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Comment by Emma_Goldman | Hacker News Reader

>'The Guardian has proven to be one of the few sources of reliable, in-depth reporting on the Brexit shambles.'

In many ways, The Guardian is a remarkable paper. It does not publish falsehoods, or - for the most part - appeal to the worst in people. It is committed to the defence of civil liberties, and to ensuring that journalism is open to everyone, regardless of their income.

But it's coverage of Brexit is highly partisan. It is not unreliable in the sense of being inaccurate; it is simply one side of the conversation.

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I'm an avid reader of The Guardian and donate 50EUR a year.

Of course it's partisan on Brexit (as is The Economist, btw) and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?)

That said, I think it's one of the few remaining quality papers in the UK, which provides overall accurate reporting.

What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section. But that's fine too. If it's too crack-pottery I'm alsways free to ignore it.

Their Long Read section[1], though, is fantastic long form journalism and that alone justifies my yearly donation.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read

EDIT : Slight clarification

While obviously it is much better than the likes of Daily Mail,it is still far far from being really good. A lot of articles are often opinionated and present journalist's opinion in a much stronger way than the facts themselves. Also,there are many poorly researched articles,where one feels that the journalist is clearly out of his/her depth..It's very similar ro Stacey Dooley,who covers amazing subjects, however the questions asked are like something you'd expect from 6th grade school journalism contest...

> What makes me gag sometimes is some of the writers in The Opinion section.

Absolutely. Opinion pieces in a newspaper are not meant to represent the view of the paper, or even to pretend to be objective; they are by definition opinionated and form an essential part of the public debate.

A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of opinion pieces and letters from readers.

A good newspaper balances the opinion pieces placed, and will leave out obvious falsehoods.

The big issue with opinion sections is in the era of newspapers, it was obvious you're reading the opinion section. You might get a tease on page 1 to "Read Bill Clinton's views on Bernie Sanders' presidential chances on page 4" but it was clearly in the Opinion section, separated from 'real' news.

In the era of online news, opinion sections are blended with news.

Even The Guardian falls prey to this: go to https://www.theguardian.com/. Click the Opinion tab. Click any of the opinion pieces. The primary navigation reverts to having 'News' highlighted.

Worse, in reader/mobile view modes, the label "Opinion" does not show anywhere.

Fwiw, The Times doesn't do this, even in the app.

It's not a great app, but the one thing it gets right is behaving quite like a newspaper - even down to navigation to select which of the past 6 days' (plus today's) editions you'd like!

(What it gets really wrong, and refuses to accept is a bug every time I report it, is that when the edition updates at 9am/noon/5pm/midnight if you have an article open it randomly jumps to a completely different article that now occupies the spot on which you clicked to open the initial one.)

Are we seeing the same site?

I see that Opinion is still highlights in the tabs, it says "Opinion" in orange, and that's on mobile.

The background is pale pink, but that's more subtle.

https://ibb.co/W5PzZRb

> and of course its general direction has a leftist slant (and why should it not?)

Because when you go into every news story already convinced that the left are in the right in a given situation then your reporting is compromised.

No paper is strictly objective and it's not supposed to be.

I think that's completely fine as long as the direction is clear and the reporting is accurate.

On the other side of the spectrum we would have, for example, The Wall Street Journal.

While I personally believe that some of their opinion writers are even worse than some of The Guardian's opinion writers there's no doubt that The Journal delivers some stellar world class journalism.

Or would you apply a different standard there?

I think people can at least try not to bring their bias to work, or failing that actively declare that your reporting is designed to campaign for a particular politics. The Guardian doesn’t even attempt that.

They approach reporting like an angry anonymous Twitter account.

There is no such thing as impartial journalism. You have to select and interpret events. You cannot but do so from a particular perspective. The Guardian does a far better job than most newspapers at upholding accuracy in their writing. They don't lie to or manipulate their readers.

While there is some good writing and occasionally rigorous journalism on the Guardian, I won't accept the claim they don't manipulate their readers, I won't say they lie explicitly but they certainly remove context and omit when it is convenient to a certain editorial position. The timing and number of very tenuous anti-semitism claims against the Labour leader, for one.

How come for example the Times manages to include opinion pieces by views across the political spectrum and the Guardian doesn’t? The Guardian don’t even pretend to be trying.

'Trying' to do what? If you accept that a paper cannot be impartial, then what ought they be trying to do? It seems to me, from what you said, that you wish for them to be as plural as possible. Perhaps that's one virtue.

But there's nothing illegitimate about a paper having a particular political persuasion. Every paper does. What they should be judged by - holding politics equal - is the vocational standards of journalism: sobriety, rigour, accuracy, style, and a refusal to appeal to the worst in humans. I would say the Guardian does very well on all these counts. You say that it doesn't declare its politics, but it does: you only have to read their editorials. Not that it's a secret; everyone knows.

As for The Times, I can't speak with any authority. I don't read it, because it's behind a paywall. I know they're a centre-right paper who sometimes publish those on the centre-left. But my sense is that the former massively outnumber the latter, and that they rarely if ever publish social democrats and socialists.

The graph in this study fits, broadly, with my intuitions:

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/0...

Are you talking about general opinion pieces or the Times regular columnists? The Guardian does have a pretty diverse Comment section [1]. As far as the regular columnists go, it's true they don't really have a right-wing Owen Jones, but for instance, Matthew d'Ancona is conservative, and Larry Eliott is a Lexiteer.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/commentisfree

>How come for example the Times manages to include opinion pieces by views across the political spectrum and the Guardian doesn’t?

This is partisan in of itself

Now I'm curious: What paper do you read that doesn't have a bias? I'm in the US, but looking for different perspectives.

I think all journalism is biased, but there’s a difference between regretting it and trying to hold it back, and wallowing in it like the Guardian does.

For example the Times publishes pieces from the left and right viewpoints. The Guardian doesn’t even pretend to be interested in multiple views.

What? The Guardian's comment section has a huge range of opinions.

I'd suggest the Guardian has more of a neo liberal 'slant' rather than a 'left wing' one. They completely ignore that the Labour party has always been very sceptical about the EU for example and are all in on retaining the status quo around the current EU organization. There is no critical writing about it there. They also ignore the left of the Labour party. 'The Full Brexit' for example. https://www.thefullbrexit.com/about

It's funny you say that, because the same Chris Bickerton articulating the fringe view that true left wingers should get behind the leader of the Conservative Party's proposed Brexit deal at the other end of your link is also to be found expressing the same view in Guardian comment pieces...

The Guardian has many arguable faults, but not finding webspace for rather niche left wing schools of thought isn't one of them.

Its coverage of the Labour party is also very partisan, very anti-Corbyn.

I also wonder the free model, dependent on ads and donations are leading the Guardian to have more click-bait articles than would a subscription paper.

Also their football coverage looks as if written by Manchester United fanboys.

To be clear I'm not targeting you with the following comment.

> highly partisan

I don't know what anyone means by that anymore. I'll see people cite such things but and then they'll state "look at the front page now" and list articles. As if the front page has to have two or more opposite articles for every topic, or a paper must provide a ying to every yang (and possibly proportionately) like we can't handle it if we don't see our POV explicitly cited anymore...

This is really more of a side rant, for all I know I would entirely agree with your statement if I read the guardian more.

I'll give you a clear-cut example:

Whenever anyone calls on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party to support a second referendum, they will publish it on the front page of their website. They are trying to amplify those voices which agree with their position - to reverse Brexit, or at least engineer a soft Brexit. They do not give those voices in and around the Labour Party which oppose a second referendum a hearing.

Would not the call for a referendum maybe be a bigger deal than the status quo?

Just for arguments sake here.

What's the status quo?

Surely it's not the Labour Party. They are in opposition. They oppose May's deal.

And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee.

In terms of opinion, the left is split between those who want to reverse Brexit, and those who don't. The former is the dominant position among metropolitan areas, the professions, the better-off, and in London in particular. In that sense The Guardian is reinforcing the dominant outlook of liberal opinion-makers; the one that already finds most voice in public debate.

> And if you hold The Guardian by that metric, they should be reporting the other extreme of the debate - advocates of 'no deal' in the 1922 committee.

But don't they do that already? I've seen JRM quotes in every brexit live feed on The Guardian.

I wish I read it enough to discuss it deeper, but I really don't.

I do often wonder if if folks describe the "right" way to cover things if that would be the least bit flexible / allow for anything they don't like beyond a % of coverage or whatever measurement they use.

It might be news, but then framing matters. Is it described the way a scandal is described? This is akin to losing an election and refusing to step down.

If Trump loses in 2020 and starts making claims that voters didn't understand the consequences of their vote and demands another election be held, do you think the headline would be as tepid as the ones describing calls for a new referendum? I'm not from the UK, and didn't support Brexit, but democracy is literally at stake here. If Brexit doesn't happen, at least in my opinion, the mirage of democracy in Britain is lost.

I imagine if Trump demanded another presidential election, the electorate at large would say "Sure thing - we'll hold one in four years."

Exactly, that's how preposterous this is. You'd implement the results of the 2020 election and then have another one at a later date (2024). Seems the reasonable thing to do is implement the results of the last referendum, then you can hold another if you'd like.

That's not partisan that's idealogical

Partisanship means supporting one party, you're describing ideology supporting a decision

On Brexit: it's worth noting that Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, is a long time Eurosceptic and committed supporter of Brexit. He regularly pens pro-Brexit articles in an otherwise largely Remain-slanted paper (although obviously he's coming from a Lexiteer angle), and this amusingly confuses many Guardian readers in the comments.

On Falsehoods: as far as I know, Luke Harding's scoop on Manafort meeting Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy has not been stood up, and seems to have gone quiet. While not a deliberate falsehood, this is an embarrassing misfire.

But I do agree it's a remarkable paper, one I'm happy to contribute to.

I agree, the Guardian is highly partisan. I look at it most days as it has a very clear position. What I find surprising is that many people who share the Guardian view of the world think it is impartial, where in actuality they are crowd funding an echo chamber of belief reinforcement. I feel the quality of their writing has gone way down in the last few years, with far too many judgmental opEds dominating.

Newspapers are inherently partisan; that's fine, as long as the reader knows what they stand for.

You can have a political signature, yet perform fairly objective journalism.

I agree that there's no escaping partisanship. But a paper will have a stronger editorial line on some issues, than others. The Guardian have an almost totally one-sided line on Brexit.

I do not agree that there is such a thing as 'objective journalism'. There is accurate journalism: a commitment to not telling falsehoods. But how your select and interpret events is never 'objective' - it is partisan.

I totally disagree. The Guardian has outright lied about people I have personally spoken to. They also constantly call people Alt-Right. I actually emailed them about them calling people Alt-Right (which is a very specific meaning these days) and they wouldn't give me a definition, which means they don't know what it means.

There are events that I was either a part of that they have lied about by carefully omitting the truth or using the good old scare quotes. Their opinion pieces are written by awful hypocrites that constantly demand increasing censorship of the internet in the UK.

It looks like their e-begging has worked. I was hoping it was going to go under.

BTW. I generally hate all the press in the UK. This includes both left wing and the right wing rags. They all lie or misrepresent the truth when it suits their narrative.

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