Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/28/birth-royal-baby-kate-middleton

this is the kind of thing that really bugs me. like... if this "media frenzy" is so annoying then surely the guardian can do something better than pointlessly pre-empting it with articles like this?

it's no fun having a cake if you can't eat it too, is what i take from pieces like this

in what sense do you mean?

that the media frenzy is annoying, but that taking part in it somehow will still yields pageviews and therefore ££s

yeah, taking part in it while criticising it is just the pits tho, imo, not least since the entire aim of the piece is to congratulate your readers for how above it all they are.

this is how Graun readers live

Boya Dee for Editor

the article isnt great and prophylactic disinterest in a forthcoming hyped event is usually tiresome

i still feel instinctively pleased when anyone in a broadsheeet newspaper disparages the royal family and their vile entourage

A quick search on the #guardiancoffee is providing much entertainment right now.

ffs

idgi

they're opening a coffee shop

Huh.

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/4646957/retail-operations-manager/

cue much guffawing at pretentious grim-up-North-London flat white sipping Guardianistas.

boxpark tho, jesus.

I believe there are big screens that show up every tweet with the #guardiancoffee hashtag. Even feebs like the Telegraph realised that was a terrible idea years ago.

That's my hope of doing my job well today down the drain.

They had one of these on Farringdon Road, but the obvious proximity to Grub Street and the actual genesis of the free press in coffee houses not far from there must have looked too much like the kind of historical relevance unlikely to trouble your average reactionary trollboy.

The whole "we'll display everything under this hashtag" approach is such a rudimentary social media clanger though, unless the Graun were taking this all into account and just want the attention, which is possible.

It's not a huge clanger imo - it does get them a lot of attention. Who can even say what attention is negative or positive these days?

Like say that Waitrose thing, I reckon that worked well for them despite all the bile.

apparently the hashtag display is premoderated?

anyway this is such a tacky idea, i don't get who is supposed to be into it.

even if you ignore the kind of weird and yeah, tacky nature of the idea, the location is horrible and looks to be failing too, empty shops there in recent months and it's not even on brand for them. boxpark is like zoo mag, not the guardian.

I guess Boxpark is cheaper and lower risk than setting up anywhere else though?

Would you say it's cheap? I'd imagine it could be pricey, unless there's a subsidy coming from Boxfresh. Probably cheap relative to anything else on Shoreditch High St I guess?

With Boxpark, my main feeling is that AT LAST the lesser-spotted East London twink does not have to go to Covent Garden to buy Firetrap schmutter.

Again, even Shoreditch feels a weird location for them - kind of depressed former hipster zone.

You'd think I'd like it when I describe it that way but no.

Yeah I mean the rent is probably not that much cheaper than the rest of the area but they're not going to be lumbered with a big lease or anything because the whole place is inherently short-term.

Again, even Shoreditch feels a weird location for them - kind of depressed former hipster zone

It's full of offices though, way more than Dalston or wherever.

The whole "we'll display everything under this hashtag" approach is such a rudimentary social media clanger though, unless the Graun were taking this all into account and just want the attention, which is possible.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 30 May 2013 11:22 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

given that at times their online model seems to prize bad, misinformed articles which get hundreds of BTL comments picking them apart to good, closely argued ones which get a few dozen murmurs of approval, this wouldn't be terribly surprising

Yeah I wouldn't imagine them in Dalston, like Farringdon or whatever is surely their spiritual (central) home, but presumably way too expensive and probably far too much good competition.

All the best coffee in London seems to be between my place and Farringdon - two places on Leather Lane alone are easily top 10.

Yeah those Leather Lane places are great, but I doubt that 'best coffee in London' is really the Graun's core concern here.

I know what you mean - but even that is weird too. Like, what is their concern? A place for tourists to come to? That seems the most logical explanation.

I suppose it's general brand-building, of a kind that could potentially pay for itself.

Given that there's a bar / cafe in their own building, i'd have thought King's Cross might be a decent place to set it up. King's Place is about 90% there in terms of being a really good social / cultural space.

yeah it's quite an impressive building.

i mean, as offices go.

pics here

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-big-day-out-atthe-guardian-data-driven-coffee-shop

the mind boggles

expert trolling by guardiancoffee

Oh wait, so #guardiancoffee tweets are shown on screen in this place? And it's already open? Right, igi now.

Thankin u mr vice man

Not sure Vice really has the moral high ground here given that they've run the fucking Old Blue Last as their house venue for the past however many years.

oh true. vice has the moral high ground in no situations. just posting that for the pics.

there is no moral high ground, only pageviews

to be fair, this got people clicking. it's not every newspaper that bothers to seek out stories that make people's right index finger move downwards by less than a centimetre.

Well Nathan Barley

do they have sky sports tho

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/lostinshowbiz/2013/jun/06/team-tulisa-contostavlos-cocaine-arrest

^^standing and applauding

I wish she'd write stuff like that more often.