Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=69140&rendTypeId=4

I hated all the Bruni crap, ie. OMG she knows how to sit like a prim lady, lol Swiss finishing schools. On a style point, also, the hugely branded Dior flats kind of meh.

It was as if one of those six-page G2 super-spreads lost its way and found itself right up front in Section 1. I half expected to see, in small capital letters near the bottom, "Advertisement paid for by the Republic of France".

wasn't just the guardian drinking the bruni kool-aid, though, was it? there's an identical desperation in editors' offices and conference rooms up and down the land. i know, i'm living and breathing it every fucking day.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n05/lanc01_.html

So we have arrived at a place where ‘the heart of modern journalism’ has become ‘the rapid repackaging of largely unchecked second-hand material, much of it designed to service the political or commercial interests of those who provide it’. In the old days, at this point in the story, it would be time to Name the Guilty Men. They would once have been the evil proprietors, top-hatted cigar-smoking manipulators of public opinion. I don’t agree with the conspiracy theory of the proprietor press, nor does Davies: he thinks that it’s sheer commercial pressure that is to blame. It’s the pressure on costs – to produce more, cheaper copy – that is the ultimate culprit for the state of the modern press.

Flat Earth News breaks down the specific ways in which pressure is exerted on the practice of journalism, on a daily basis. Stories need to be cheap, meaning ‘quick to cover’, ‘safe to publish’; they need to ‘select safe facts’ preferably from official sources; they need to ‘avoid the electric fence’, sources of guaranteed trouble such as the libel laws and the Israel lobby; to be based on ‘safe ideas’ and contradict no loved prevailing wisdoms; to avoid complicated or context-rich problems; and always to ‘give both sides of the story’ (‘balance means never having to say you’re sorry – because you haven’t said anything’). And conversely, there are active pressures to pursue stories that tell people what they want to hear, to give them lots of celebrity and TV-based coverage, and to subscribe to every moral panic. That’s the effect on the texture of journalism, the culture of the newsroom. Of course, the pressure on costs has other, simpler effects too. There is more space to fill – in the British papers, three times as much – but no equivalent expansion of the resources to do the work. Elsewhere, the pressure on resources is just as bad. In 1970, CBS had three full-time correspondents in Rome alone: by 2006, the entire US media, print and broadcast, was supporting only 141 foreign correspondents to cover the whole world.

As the pressures on journalism have increased, so the PR industry has come along with what appears to be a solution. Want news? We’ll give it to you. Britain now has 47,800 PR people to 45,000 journalists. It isn’t the case that PRs just beg for coverage for their clients: they’re much more cunning than that. Once one grows alert to the question, you can see PR influence almost everywhere in the press. The greatly missed Auberon Waugh used to say that behind any claim in any way interesting, striking or surprising in the news, there was either someone demanding more government money or a press release. That is truer than ever, only these days the press release will announce the result of a survey (a favourite PR tactic) or a ‘release’ statement from a phoney pressure group, such as one of the many set up to create uncertainty over the question of climate change. These pressure groups are known as ‘astroturf’ in the PR industry, because their grass-roots are fake, but that doesn’t stop their statements and surveys from getting on the news.

cf this much-loved thread

As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a churnalist...

The above summation, laxalt's complaint, and many other comments in this thread can be summed up by my friend Mike's deathless retelling of an instruction he received from a higher-up when he was working as a video editor at a production company that was making a documentary about Ludacris. "It needs more lifestyle porn."

What PF has C&P here is annoying but true, especially in anything to do with arts and lifestyle areas. The latest PR trick is to try to see copy you've written before it goes to print, all in the name of 'fact-checking'. I usually explain very patiently that there is a sizable difference - something like 70p a word - between 'journalism' and 'advertorial' and that my agreement with my editor is to provide 'journalism'. We do advertorials too, but not on the cheap. Also that it's nothing personal, but fact-checking has to happen from a neutral, journalistic standpoint and when I have a pertinent question I will call. They really hate this, probably more than a journalist with 20 years of experience hates being micromanaged by some second-rate marketing flack.

I know you guys hate the fuck out of Neil Boorman, but one thing I did take from his book was hilarity at the butthurt Puma PR who didn't appreciate him blogging about preferring Adidas: 'whinge, whinge, I gave your old magazine one hell of an ad spend HOW DARE YOU I WILL RUIN YOU AND CUT YOU OFF'. Oh poor marketing baby, like you didn't get scooby snacks at work for networking a style mag editor. Go fuckin' fish. I wanted to find this woman, beat her up, and steal all her lunch money.

It’s the pressure on costs – to produce more, cheaper copy – that is the ultimate culprit for the state of the modern press

... exacerbated, of course, by the fact that nobody's buying papers any more, meaning display advertising is plummeting ... and who the fuck wants to take out a classified ad in this day and age?

newspapers doomed; journalism as we know it also (although in many ways that's no bad thing); headlines at 11 and indeed every fucking second afterwards, albeit wrong ones produced by work-experiencers working the backshift on their own.

I know you guys hate the fuck out of Neil Boorman

"The Sandman" was OK.

Psyche, comic book nerds are even worse than Shoreditchers.

Never heard of Neil Boorman, Suzy (but perhaps I can hope that this means I'm not part of the collective you refer to). And what are 'scooby snacks'?

You might not have heard of Neil Boorman (neither have I) but you must have heard of Scooby Doo?

NB used to be editor of Sleazenation magazine and wrote a book about giving up brands last year. It was OK but Dave Gorman book about unchained America is much better somehow.

Scooby snacks = praise/kudos.

neil boorman edited a fanzine, which carried advertising for big brands, called, not terribly ironically, 'shoreditch twat'.

he then edited a magazine called 'sleaze nation' (or it may by then have been just 'sleaze') that was largely a vehicle for ads for high-end schmutter.

he has now written a book about how brands are bad yeah? and we should all be individuals yeah?

live and learn

he then edited a magazine called 'sleaze nation' (or it may by then have been just 'sleaze') that was largely a vehicle for ads for high-end schmutter.

Jonatton Yeah? yeah?

One issue of Shoreditch Twat had six pages of kinda proto-LBZC beatdown on Zoe Williams, so credit where it's due.

wow - you know, I thought scooby snacks must mean some kind of Suzy drug! but it makes sense, now, cos Scooby-Doo does get them for doing well, I think.

One issue of Shoreditch Twat had six pages of kinda proto-LBZC beatdown on Zoe Williams, so credit where it's due.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 4:52 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

he was no johnny cigarettes.

Do not diss the Cigs.

All style mags, including the one I work for, have always needed to sell adverts to survive. HOWEVER it is only relatively recently that the marketing side has become quite so brazen about trying to shout the odds to the editorial side, when in the past the relationship was defined by 'our readers are early adopters and you are paying for access to them, they do not come here to see the new Prada ad.'

Grimly, I understand what you're saying about the 'death of journalism' but the combination of recession tendencies and just plain pendulum antics in culture means good news for people who want to be proper journalists, maybe not just now, but definitely in a year or so.

Define "proper journalists". Because as snappy as they dressed, yr Evelyn Waugh days aren't coming back.

I'm talking about news-focused people, also if you haven't noticed the Waughs of this world still get column inches to play with, you aren't seething over ES magazine of a Friday.

OH SHIT WE HAVE LOST OUR ONCE-YEARLY OPPORTUNITY TO SPAM ES MAG WITH PITCHES ABOUT HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO FIND GOOD HELP THESE DAYS, AND ALSO LONDON'S TOP PARTY HOSTESSES ON WHAT THEIR LAST SERVANTS DIED OF.

Man, the Evening Standard is gonna be mayor of London in 30 days, show it some respect.

Respect must be earned! That goes x 100000 for elected officials.

Speaking of Respect, I'm voting for Lindsey German.

good news for people who want to be proper journalists, maybe not just now, but definitely in a year or so

maybe. maybe not. certainly, a real rain is gonna come and wash a lot of the utter bollocks celebrity drivel off the streets; problem with proper news-focused journalism, especially as it tries to reposition itself in a post-dead-tree era, is it needs the odd resource or two more than most proprietors are willing to chuck at it.

broadly, i guess i agree with you. but i think it'll be a sadly diminished form of "proper" journalism all the same.

Has the Standard drawn any comparisons between Ken Livingstone and Mugabe yet?

... silly question, probably

I don't know much about the Waughs - though I hate Brideshead Revisited - but I doubt any of them was the epitome of a good journalist. Martha Gellhorn & David Lacey to thread.

All the money's in financial journalism now. They're living large, it's like a different universe. I think something like 75% of Reuters revenue comes from it.

vague x-post follow-up to self: there's a work-experiencer sitting behind me as i type, wearing a tank top and reading something that might be the times. FFS, dude, the key is to make yourself indispendable. have ideas. talk to people. LOOK LIKE YOU'RE WORKING ON MORE THAN A SENSE OF 2:1-IN-A-SHITTY-ARTS-DEGREE ENTITLEMENT. we've had a few through here in the last couple of weeks, some -- postgrads, i think! -- barely literate. i sincerely hope the future holds no fucking place for them.

that said: thus has it always been. difference was, there used to be enough jobs for everyone, even the tools.

(i mean, i got one, didn't i?)

Financial journalists are paid so well to stop them doing City Slicker shenanigans. FACT.

Grims, you are literate and a stickler, there is always work for you on a subs' desk even in the worst-case scenario. Also give the WE something really turgid and boring to do, that takes days, you know you want to.

Respect must be RE-earned.

Love today's Standard board headline: KEN 'I WILL STEAL BORIS IDEAS'

If all the UK press made a sudden pact and took all their free content off the www, would their circulation rise again?

Not unless craig's list shut down, too

pinefox: i think it's too late for that now. the GBP has realised newspapers are actually a bit shit ;)

there is always work for you on a subs' desk even in the worst-case scenario

ah, but will there be subs' desks? (clue: no. there will, however, be people doing EXACTLY THE SAME JOB, only they'll be called "content repurposing facilitators" and earn 12p an hour, 0.5p more than the "content originators" with their cameraphones tucked in the side of their trilbies where the "press" cards used to be).

Also give the WE something really turgid and boring to do, that takes days, you know you want to

an old friend of mine -- wouldn't be entirely surprised if you've met him at least once -- actually set a work-experiencer an essay to do, on "the differences between broadsheets and tabloids". poor bastard.

I actually tend to agree with you, GF, though it saddens me to say it. But I don't think I'd feel quite so disdainful and detached if I couldn't now read it all online - this has made its own experiential contribution to the loss of the press's authority or perceived value, somehow.

that is: if papers weren't online, they'd seem better than they are?

It is, worse, again:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/privatelives/story/0,,2270160,00.html
'life and health' again

sorry, pinefox: i had thoughts in relation to your last couple of comments, but not the time to get them down. i might get a chance eventually ... don't hold your breath, mind.

short answer: "yes".

that is: if papers weren't online, they'd seem better than they are?

-- the pinefox, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 17:44 (Yesterday)

This is, i think, undoubtedly true. Or at least we would notice less. Online articles don't exist in isolation either, but are linked and relinked, and come under greater scrutiny. If the cultural ephemera and filler that gets criticized was paper copy only it wouldn't even be noticed.

The answer to the sex partners article is, like many thing, "not enough", until it is, "too many"

I think newspapers are dimly becoming aware that online might be a stupendously bad idea, just as they are finally getting around to making it work.

I think it's a great idea since I can just read them online and not have to waste hard earned cash on buying them.

There is a funny sort of thing about the filler of newspapers now living forever online. We tend to think of online as a devalued version of the "real" newspaper, i.e. it's not tangible, and you don't have to pay for it. Yet at the same time, it lasts forever, can be linked to, read, commented upon -- for eternity. Newspapers have traditionally represented exactly the opposite of this.

it's tomorrow's ... (nuclear) fission (silicon) chip paper!

[that was a sentimental tribute to Beano / Dandy / Tomorrow's World / lolly-sticks, etc, c.1979]