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Guardian decides it is good

Started by pancreas, July 06, 2019, 03:21:37 PM

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BlodwynPig

Quote from: Quote on July 08, 2019, 06:45:22 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/08/how-to-wash-your-hair-shampoo-conditioner

Valuable advice.

HA! I thought I recognised that name - Zoe Passam - she's doing a consultancy with my wife in London next week! (375 quid of my hard earned cash - don't look at me with those eyes!)

Zetetic

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 08, 2019, 02:47:13 AM
Not sure what you mean by 'digging'. It's not a secret. It's on their wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 08, 2019, 09:53:38 AM
I thought it's been haemorrhaging money for over a decade.

The Guardian made a small profit in 2018/19. I believe this includes their £25-30m income from the Scott Trust - but also revenue almost 10x from that subscribers and advertisers.

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 08, 2019, 02:47:13 AM
It does mean the future of the news group is somewhat reliant on the finance industry, though.
More than if it was dependent on subscribers and advertising? (As it also is.)

Zetetic

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 08, 2019, 02:08:35 AM
I wonder how the Graun is funded? The newspaper seems to make historic losses year over year, and yet keeps rolling.
You and I actually had an exchange about this in late 2018.

(We never seemed to get to the bottom of whether, actually, taking into account re-investment and inflation that 2-3% was a more realistic RoR than 5%.)

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Zetetic on July 08, 2019, 06:58:56 PM
More than if it was dependent on subscribers and advertising? (As it also is.)

No idea, but it's the thing that ensures it can survive not making a profit the way other news outlets do. IIRC, kngen mentioned the eye-watering costs of the paper changing size twice, which was something to do with having to replace the presses in their entirety due to lack of planning.

Zetetic

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 08, 2019, 08:38:16 PM
No idea, but it's the thing that ensures it can survive not making a profit the way other news outlets do.
But only to the tune of about 10% of its current running costs.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Zetetic on July 08, 2019, 08:39:09 PM
But only to the tune of about 10% of its current running costs.

I have to admit, that's less than I thought.

Zetetic

But you're right that the endowment itself acts as a buffer - and something you can dip into for massive capital outlays (like replacing the presses).

For a bit anyway.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: BlodwynPig on July 08, 2019, 06:39:36 PM
London, land of plenty

I thought it was all massive plates with fuck all food on.

The ones that aren't serving it on slates, shovels and traffic cones.

pancreas

Many other papers have put up paywalls since last year or two so that may explain increased advertising revenue. I'm sure this will be helping maintain the independence of their beautiful, yet hip and edutaining writing.

kngen

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 08, 2019, 08:38:16 PM
No idea, but it's the thing that ensures it can survive not making a profit the way other news outlets do. IIRC, kngen mentioned the eye-watering costs of the paper changing size twice, which was something to do with having to replace the presses in their entirety due to lack of planning.

Here's my post on that from the thread that Zetetic dug up. It's still astonishing reading it all back, even though I lived through most of it.

NoSleep

Quote from: pancreas on July 08, 2019, 09:45:55 PM
Many other papers have put up paywalls since last year or two so that may explain increased advertising revenue. I'm sure this will be helping maintain the independence of their beautiful, yet hip and edutaining writing.

Depending on advertisers is not independence, as Chomsky has explained. Gotta keep those paying you happy with what you write.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: NoSleep on July 09, 2019, 12:20:26 AM
Depending on advertisers is not independence, as Chomsky has explained. Gotta keep those paying you happy with what you write.

Yeah, HBO work on that principle, it works well for creative dramatic televison. How does it work for news though? If you move to a paywall then you still have to keep those paying you happy with what you write, so unless journalists figure out alchemy, they'll never be truly independent and free will they?

Paul Calf

Quote from: kngen on July 08, 2019, 03:29:45 PM
And then there's the Scottish non-Oxbridge people who actually do all the work there. But yes, it really is a hive of self-regarding posh sods self-facilitating media nodes.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: NoSleep on July 09, 2019, 12:20:26 AM
Depending on advertisers is not independence, as Chomsky has explained. Gotta keep those paying you happy with what you write.

Didn't know Thompsons Travel Agency were Deep State

jobotic

Can't say I disagree with much written here. This makes a refreshing change though. Of course the commentators don't like it. "All hail the Dear Leader". How familiar.

If Tom Watson had guts, he would quit Labour. Instead he is weakening the party

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/tom-watson-weaken-labour-party-centrists-jeremy-corbyn?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Shoulders?-Stomach!

'Labour could dominate the centre ground and win' by...

Oooh surprise surprise, Matthew D'Ancona

So Matthew, tell me about this 'centre ground'....

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on July 09, 2019, 08:18:00 AM
'Labour could dominate the centre ground and win' by...

Oooh surprise surprise, Matthew D'Ancona

So Matthew, tell me about this 'centre ground'....

Horrifyingly, unavoidably drawn to that caption....gahhhhhh noooooo, mine eyeseth

BlodwynPig

ITTTTTTS GUARDIAN PICK TIME

QuoteCoityCommoner 43m ago
Guardian Pick

On the other hand, Corbyn could respect the democratic vote of the Labour membership. I've been a Labour voter since 1979, and Corbyn has put me in the position of having to vote for a different party for me to get what the huge majority of the Labour membership want. Tom Watson is respecting the values, beliefs and votes of the membership while Corbyn tilts against imagined windmills of EU restrictions.

Two years ago, Corbyn had the youth of today in his hand and he's squandered a once in a generation opportunity to capture the ideas of the new generation by failing to listen. Try speaking to some twenty year olds, they may have voted Labour last time, but they are not coming back any time soon.

fucking hell...mentalists

Shoulders?-Stomach!

That's 20 year olds who voted for Labour whose 2017 manifesto stated explicitly that they would implement Brexit.

Paul Calf

But there weren't many 2017 Labour voters who took that at all seriously.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Paul Calf on July 09, 2019, 08:45:38 AM
But there weren't many 2017 Labour voters who took that at all seriously.

The idea that the referendum result wouldn't be implemented was a very fringe view indeed. If the above were the case there would have been genuine difficulties in including it so unequivocally in the manifesto, but there weren't.

Labour do need to have a platform which is less Brexity and shouldn't take their young voters for granted, but when the election comes and there is truly really one party that can knock the Tories off their perch, the soft votes that went to the Lib Dems in the locals and a frankly pointless Euro election will peel back towards Labour.

Especially as Labour have actual policies on other issues too.

The Lib Dems will be forced to admit they would join another coalition with the Tories to 'keep Corbyn out of power' and out themselves as primarily protectors of the neolib establishment.

Paul Calf

I'm not sure the Lib Dems', Tories' and remnants of CHUK's ability to wage attritional war against Corbyn is as weak as you seem to think it is. They're not going to turn tail and run once they get a taste of our Corbynite spunk and although there's a grass roots campaign, an adept social media strategy and the advantage of being right about pretty much everything on Labour's side, they have the combined ranks of the corporate, political and - most importantly - media establishments ranged against them.

Labour can't win on Twitter's votes alone. I've yet to see a scenario that would carry Labour into government with the necessary political capital to implement the broad and deep changes that we need.

NoSleep

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 09, 2019, 12:35:57 AM
Yeah, HBO work on that principle, it works well for creative dramatic televison. How does it work for news though? If you move to a paywall then you still have to keep those paying you happy with what you write, so unless journalists figure out alchemy, they'll never be truly independent and free will they?

The "Gotta keep those paying you" bit was directed at the advertisers rather than paywall customers. I don't suppose those customers have any significant influence on content apart from the gratuitous.

Ferris

Quote from: Paul Calf on July 09, 2019, 09:08:14 AM
I'm not sure the Lib Dems', Tories' and remnants of CHUK's ability to wage attritional war against Corbyn is as weak as you seem to think it is...

Genuinely forgot they existed.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 09, 2019, 01:54:34 PM
Genuinely forgot they existed.

Who? there is just a blur where some text should be....SDP, BNP, NF?

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteI've yet to see a scenario that would carry Labour into government with the necessary political capital to implement the broad and deep changes that we need.

So? It's not described as a struggle for romantic reasons but for real life reasons.

Your threshold can never be met while the financial markets exist. The markets will not let a socialist Labour succeed even if it has a majority of 200. We can only fight and fight and fight forever. Every single correct move we make is trumped by their ability to turn the chessboard over altogether. But eventually the more extraordinary and patently extreme their resistance, the more likely it is they will be overthrown.

All your bonfire shitting does is demoralise the people likely to contribute to that fight. Cheers for that.

Zetetic

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on July 09, 2019, 08:57:26 AM
The idea that the referendum result wouldn't be implemented was a very fringe view indeed.
An odd thing to say given Labour's current position.

(And Welsh Labour's before that.)