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Comment by NeedMoreTea | Hacker News Reader

The Guardian has never been full left, or organ of the Labour party, always centre-left more where the old Liberal Party once sat.

They don't seem that much moved, if anything they are more "of the left" today than they've ever been, just not necessarily Corbyn's left. Being so negative on Corbyn in the run up to 2015 may well have damaged many folk's views of them.

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You're wrong IMHO.

I used to read a rotating selection of the guardian, the independent and the telegraph when I still bought a newspaper in the 2000s. I now mainly read the guardian and occasionally scan the BBC, telegraph, ft, fox news and CNN.

Putting aside opinion pieces, the guardian has moved from hard left, to left of the centre, in its reporting. You just don't get the sort of bombastic, hard left, 'news' articles some of their old reporters used to write in the print version.

I would say they often had pretty biased reporting back in the print days, but not now.

The telegraph website has moved from centre right to hard right. The independent website hurts my eyes last I checked with ads, ads, ads, videos, videos, videos, which is a shame as I loved that paper.

Personally I'm nervous of the guardian having so much power now (and some semi-stable funding from a trust), but they're being pretty responsible with it.

The Independent is owned by Saudi/Russian investors now:

>Owner(s)

>Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel

>Alexander Lebedev

>Evgeny Lebedev

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40762906

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/oct/19/independent-de...

Friendly reminder that the UK government once leaked material about foreign spying activities through the Independent and pretended it was Snowden's fault in an attempt to discredit him. I considered them to have zero journalistic ethics after that.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uk-...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-gov...

The Independent used to have a chum box on its page.

Whatever money it made for them, it made me associate that with their work, which I don’t think was that great to begin with.

Their website is now just an ad vehicle too. Giant videos that take up half the screen even when you scroll past them and don't watch them? Yep, I'm leaving.

And you, IMHO, are not right. I read both the Telegraph & Guardian online. I find - at least with brexit - that there's a plurality of opinion in the Telegraph that the Guardian doesn't have (for example, regular articles from anti-brexit voices such as Irish senator Neale Richmond, or EU figures like Barnier). The Guardian is like an echo chamber in comparison, with only its Economic's editor Larry Elliot offering anything against the grain.

Honestly, if you think the Telegraph is hard-right, then you're much harder left than you're letting on.

I'm definitely not, I wonder if you know any lefties at all.

At the moment, compare the headlines, lead stories on the Telegraph to the Guardian. Here's the Telegraph:

Backlash as No 10 questions impartiality of Scottish judges

The Scottish court prorogation ruling shows the anti-Brexit Establishment is hard at work

Remainers are confirming Leave voters' worst fears by trying to litigate Brexit to death

None of that is impartial, it's all highly emotive and extremely biased. The Telegraph is sounding more and more like a hard-right red top.

Compare that to the Guardian right now:

No 10 resists demands to recall parliament after Scottish prorogation ruling

Scottish court ruling: what happens next in prorogation dispute

Nigel Farage 'won't be allowed anywhere near government', say Tories

All unbiased, fact based, impartial.

Well if you're going to take your headlines from the comment section of the Telegraph, but the news section of the Guardian, then of course they look partial. How about these other headlines from the current Guardian? "Tom Watson is wrong. We need an election first – and then a second referendum" "'People's PMQs': just more trolling from PM Smirky McSmirkface" "Boris Johnson and the crown: a clear abuse of power"

And anyway, my point was that you get a greater range of opinion in the Telegraph than the Guardian. Plus, just because you disagree with something - i.e. Brexit in this case - doesn't mean that the people you disagree with are hard-right or hard anything.

The Guardian has had a great ongoing series of Brexit pieces from Michel Barnier, Irish perspectives, frequently fascinating views from academics, economists and politicians around the world.

Opinion has varied widely, depending on who, which at times has been most frustrating. It's been possible to read two opinion slots, from different authors, on the same front page with opposite Brexit hopes. :)

There is literally no (mainstream, "respectable") newspaper in the UK more nakedly partisan than the Telegraph. People actually call it "The Torygraph". If you don't think the Telegraph is hard-right, I shudder to imagine what you consider that to be.

The Guardian is the only remaining newspaper I trust to be unaffected by UK government agenda.

And how do the revelations from TFA play into that trust? It seems to me that the Guardian is highly compromised.

"The Guardian is the only remaining newspaper I trust to be unaffected by UK government agenda." - presumably that wouldn't be the case if Labour were in power?

Having started with just the Telegraph, my rotation was Guardian, Telegraph and FT in the 90s and 00s. They all had a view, but I hesitate to say any of them were biased. The Telegraph has become very biased. I have to go to Reuters now for right of centre honesty.

The FT was sometimes surprisingly soft-left, but firmly economic in outlook. Telegraph firmly Tory, of all variants, until the Barclays bought them in the early or mid 00s. Downhill aiming to get below the Mail ever since. Dishonest, biased and populist, but no longer Tory. Populist, disingenuous Boris was well suited for writing his columns on made-up EU outrages.

You know where I think the Guardian sat, where the Liberals once were. Sure, there were some strident leftist pieces, but it was uncommon, just as the current incarnation has some strident (and often particularly naive) leftist pieces from Owen Jones. They don't have the couple of leftist heavyweight characters they once had though, and Owen isn't in the same league...

Heck, they supported Thatcher and the first Gulf war, albeit with some doubts.

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