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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait. I don't mean that as an attack or dismissal-- they do have good reporting sometimes-- but you have to keep that in mind when talking about their business model and what it implies for the broader industry. Any doofus on Substack or YouTube can make a living posting ragebait because it keeps engagement high. The question is whether the same business model (no paywall, unobtrusive ads) can work for sober and honest journalism, and IMO the answer sadly appears to be no, because not enough people value that to pay for it.

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> extremely-polarized ragebait.

From all the newspapers the Guardian isn't exactly what comes to mind here. Their opinion section might have some content that is very liberal or left from an American perspective but their news reporting is factual and pretty good while succinct in my experience.

It's not just the opinion section. While I don't regularly read The Guardian, I do read some articles from it that show up here, and the donation nag at the end of every article is always specifically anti-Trump. Not trying to say that's right or wrong, but definitely doesn't give them a "unpolarized" look.

Being a bit polarised (and really most newspapers have a political leaning and this is part of the reason subscribers pick them!) is a very different thing from 'ragebait'.

And really Trump is doing enough to warrant rage, all the guardian needs to do is report on it :)

Relevant paragraph from the linked story:

> Despite The Guardian’s strident anti-Trump fundraising pushes, its broader audience is less partisan, as is the tone of its news coverage. It’s a weird line to straddle. “The appeals that you see at the bottom of articles are really framed around issues of press freedom and our identity and our structure of ownership,” Reed said. “They are not appeals that say, ‘Trump is bad, you need to support The Guardian, we are against Trump.’” Maybe not explicitly. But they are clearly benefitting from this moment and using the new money to hire, with expectations to continue growing its staff in the U.S. this year.

> as is the tone of its news coverage

I read the Guardian for 20 years, it's not less partisan in its output, it's incredibly partisan - just like all the other big papers. Thinking a news source doesn't have a slant is incredibly naive, in my view, but since this is coming from another newspaper or journalist with their own biases and slant, it's at best false and at worst a lie.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/

I'm not sure that site is fair.

The Guardian has some statistical errors (600 vs 30), a couple serious and the others less serious (9% vs 3%).

It seems to be being held to a higher standard than media known to be less trustworthy.

Does seem odd to have Fox News, which they describe as exhibiting "promotion of propaganda, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, the use of poor sources, and numerous false claims and failed fact checks", ranked above the guardian for factual reporting, when it describes the guardian as having "numerous failed fact checks over the last five years."

Neither is desirable, but one seems quite definitely worse than the other, and I wouldn't say the one making mistakes is worse than the one they call out as "PANTS ON FIRE"...

I thought Fox News had declared themselves to be entertainment television only and not the news for legal purposes.

But yes, The Avengers is riddled with inaccuracies and may not reflect yesterdays actual events in New York, London and Wakanda.

They're both ranked mixed which sits below the next level. Maybe fox is at the bottom of that bucket while the Guardian is not?

Also it would depend on the ratio of fact check issues to stories. Maybe Fox News runs a lot more news?

Either way, the analysis seems not crazy, and the Guardian seems biased and not 100% factual.

They have a numeric scale as well, which scores fox at 6.1 and the guardian at 5.7 (I think, I looked yesterday)

The guardian’s editorial is politically biased, it wears that on its sleeve, their opinion pieces come from a moderate-left viewpoint. But its reporting is generally factual, even if they make mistakes sometimes, as reported on that site.

Whereas they literally label some fox links as “PANTS ON FIRE”, I.e deliberate falsehoods. And we all know the story around, say, Dominion, where Fox knew they were lying but carried on. And the site gives them a higher score?

This is enough for me to doubt the site is anywhere near a reliable comparator.

Do you have a better source?

I don't see how that's relevant to my comment? I've been using that site for many years for media I'm unfamiliar with and it's only somewhat helpful, and its current ranking of the Graun says nothing about its partisanship (or bias, which in their usage is a misnomer, in my view).

I can pick certain topics and check the Graun to see whether they ever deviate from positive or negative on those topics. That's partisanship, wholly different from where they land on the political spectrum.

I was chiming in to the broader thread not just your comment but I think it adds to your observation about the political bias.

I'd love to get a higher quality source of data on media bias and accuracy. Both of these matter because even reporting facts but emphasizing a certain perspective distorts reality. Inaccuracy or straight out making stuff up is another form of reality distortion.

Fair enough. I'm hopeful that with AI we can get better metrics (although it'll probably add another layer of bias!)

As to the distortions, the only defence against that appears to be to read a wide array of sources. I stopped reading the Guardian after one too many straight up lies but I certainly can't say they're the only ones.

> the donation nag at the end of every article is always specifically anti-Trump

It’s not really surprising, or even controversial, for a European newspaper to be mostly anti-Trump. They are also anti-fascism and pro-democracy. All perfectly logical.

The Daily Mail was very pro Hitler in the 1930s

Even they, and the rest of the right wing press in the U.K, seem to at most indifferent to Trump at the moment.

Quite odd really. Hitler in the 30s was threatening to invade neighbouring countries, saying Germany needed places like Austria, Czechoslovakia, for national security reasons

> Even they, and the rest of the right wing press in the U.K, seem to at most indifferent to Trump at the moment.

I must admit that I don’t go out of my way to read the Daily Mail. Maybe I should. I wonder which way they are going now, with the conservatives missing in action, Reform intent on sabotaging itself and Trump quite hostile and not very sensitive to the “special relationship” argument. Same for the Telegraph, actually.

> Hitler in the 30s was threatening to invade neighbouring countries, saying Germany needed places like Austria, Czechoslovakia, for national security reasons

The history of British international policies is fascinating. It has always been a combination of splendid isolation and playing continental countries against each other. I can see how there could be a tendency to support anybody just to annoy the French, or to have a strong right-wing government to eliminate the Communists. There is some kind of internal consistency, if you assume that no problem will cross the Channel.

> always specifically anti-Trump

A lot of newspapers in Europe are also explicitly pro-Ukraine for instance. How is that different?

And politically being anti Trump is an extremely moderate position.

Disliking Trump isn’t really a polarising issue in the UK.

The ones I see aren't explicitly anti-Trump, but rather pro-press freedom. The one I just saw said "It’s clear that in 2025 rigorously fact-checked journalism will be more vital than ever".

That said, being anti-Trump is not a partisan position for a UK newspaper. Since the Zelenskyy/Oval Office events, he's unpopular even among much of the right. Nowhere near as unpopular as Vance and Musk though.

(Disclosure: I used to work at the Guardian, a million years ago, and helped with their early entry onto the web, including decisions about not having a paywall.)

What the Guardian has, throughout its editorial, is a political position. This is something that UK national newspapers naturally evolved over time as a differentiator, and is common (but not universal) in many countries. There are various political stable-ish ecological niches -- left, center-left, center-right, upper class, business, popularist right, and various news media that have staked out their territory. That means that they can attract with "ragebait", and also build a reasonably consistent (or self-consistent, at least) factual reportage. Someone who leans right-wing but wishes to be informed might buy the Guardian regardless, because they can disregard and triangulate. You have a core audience, and as long as that audience is loyal -- and needs some connection to reality, you can fund greater than just ragebait.

Ragebait isn't the only business model for supporting honest journalism, and one of the lessons I learned at the Guardian is that the actual business models can be surprising and frequently unrelated to news reporting. For many years, the Guardian was kept solvent through used car sales via Autocar, the most profitable asset in the Scott Trust. (One of the reasons why the Guardian was so early going online is that its editors, in particular Alan Rusbridger, recognised presciently that the Web was going to absolutely gut Autocar's profits, and so they needed to get ahead of the game.) You will be surprised about how many booms and busts in UK media industry have been determined by audience-pullers like crosswords, bingo, photos of naked models, and sudoku.

Pre-Trump, I had a paid online subscription to Guardian for a time, because it was so well written and informative.

After 2016, however, they seemed to adopt a firm anti-MAGA stance which I found to be biased and off-putting. Their highly critical stance against Israel after the Hamas attacks of October 2023 was the last straw.

Then, they withdrew from the X platform and now they might as well not exist, as far as I'm concerned. I think that was a mistake, given their significant following on X, but I guess they felt they don't need it.

Their stance regarding Israel and Palestine is well within the mainstream in Europe, including the UK.

How has the NY Times reported this?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-...

Why wouldn't they be critical of Israel? They killed over 200 children in one day just last week.

Funny, I started following the Guardian around then as it was the only paper that had a common sense takes on Israel instead of the highly compromised ones like the NY Times.

> For many years, the Guardian was kept solvent through used car sales via Autocar, the most profitable asset in the Scott Trust.

Wasn't that Auto Trader, not Autocar?

You're right!

Most US newspapers will financed to a great extent by classified ads, until the Internet destroyed that model - very many never recovered. The NY Times is financied in part by people who will pay for crosswords, cooking, games, and other non-news products.

At one point I began to suspect that, but realized it was just the events themselves, reported in a straightforward fashion, were making me outraged.

Since then, I have a personal filter that I apply to all journalism, which is to avoid articles of the form: "X is outraged by Y" (or horrified, shocked, etc). I don't need meta-outrage. With my filter turned on, I'm quite satisfied with the G's journalism.

It's been a long time since I've been a regular reader of any newspaper, but when I was (admittedly at least 20 years ago!) I don't remember it being that way at all. Can you suggest a good example of a recent Guardian article that's ragebait?

What do you think about this one, from 2017?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/ashamed-t...

I remember this one in particular for random reasons. But these kinds of articles aren’t particularly rare in the guardian. The guardian’s editorial policy appears to be to generate a steady stream of random human interest stories with the common agenda of finding fault with everything that isn’t British.

If you consider that rage bait, it might be time for a little counselling.

The article is typical Guardian rage bait hit piece. It took the opinions of a handful of engineers and tried to paint a picture of an industry wide trend in an effort to show moral superiority. It was patently false. There was no industry trend like this, as was obvious to anyone in the industry a the time. And as we all know today, Facebook had no problem growing by leaps and bounds since.

You need counseling for your sad hostility.

> common agenda of finding fault with everything that isn’t British.

Believe me they find fault in everything that is British as well!

They are most definitely at the forefront of the "everything here is shit and we are all dreadful" mindset that infects a lot of the centre-left of the UK. For all that I like them better than most other news sources, the repeated refrain that we are all awful and should be ashamed of ourselves does get tiresome.

They find fault with lots of British things, but you'll need to look at the UK section.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news

The article you linked has some sources, though maybe a survey would help (if one exists). It might be applying a British viewpoint on America, in Britain the "shameful" jobs are in banking.

> The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait.

Errr, nah. It's mostly very high quality, sober and honest journalism.

Yes, a lot of the opinion and editorial is very obviously politically biased, and they do publish some absolute lefty tripe occasionally, but the news coverage is generally high quality and the longer form stuff thought provoking.

For ragebait in a British publication see "The Daily Mail".

No, it isn’t. Compared to any of the Murdoch news sources it’s even handed and thorough. If anybody feels rage reading it perhaps some introspection is required.

It is in no way "extremely polarized ragebait".

It has a mild bent to its reporting, and that's about it. The world isn't "ragebait" just because you happen to disagree.

> extremely-polarized ragebait

What’s not then? I’m genuinely curious since Guardian seems to be one of the most balanced major newspapers in their reporting that there is.

Sure it’s slightly left leaning overall and there are some quite unhinged editorials now and then but they are mostly isolated from the rest of the paper.

> sober and honest journalism

Well again.. can you give examples of more sober and honest journalism (besides just fact reporting news services like Reuters)

IMO it’s telling to view something as innocuous as The Guardian as “ragebait”. Yes, it leans mildly left but that’s only notable because so few other outlets do. Most major news outlets lean center to center-right, they just look left wing because they get compared to Murdoch tabloids and FOX News.

Just because it makes you angry doesn’t make it “ragebait”.

I agree, don’t really see as much quality journalism on the guardian as the thread implies.

I donated for the longest time until they succumbed to rage bait journalism.

For a while I started avoiding it entirely, especially during the worst of the Trump and C19 years sanity and objective information seemed to have left everyone.

Also HN remember this is NOT reddit, downvote only if the comment brings nothing to the discussion. The above comment is simply disgreeing with the current blind guardian admiration.

They do not deserve all that praise, and those who point it out are not breaking HN rules and thus should not be removed from the discussion with mindless downvotes.

Read the rules ppl !!!

( wish reddit users could just stay in their own ruined toxic echo chamber and leave the still relatively healthy forums alone. Dont you people have a Tesla somewhere to scratch??)

> The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait.

Doesn't that describe your comment? I don't meant that as an attack or dismissal.

I was a fan of the Guardian back during the Snowden leaks. Ive had to dodge them in recent months for what you described. Since people are doubting you, let's look at the headlines on the front page of a newspaper they is mostly factual despite having some bias. Here we go:

Musk is evil, most scientists warning about Trump, Trump takes over Chips Act, and Trump is a "dictator."

Then, Trump cuts Planned Parenthood, Trump reviews Harvard for antisemitism claims, and Trump pardons "Jan 6 loyalist."

Also, Israel are killers and woke people were right per someone on TV. Then, a few, normal pieces of news if the articles themselves had no slant.

Most of the front page would make those considering source integrity wonder if the paper was funded by a top opponent of Trump or Musk specifically to attack them. I'm not saying there's any data for that. I'm saying that, as a former liberal who used to want high-quality news with a range of views, I'd have thought the Guardian today was as extremely polarized as CNN or Fox.

Then, a popup that billionaires control the media with only two, right-wing ones mentioned. No mention that richest oligarchs funding or controlling education, media, and political campaigns are leftist:

https://youtu.be/fwZPrgcSRaw

Such papers are highly misleading with much drama following the games they play.

It's unfortunate given that the Guardian's ownership model might let it be a politically neutral paper with a range of views. They could be independent with quality, non-extreme writing from many sides. We could see a range of views. If one side, reporting with data representing many perspectives where we know they aren't cherry picking.

I want more news like that. Even the reliable sources that write in endless attacks or pour gas on the fire are draining to read. I'd rather it just be a little work or even pleasant. I dread reading the news these days.

Sometimes things are just bad, reporting on them at that point is a duty. Do you dispute that Trump has started talking about a third term? Or that those other actions are actually taking place?

> was as extremely polarized as CNN or Fox.

The guardian is an openly left-leaning publication, that's what it is, that's more or less what it's for.

If you're in the US I understand that you may not understand such a thing, or it may seem extreme to you because there is effectively no political left wing in America, and news is generally captured by oligarchs with a right-leaning slant. In the other geographies where the Guardian has a presence (UK, Australia) its reporting doesn't feel particularly extreme, probably because the ideas and viewpoints of the moderate left are a normal part of our political landscape, and we also have national broadcasters that are (generally, in intent) pretty neutral.

They're not in any way a Fox equivalent - the Guardian doesn't just make shit up or shit-stir for the sake of it, or try to pass itself off as an 'entertainment network' rather than news...

"If you're in the US I understand that you may not understand such a thing, or it may seem extreme to you because there is effectively no political left wing in America"

In America, almost all corporate outlets are Progressive left, most universities are, their politics were pushed into many big firms, and most of the government was liberal. They force their views on others in most places they control, too, with dissent not allowed.

A newer trend we saw during elections was them saying the same things in sync like they had a script. Recently, they all said positive things about Biden and Harris while saying negative things about Trump. They were willing to lie together many times. Like how liberal media reported Harris was the border czar in the past but all said it was a myth when Trump pointed it out. They also constantly misquote and lie about Trump which annoys me because I hate wasting time on lies or doing retractions.

The total, leftist control of major institutions and media... along with their games and lies... is the largest cause of the rise of Trump. It's why we now have kore accurate, but biased, reporting like The Daily Wire. Many people have left the Democrat party as a result of these things. Liberal news is lower rated by liberals than in the past.

Their control of media is proven by the fact that whatever you watch led you to believe they weren't in control of the media and country for a long time.

The point being made by Nursie above is simply that what you are calling "Progressive left" in the USofA is a position largely seen as centralist in other parts of the world.

By stating tht there is "effectively no political left wing in America" they are asserting that the furtherest political left position held in the USofA is a centralist one called "Progressive left" there in the US.

So to avoid being polarising, the guardian should stop reporting on the things that Trump is actually doing? What curious logic that is.

AI Slop. s/The Guardian/The Telegraph/ and the result is the same.

Uh no. They are radically different newspapers.

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