Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

without necessarily defending all of the fluff, i resent the assumption that anything to do with popular culture or celebrity or lifestyle is inherently unserious and unworthy and that the only legitimate journalism is about syria or whatever - only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces. firmly believe that pop culture, and analysis thereof, is as ~important as anything else; dismissing it as "fluff" just means your classist and misogynistic biases are showing. having done work in both pop and politics i can tell you that it is much harder to take the latter seriously. of course, it still has to be done well, which isn't always the case.

only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces

(well, i think that a couple of people on this thread are already there tbh)

Lex is absolutely correct. I think the real challenge is probably trying to maintain quality control when there's a constant requirement for large volumes of new content but that's true of all rolling news / culture sites and The Guardian is easily better than most at balancing the tossed-off with the more considered.

mm, that said, djh is contrasting "a morrissey story written be someone who has no interest in music" with "a good morrissey story" - opinions on whether morrissey pieces are ever worthwhile aside, i don't really think there's anyone on this thread who would in good faith argue that anything to do with popular culture is fluff.

it's sort of the opposite! we are used to the guardian doing popular culture well, so the bits on popular culture that are reworded PA or PR (pieces which are tiny and insignificant, but because they have separate pages may end up creeping up popularity algorithms and 'looking' important on the website) stand out more to us.

so the bits on popular culture that are reworded PA or PR (pieces which are tiny and insignificant, but because they have separate pages may end up creeping up popularity algorithms and 'looking' important on the website) stand out more to us.

oh this is totally otm! huge bugbear of mine. (it wasn't djh's criticism i was responding to...)

Lex totally OTM. I get similarly annoyed when the snoots forget the third part of Lord Reith's statement that the BBC should educate, inform and entertain.

And what Lord Reith didn't know about entertainment wasn't worth knowing

Translation?

What's interesting is that many of the Guardian's regular readers are most interested in, say, lifestyle features or pop music or whatever, but you never hear them shout "What's all this shit about the German federal elections? I come to the Guardian to read about lifestyle and pop, ME ME ME" all over threads.

or heaven forfend the idea of being interested in BOTH

Sure, but I'm saying there's a real difference in politeness between the people who aren't interested in one or the other.

also as a long-time hater of "funny" writing who thinks 95% of journalists who try the "light, humorous" tone should be eradicated - i absolutely think that light, witty writing done well (as per several examples brought up by grumps on this thread) is a tremendous thing

I totally take djh's point, btw. But I think the majority of the gripes I read about the Guardian betraying its values, becoming like the Mail etc, are about the subjects covered, not the quality of the writing.

I don't see how the SEO climate can do anything but make journalism worse overall, for any publication. But I suck it up, as both a reader and contributor to the Guardian, because the money has to come from somewhere. Obviously I'd rather we could all carry on as before, like the New Yorker still does for the most part, but shit ain't like that.

Alba OTM. The anti-pop snobs are unparallelled.

about the subjects covered, not the quality of the writing.

so are these people the next iteration of those folks who got up in arms when Rusbridger devoted a section of G2 to the death of Kurt Cobain? all coverage of popular culture is dumbing down and all dumbing down is the daily mail?

it's weird to me i guess because, even though the sidebar of shame exists, i don't really think of the mail as a "pop culture" paper -- i'd consider the trolling use of female columnists for pageviews more like a Daily Mail thing, something I've in the past suspected the Guardian of copying.

I read some comments for the first time in ages this week and 80% of them were a response to the subject matter, not the article. Write about Morrissey, whether it's clickbait fluff or a landmark essay, and you'll mostly get people saying they always thought Morrissey was overrated, yawn. Most commenters (not the same as most readers, I hope) don't discriminate between good and bad writing.

so are these people the next iteration of those folks who got up in arms when Rusbridger devoted a section of G2 to the death of Kurt Cobain?

Still think he erred there.

xpost Best ever comment, beneath the review of Peter Gabriel at the O2.

By the standards of show he has set in the past, this was disappointing, but largely because it seemed staged to produce a DVD, with the atmosphere provided by paying customers!
We went to the O2 to see a show, not to be told to come to one side at the door, as our seats had been changed due to the needs of the DVD film crew!
The "anglepoise handlers" were more an irritation than a distraction, and the choreographed dancing dates back to at least the Secret World tour, as can be seen on the DVD for that show.
It all got a bit Alexie Sayle...
Filming shows is not new, but is often (usually?) done in front of an invited audience that hasn't paid to see a show.
I go to work to get messed around and told what to do, and for that privilege my employer pays me and looks after me. Fundamental to Biko's protest was that he was messed around, told what to do, and had no reward or choice of employer.
Gabriel's parting words were about how without an audience, "it don't mean shit". Sad then, that an audience that came to celebrate his achievements were then treated like shit, and had to pay for the privilege. A bit like Steve Biko.

The worst writing in the Guardian, consistently, is the vaguely matey fluff-about-politics. Not even talking about Simon Hoggart who whoever here but you know all this cobbled together lol-amirite stuff about I dunno Cameron's holiday photos or that picture of him asleep or whatever. I can't actually find any examples of it right now but it is always excerable.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/david-cameron-chillaxing-instagram

^^^ This sort of shit. It's not even well-written on a basic sentence level. Or funny.

it's smug hateful shit like that pushes me dangerously close to sympathy for cameron tbh

The assumption that the Mail and the Guardian grow increasingly alike is based solely on the (actually comparatively small) amount of showbiz in the Guardian.

no, it's based on clickbait. it's nothing to do with showbiz.

xp, I don't think it's meant to be funny or matey. The series is an art critic's interpretation of current-affairs photos. Not particularly well executed in this instance but it's not a terrible idea.

i mean, it's pretty clear that all news websites are becoming more similar over time - if you have a popular website and you're not printing pages, why wouldn't you begin to cross into territories that you previously deemed beyond you? it's part of the business model, both in terms of getting people to your site and keeping them there.

and alba otm - of course then, people feel a bit like a site has lost its identity. another good example is prob something like nme - hoovering up any and all music stories because it has to, and successfully enough becoming a music news site.

if something is a big story on twitter, obviously every site wants a way into it, it does erode their identity, and it is frustrating to feel bombarded with news.

Do you really think the Guardian's identity had become weakened in the last two years? I mean following the phone hacking story, Snowden etc, it feels like it's been strengthened in that regard, even if a lot of the comment is similar to other news outlets (although not really to the Mail if we're honest).

Some of the most blatant clickbait is in the sports section probably, although sports gossip was basically the equivalent of clickbait even in print days.

To be fair, CIF has become a lot more newsy in the last couple of years.

Do you really think the Guardian's identity had become weakened in the last two years?

I guess if it's broadened, this dilutes it in a way? Like, I think people who agree with its politics are often alienated by its tone, or the type of people who appear to write for it.

As a contributor of challopsy clickbait listicles in the past, i'm 100% in favour of The Guardian using them, as long as they're done well. It's more of a nuisance to read pieces that look to have been thrown together simply to provoke extended below-the-line arguments between commenters.

My favourite Guardian clickbait article was a French woman going on about how awful Great British Bake Off is and how much better it would be if the contestants were French patissiers. Marvellous stuff, perfectly targeted.

agnès poirier's an odd one, her ENTIRE schtick - not just in the grau - is to fixate on a really stereotypical version of frenchness-compared-to-englishness. my french housemate loathes her.

i think the grau's identity has been shored up as much by the rest of the mainstream media's conservatism becoming more entrenched in recent years - like, it might cover the same subjects as the mail but in a necessary-counterbalance kind of way

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/david-cameron-chillaxing-instagram

^^^ This sort of shit. It's not even well-written on a basic sentence level. Or funny.

That's interesting. See, I don't think it's supposed to be funny or "vaguely matey" but Jonathan Jones's tone when he approaches politics in this series is perhaps hard to get a handle on, so can put people's backs up. I think it's supposed to be more withering or venomous.

So, liveblogging the royal christening …

lol i don't think anyone's gonna defend that

BURN THE ROYAL FAMILY, etc

10.46 baby about to be christened
10.48 baby christened

Meanwhile, Alice Sheffield sits half-dressed in front of the disarrayed bed. Was that too part of the family joke?

It's more of a nuisance to read pieces that look to have been thrown together simply to provoke extended below-the-line arguments between commenters.

yeah fair point. they do less of these, as far as i can tell, in recent times. cif seems a lot more newsy these days.

It's not that they care what's not in the Guardian – they care what is in it. For a section of long-standing readers, I think it's all about identity.

this is definitely a bit part of it for me.

without necessarily defending all of the fluff, i resent the assumption that anything to do with popular culture or celebrity or lifestyle is inherently unserious and unworthy and that the only legitimate journalism is about syria or whatever - only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces.

i totally agree with this. i don't have a problem with the good writing about popular culture. i'm not talking about that (although tbf it probably sounds like i often am). i'm objecting to cynical, tossed off click/comment bait, which is the pop culture you see on the front page.

who are the guardian's funny writers these days? (not imagining halcyon days. humour in the guardian has always been absolutely dreadful.)

bit part = big part

so i don't reject the premise of articles about british bake off/xfactor being in the guardian. i object to the specific articles.

matt is right that at least 50% of the sport section is vulnerable to the same criticism.

That's exactly it, nobody even mentioned celeb-related articles.

i resent the assumption that anything to do with popular culture or celebrity or lifestyle is inherently unserious and unworthy and that the only legitimate journalism is about syria or whatever - only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces. firmly believe that pop culture, and analysis thereof, is as ~important as anything else; dismissing it as "fluff" just means your classist and misogynistic biases are showing.

haha lol

idk I get the identity thing but the third biggest newspaper website in the world is inevitably going to be a big tent catering to a diverse group of campers. I'm happy not clicking on GBBO/Strictly/"trading up" articles as long as I find a bunch worthwhile reads every day.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/2/12/1360693289952/Suzanne_Moore.jpg

shit it didn't drag the headline

"Lady Gaga is no substitute for Lou Reed"

The plan to illuminate Rjukan was cooked up 100 years ago by the Norwegian industrialist Sam Eyde, who built the town to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant he located at the foot of a nearby waterfall.

Occupied by the Germans during the second world war, the factory was a staging post in Hitler's quest for the atomic bomb.

In contrast to the shadow cast over Europe by Hitler's plan for an atomic weapon, the three mirrors, measuring 183-sq ft (17-sq m) and ironically being remotely controlled from Germany, captured the sunlight and sent it in an ellipse that illuminated about one-third of the square below.

What is the context of the irony?

Beckham's son Brooklyn hoping for Manchester United chance

Last updated five minutes ago
Los Angeles Galaxy v Colorado Rapids
Manchester United have been running the rule over Brooklyn Beckham with a view to offering him a place in their academy

= the main story on the football page

he is 14 years old

all the beckham boys will be fashion designers

show me someone born into that sort of privilege and I'll show you someone who'll live cushy