Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

mind you I really ought to help the Woolwich Whatabout off the ground

my amusement at local councillors pointing at potholes is how corrupt and shite local councillors in Glasgow have historically been

when I was doing the journalism part of my undergrad degree we had an assignment to go attend a local council meeting for a purpose I can't really remember. Everyone in our class went to the same meeting because it was Glasgow City Council and meant a day out to the pub after it. I quickly realised we were all going to submit the same story so I went to one in my actual hometown. The GCC one was mid-afternoon and well-attended, my local one was at 7pm on a cold Wednesday night. A councillor actually fell asleep during the meeting. I sat at the back, took notes and ended up with two news stories in the local paper, one of which then ended up being reported in a national. All I had to do was turn up and sit for two hours - there was no attempt to mask what was quite obviously classic "waste of taxpayers money" situations. There's definitely scope for local press to improve.

Every municipality needs a reporter sitting in every city council meeting, really the main reason to still think the elevated mission of Journalism is even a thing imo

I didn't pursue news journalism at all in the end, all the people I know who stuck with it basically did 2-3 years doing deathknocks and then migrated to features or broadcasting and I don't recall anyone ever complaining about having to attend a council meeting the way they complained about attending a fire or car crash

Madchen makes a good point - the Lewisham Ledger is features not 'news', but it's actually remarkably good. Somehow they seem to have a proper staff and everything.

https://lewishamledger.tumblr.com/

is the Liverpool Echo any good?

Yes.

Camden New Journal is good and still has an opinion page reserved for a socialist in God’s waiting room.

was a good one in glasgowlive recently of councillors standing next to a bus stop
https://i2-prod.glasgowlive.co.uk/incoming/article18620289.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/2_JS214838692.jpg

Classic!

The Dulwich Diverter was tweeting this week about only having one advertising slot left, so that would imply they're doing OK.

Lol, that's not really what it's called is it?

they mainly campaign for ways to ensure ppl have to drive round dulwich not through it

Sister paper is Peckham Peculiar (see upthread)

The Lewisham one is well made but not 'trendy' in the sense of only featuring chic middle-class things -- it tends to highlight quite ordinary people, long-established businesses, etc, and FWIW its coverage is very ethnically diverse. I was very impressed when I first came across it, precisely because I couldn't believe that there was a business model for running such a thing anymore.

I don't think any other approach would work in Lewisham (as opposed to specific areas of the borough like Brockley or Deptford). I've never seen it but that sounds like it's actively serving the community in a way these things don't always, readable as they can be if you're killing time in the pub.

On-demand newspaper printing has become pretty cheap - there’s lots of overcapacity in the industry for obv reasons. So if you don’t need to extract 20% return like all the debt-incrusted corps there’s a nice small business in these things

the best local periodical in the uk:

https://scontent.fcxh3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/116103036_4378721398867388_4584950628621073141_o.jpg

oh fucked the link up. was the cover of Glasgow magazine "the digger"

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9bzzg5/the-digger-glasgow-patrick-ferry-720

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-saturday-section-staff-say-proposal-to-close-mags-arrogant-anachronistic-and-wrong/

The Saturday section editors were forced to go into the office during lockdown because they were told their supplements were “absolutely crucial”, they claimed. They said they were later told the Saturday edition was the least hit by the coronavirus circulation slump

This is grim.

I have to confess that, despite maintaining a relatively strict lock down, I decided early on that the Saturday Guardian was "an essential purchase" - mostly for Alys Fowler and Rachel Roddy, mind.

"They also criticised the plan to cut 180 jobs when chief executive Annette Thomas, who joined the company in March, is on a base salary of £630,000 plus benefits."

Pretty much what I'm seeing in the discourse around uni redundancies too. Executives saving themselves and their pay to oversee cuts anywhere else.

Bet local councils and all manner of industries are similar but staff not owning or having a proper share and the rights that come with it is communism.

Cheaper than a cup of cappuccino.

Is Martin Kettle suggesting what I think he’s suggesting? https://t.co/MqLjftC1F2 pic.twitter.com/OBQDwW94XE

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) July 24, 2020

Buying five cappuccinos when I get up tomorrow.

Sorry to disappoint but this is not a 'gotcha' moment:
- The searches were authorised & legitimately carried out. The information used in the internal report into the handling of antisemitism complaints came to light when searches were undertaken in response to EHRC requests 1/2 https://t.co/kuAjqAClcX

— Jennie Formby (@Jennieformby1) July 24, 2020

Might just plunge what remains of my overdraft into the NotTheFuckingGraun coffee company shares

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/my-brother-and-i-tried-to-break-into-a-botanical-garden-and-memories-of-my-father-rushed-back

Sod what you want, Tom. pic.twitter.com/QK6g8KoAwC

— Angry People in Local Newspapers (@angrypiln) July 28, 2020

OT yet v relevant after our discussion: my new favourite twitter account, Angry People in Local Newspapers

I would give The Guardian the cost of a coffee they’re always asking for if it commissioned someone who a) knows how exam grades have been calculated this year and b) knows how exam grades are calculated in normal years but instead we get:

Ok, I just had a call, recorded voice, very plummy, saying "a tax fraud case has been registered in your name and if you do not press 1 straightaway, you will be arrested shortly." This has to be a hoax, doesn't it?

— (((Zoe Williams))) (@zoesqwilliams) August 10, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/10/exam-results-inequality-private-state-students

In all the handwringing, there is an acceptance of one inevitable choice – either Ofqual extrapolated from precedent, and kept grades level, or they took teachers’ predictions, and accepted perhaps a significant amount of grade inflation. I would have been far happier with the latter: grade inflation, like any inflation, erodes inequality by shaving away pre-existing advantage in a relatively painless way.

!!!!

Are you commenting on ZW's tweet?

Not really, just the practice of getting people who don't properly understand complex issues outside their area of expertise to spout forth like authorities because they have a weekly column to fill.

Mr Simon Jenkins are you listening

I know we all know this but seeing this on paper is just...an awful way to live.

Sarah Ditum’s piece on journalism is being greeted with much chin-stroking by columnists, but all it does is expose the truth that people literally are just scanning twitter and news lines and then diving into firing off takes they have no expertise in pic.twitter.com/R8GJC4VKN2

— Joseph / йосиф сташко🇺🇦 (@JosephStash) August 27, 2020

Thank you, The Observer, for further contributing to the idiot-inveigling aura of France's de facto Covid Conspiracy Theorist in Chief:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/30/marseilles-maverick-covid-scientist-why-the-city-took-doctor-to-its-heart

Someone must have been asleep for this to be published.

The right's culture war is no longer a sideshow to our politics – it is our politics | Nesrine Malik https://t.co/NtRyFQEHmv

— The Guardian (@guardian) August 31, 2020

Good piece, yeah, albeit as depressing as you'd expect.

Do you?

The latest genre of lifestyle opinion article seems to be "people who haven't worked in an office in 30 years extolling the benefits of working in an office": pic.twitter.com/51eqvZpMFm

— Doctor Neutopia (@oceanclub) September 7, 2020

It's one sure sign you haven't been in an office in 30 years if you still think people get birthday cakes.

— Doctor Neutopia (@oceanclub) September 7, 2020

I mean this bit isn't true, the tyranny of office baking/obligatory baked goods is still going strong.

I've just read that Zoe Williams column and wow it's so phoned in you have to wonder what the point of writing it in the first place beyond "working from home is boring".

Cake detail aside I'm assuming this piece will not make space for the idea that the office debate isn't about what workers want.

It's paper thin even by Zoe Williams standards, she doesn't miss the office, she misses the idea of what the office was like in her 20s. Which makes it doubly irrelevant as 20-somethings are likely to be among the first back into the office for all the obvious reasons.

🐦[It’s one sure sign you haven’t been in an office in 30 years if you still think people get birthday cakes.
— Doctor Neutopia (@oceanclub) September 7, 2020🕸]🐦

I mean this bit isn't true, the tyranny of office baking/obligatory baked goods is still going strong.

The one time I was sufficiently in-office to merit cake, the cake arranging person was my friend. Also, it always falls to women to arrange office birthday stuff.

OK being required to bring your own cake to the office is a step too far.

"Everyone cooks something and then we have a team lunch" is another terrible idea that was increasingly widespread before the pandemic.

to be fair to her, i don't think that was even the worst thing she's published today...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/07/morrissey-germaine-greer-kate-hoey-sharing-flat-bbc-rightwing-comedy

i value my sides too much to read that no doubt hysterical piece of Nu Wodehouse

The absolute worst office for this did ‘bring cakes into the office the day before you go on holiday.’ Holiday sweets on your return were also expected.

In this same office, a list was circulated in December so you could write down what you wanted your secret santa to buy for you (value £15).

i would like three crisp fivers in a manila envelope pls santa

Yeah, there seems to be two different conversations there - I've never worked in (or until Suzy's post heard of) anywhere where you were bought cake on your birthday - you buy the cake (or more likely donuts (or sometimes a tableful of food)) for everyone else.

I mean I take my birthday and the following day off every year as a matter of principle but it would become a matter of necessity if I was working in one of those offices. That's some barbaric shit.

I also take my birthday off and we are also expected to bring back post-holiday sweeties (never pre, though, that’s savagery ffs).