as possible (in whomever's traditional direction that steers - I won't balk on principle so much), and on tax I'm a blubbering simpering lefty - I do believe in redistribution - so that's one principle I struggle to shed perhaps.
Which paper writes to that? :-)
I’ve no doubt it’s possible to find a report damning any of the three quality dailies, but next time you’ve got the chance try all three - in terms of the way the actual news is reported there’s less difference than you’d think. Obviously each has their own drum to bang, but the other 80% is fairly similar once you’ve removed the political slant. Sometimes the slant is by omission which is why it’s interesting to read one that doesn’t sit squarely with your politics, if only to see what your favourite has neglected to mention
The Telegraph’s Parliamentary sketch writer Michael Deacon is poisonous and often very funny, much like his oppo John Crace at the Graun.
So, er, no thank you.
Also assumes that the end of that service would be the end of all sevices of that type.
Edit: also would not be free if I contributed.
Not sure if you mean end of it being free or end of the service. Apologies if I am being thick.
I think you are misunderstanding the business model. The model is not and never has been that it is free. Being an independent newspaper is expensive which is why their are a variety of subscription models available for both print and digital. As a print newspaper it was always an expensive option, I think it is currently £2 weekdays and more on a Saturday.
I personally can't see any reason or moral justification why anyone who values the product enough to read it almost everyday and who could afford to pay a subscription would not do so.
Edit: snark is not needed. Bad HFD.
For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian – and it only takes a minute. Make a contribution. - Guardian HQ
Follow the link:
Please enter at least £2
Edit: ok ok, that's the monthly contribution...there is a one off one pound option. Nothing to see here.
I wouldn't pay for the Guardian, its not that good. A lot of the writing is poor, partisan, and a bit immature. It is so blinkered in its politics too, which I find annoying. Its not that I disagree with their left leaning, but its more about how much their reporting is tinted by their politics. Its not uncommon to find that articles are very stilted. Its like the Daily Mail for the left wing in a lot of respects.
I find it tiresome, in the same way I find the Mail/Express/Telegraph tiresome. I can form my own opinions. Just report the facts, not over politicised guff.
The Times is another frustrating paper, particularly the Sunday Times, which has become increasingly more sensationalist. Used to be I'd enjoy reading the Sunday Times for the sport, travel, culture supplements, the good articles in the magazine to. Most of that has gone down the tubes.
Guardian is pretty good for culture/arts etc, but even that is so bleeding billy right on, you kind of know what they are going to favour.
If a paper gives people the option of paying on the understanding that
– It can’t survive in its current form without funding from users
– But feels an obligation to make its content available to those who can’t afford to pay (The greater good and all that…)
then any reader in a position to pay who doesn’t (who treats the service as free) has to be comfortable with the idea that the paper might not be around for very long or that it might be forced to change in ways that are undesirable.
If for whatever reason the Guardian went under, there would be other places the OP could go for reporting and opinion, but he’s said he values the paper so it makes sense to me that he should pay for it.
I doubt there are many reading the Guardian who can't afford to pay. But I realise this is a majority world view as I subscibe to the New Internationalist and that trumps any Guardian contribution anyone might make. Especially as I don't even read it anymore. It's passed on before it even hits the mat meaning my contribution also makes it free to those who won't pay.
It now seems aimed more at wealthy Clinton supporting liberals in the US particularly since Viner became editor a couple of years ago. Today's Guardian is a mish mash of all kinds of identity politics coupled with virulent Russophobia. IMO it was never that left wing but now it has clearly moved over to the other side as in many respects its coverage of international events is now often more hawkish than the traditional right wing press.
Added to an obvious anti Corbyn bias it is an agenda designed to alienate a large part of its traditional left of centre readership in the UK who find it irrelevant or downright offensive. In fact in certain sectors of the left there is a growing campaign to actively boycott the Guardian.