Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

See, I'd like to believe it had anthropological value but ... it just felt like Cameronite porn ... and the Guardian clearly saying it's fine to vote Conservative because a gay man and a novelist are going to.

Is it me, or is the Graun noticeabley and nakedly more partisan than it used to be, even by Graun standards? Am solid anti-Tory but this is ridiculous: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/mar/22/conservatives-cashgordon)

In the words of @wdjstraw: "Tory #cashgordon campaign brought to you by the team that tried to scupper US healthcare reform. #ToryFail"

Am I getting old or something?

I don't understand this board's hatred for Seumas Milne. A "menace"?? If only there were more journalists willing to uphold the argument for strong trade unionism like in this routinely excellent piece from last week...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/17/unions-attack-democracy-unite-ba

that piece is unexceptionable, but he's a huge ahmadinejad guy, defends stalin, etc.

^

^^

If only there were more journalists willing to uphold the argument for strong iranian leadership like in this routinely excellent piece from last year...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/18/iran-elections-us-foreign-policy

> Weekend magazine photo feature on Cameron supporters

that cover photo was my local candidate and i already see enough of his face on all the junk mail campaign literature he sends me.

the 'Video games: the addiction' article in the observer was quite poor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/21/tom-bissell-video-game-cocaine-addiction

mainly because the addiction was to cocaine.

Ugh, wtf have they done to their website?

to counter the general tone, zoe williams is killing it recently

Ugh, wtf have they done to their website?

― ears are wounds, Tuesday, March 30, 2010 5:01 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

but yes this is making me seasick. it's like they ran the NYT site through one of these:

http://images.veer.com/IMG/PIMG/MPP/1109739_P.JPG

the 'Video games: the addiction' article in the observer was quite poor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/21/tom-bissell-video-game-cocaine-addiction

mainly because the addiction was to cocaine.

― koogs, Monday, 22 March 2010 18:04 (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tbf this was a really good article with a stupid headline

This is the typo on the header and lede/standfirst RIGHT NOW:

Warning of more bombers as Moscow death toll rises
Officials say women who blew themselves, killing 39 people, could have been part of squad of up to 20

It's not terrible, and not exactly different, but I'm having a hard time trying to find the news on the homepage. Maybe the idea is to get you to click around the different sections.

From reading that gumpfy blog post about the redesign you'd have thought they'd have made it all ajaxy user-editable with customisable sections like the BBC homepage, or put a great stonking livestreaming video on there.

And for all their fuss about multimedia, god knows why it takes three clicks from the homepage to get to http://www.guardian.co.uk/audio

but yes this is making me seasick. it's like they ran the NYT site through one of these:

otm.

as long as they don't fuck w/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian

Also: shitty new advertising campaign

http://imgur.com/LiAOP.jpg

"Owned by no-one"

lies

id expect it from other papers, but there's something kind of weird about the guardian making a deal out of the new owner being foreign. i mean, they didn't used to have leprechauns jumping all over the indie masthead or what have you.

I think it's probably more that he's an oligarch and a former KGB man, neither of which are famed for signifying a commitment to free speech, than that he's foreign.

^^ free to say anything?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/06/02/richard_gott_140x140.jpg

"Like many other journalists, diplomats and politicians, I lunched with Russians during the cold war."

haaaaa ^^^ truly solid burn

Spot the mistake:

http://imgur.com/XPtRV.png

Just 30 seconds ago I was complaining out loud that every other article I read on the Guardian's website has some stupid proofreading error. Thank you for proving my point!

Not just the website, it's the main headline of page eight of today's paper.

video from a former ilxor about manchester, home of joy division (surely salford... w/e), now home of property developers (boooo!), n the guardian website today.

i have literally no idea what the argument is meant to be, but we learn that property development/regeneration is bad and doesn't actually create culture (p sure roger scruton would agree), victorian capitalism was bad, thatcherism/blairism is bad, and the films 'closer' and '24 hour party people' are bad.

the clip's actually kind of ambivalent about factory, the hacienda (itself a bit of urban regeneration with a media-friendly situationist gloss), etc. yet i *think* there's something in there about how pissy council blocks inspired post-punk (and are therefore a good thing?). be interesting to hear from someone who lived in one.

yeah that clip is pretty incoherent. it's like they've edited out every other sentence.

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that Hatherley doesn't really bother to discuss much new music from Manchester before deciding its not as good as Joy Division?

video from a former ilxor about manchester

Whozat?

id expect it from other papers, but there's something kind of weird about the guardian making a deal out of the new owner being foreign. i mean, they didn't used to have leprechauns jumping all over the indie masthead or what have you.

― rip sarah silverman 3/19/10 never forget (history mayne), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:14 (Yesterday) Permalink

I'm sure this is a sleight after the post-mccall slanging match that's been going on. Both the Indie and I think the Times described her leaving a paper that was in turmoil.

RIP Madchester

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/12/marina-hyde-gordon-brown-manifesto-launch

could have sworn 'soul man' was sung by sam and dave but i guess marina knows what she's talking about

they all sound the same to me

Clearly GB would want to avoid association with Sam and Dave.

ha!

Seriously you can imagine this discussion going down at Campaign HQ before somebody told them James Brown had done it too.

Should have gone with 'Talking Loud and Saying Nothing' imo.

"Get Up Offa That Thing" ftw

Appropriate song choices in the auditorium ahead of the Tories' event. "The best of you," by the Foo Fighters, "Better Together", by Jack Johnson, and "Changes", by David Bowie.

It'll be "Bring it down (this insane thing)" by The Redskins next!

also "Reign in Blood"

Think Bowie will intervene and put the kibosh on that, as in America when the artiste does not like the politician?

My idea: The most horrible/snooty/sweaty/bloater Cameron pix, set to These Are The Daves I Know.

seriously wtf is the deal with this paper's website, the amount of utter bullshit hyped up headlines is sickening.

eg this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/05/ash-cloud-flight-cancellations

the headline is: Ash cloud: UK holidaymakers face summer of flight cancellations

the article has no quote to support this and hinges on a quote from the Irish Aviation Authority, HI DERE NOT PART OF THE UK. and even if it was or you take it to mean NI, it's still sensationalist.

their sports pages have had this sort of shit for ages but it's pathetic they now ramp up headlines on their main pages too.

during the redux for this ash crisis they've had ott headlines every single day, even reporting the cloud "could spread south" when all over the bbc today met experts are saying the exact opposite.

guardian website is just hit chasing, nothing more, in anything they do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/20/paris-art-theft-picasso-matisse

^ Some bizarre sub-Maigret writing going on here.

tanya gold seems to have defected to the torygraph, so there's that

"Cast its golden beam" ugh

funny story in the current private eye abt mandelson giving tanya gold a hard time

What is it with the use of the word "stunning" to describe anything vaguely eyebrow-raising?

I think that's down to the baleful influence of Lembit Opik's columns in the Daily Sport

Dear readers, allow me a literary moment. A long time ago, when Lost in Showbiz's reading habits were made up of funny, squiggly things called "books" as opposed to magazines with exclamation marks in the titles (Dickens wishes he'd thought of that technique. Bleak House!, Our Mutual Friend! Already they sound more fun, don't they?), LiS was rather taken with Virginia Woolf, as all women under the age of 20 are obliged to be. Ah, the folly of youth. But despite never teaching me anything useful, such as whether Will.i.Am and Cheryl Cole are actually going out (no) and whether anyone cares (no), it turns out that old Woolfy baby wasn't a total waste of time.

In To the Lighthouse she described a picture of a refrigerator as being "fringed with joy". Well, this week my TV was fringed with joy and this line is the only way I can convey to you, dear readers, the burst of happiness I felt as I watched Kevin Costner claim on ABC News that he is about to save the Gulf of Mexico. Rest in peace, Virginia! Your work was not in vain after all!

And from one cultural touchstone, to another. Just as it turns out that To the Lighthouse actually has some practical use, so Waterworld reveals itself to be the real deal-y-o.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2010/may/20/gulf-oil-spill-kevin-costner