The Guardian

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant


?

He's making a ridiculous fuss about nothing.

They published a joke in a lighthearted/humour column (column, not news coverage) in the TV guide section. The quote (out of context) was this:

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

With the following apology later:

Screen Burn, The Guide

Sunday October 24, 2004
The Guardian

The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.

“Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind.”

Apparently (according to nye) joking about killing politicians isn't funny in America. *shrug* Pretty normal here.

[Sikander]

The Gruniad is crap for news, but a goldmine for a certain type of opinion. In either case it also can serve as a low grade toilet paper so that it can be used to clean up after itself.

[MikeH]

The news coverage is excellent, as good as anything we get in UK papers. Of course most international people don't seee that because it is also a goldmine for certain types of opinion that cause massive messageboard rows, and that tends to be all they read but there you go.

[duke o' york]

The crossword is teh W00t!!!!!!111!!!11!

I (buy and) read the Grauniad six days a week and so am not qualified to enter this debate in the slightest. The news reporting is so good, though, that I was prepared to ignore a lengthy period of what I suspected was an anti-Newcastle bias in the footie pages. But I still wish that the idiots on the letters page would stop writing in to tell us all about the first flowers in their garden/the first time they tasted Marmite/their (or their parents') Co-op numbers/the myriad uses for 35mm film pots.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
A good journal will try to remove as much bias as possible and only present objective facts.

Do you believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus too?

[GePap]

There are two types of bias a paper can exhibit, thought of course it can exhibit both at the same time.

1. How it analyzes stories- ie, what spin is given to the facts in order to fit the given facts into a pre-existing view.
2. How it reports stories- chosing which facts to put in based on a decision of what should be included or not.

Of course, a source can be biased in its reporting and then be biased about the facts it chose to give.

To me the second is far more dangerous than the first- a piece can be very biased, BUT if it gives me the facts, I am free to chuck their point of view and make my own decisions, as long as I have all the facts. I am not bound to accept anyone elses annalys. BUt if a source deprives me of all the facts, then I can;t make a well educated annalysis on the issue.

So, with the Guardia, I note a lot of the first bias, but less of the second. In a place like the Washignton Times or the NY Post I note not only number 1, but a disturbing amount of bias type 2.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant
The editorial section is filled with a mass of different views - Conservative politicians, Labour politicians, Social Democrats, old-school Socialists - but the only articles that ever seem to get posted here are the lunatic ones.

OK, well maybe that is what is coloring my view point because normally I read the guardian articles posted online and EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM seem to be written by complete raving nutjobs. It is possible that we're just getting nutjobs here at poly picking and choosing which articles to post so that we get a nonsatistical sampling.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by notyoueither
How many other papers have published a plea for political assassination?

That is one of the things that made me write off the Guardian. The calls to kill Bush, the assinine letter writing campaign to American voters which every main stream American media source derided, and the transparancy of the anti Israeli views (at least as posted here at poly) made me believe other peoples' claims that the Guardian was full of nutjobs. I guess I'll have to take a second look.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by molly bloom
What's an objective fact ?

Objective fact: A dog was run over by a car today.

Biased report: Evil capitalist pig dog brutally murder man's best friend in feindish plot. Is Bush to blame?

Same event but one sticks to the facts while the other interjects a whole lot of opinion.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Oerdin


OK, well maybe that is what is coloring my view point because normally I read the guardian articles posted online and EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM seem to be written by complete raving nutjobs. It is possible that we're just getting nutjobs here at poly picking and choosing which articles to post so that we get a nonsatistical sampling.

The opinion stuff will really get on your nerves, there are plenty of people who get pieces posted by them that I think are raving left wing nut jobs.

There may be a slight left wing bias on news but it's amongst the best in the country newspaper wise.

[St Leo]

In terms of impartiality, newspapers available in Toronto go as follows:

1. Globe and Mail (right-wing)
2. Toronto Star (left-wing)
3. Toronto Metro (left-wing)
4. 24 Hours (right-wing)
5. Toronto Sun (right-wing)
6. National Post (right-wing)

I read the Guardian online, and I find that it has the same excellently objective reporting of events as the Globe & Mail, except that its opinion pieces lean to the left rather than the right.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Oerdin


That is one of the things that made me write off the Guardian. The calls to kill Bush, the assinine letter writing campaign to American voters which every main stream American media source derided, and the transparancy of the anti Israeli views (at least as posted here at poly) made me believe other peoples' claims that the Guardian was full of nutjobs. I guess I'll have to take a second look.

I thought that letter writing thing was ridiculous as well but the point of that piece really was to show how the fate of a massive country could ultimately hang on a few votes in a few key counties.

you're still mostly likely to see the extreme opinion pieces posted though, the non controversial stuff isn't worth posting.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Agathon
It is a liberal left leaning paper that also prints stuff from the right. It's about as close as you will get in Britain to being impartial.

Nah, the Times is way closer. I'm possibly slightly left leaning, and I consider the Times to be a pretty straight up newspaper. What politics it does talk is equally derogitory to both sides, and it always seems pretty clear what's opinion and what's news.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
The Independent

Yes, it's unbiased, but then it's also crap.

[Zulu Elephant]

Yes, it's unbiased, but then it's also crap.

Your Joking? The Indi is biased as hell for the left and against New Labour/Tony Blair

[Drogue]

The Independant may be against Blair, in some ways, but that's because it always is against whoever's in power. It tries to show off it's independence from the Government by criticising everything they do.