[Closed] Financially supporting The Guardian

Why do you think the BBC has been so successful online?

Because despite what some left and right wingers say, it's relatively neutral and trustworthy.

Just a shame the quality has gone down the pan.

I'm a supporter, second from bottom on their Friend, Supporter, Partner Patron membership tiers, fairly happy paying £49 pa atm, certainly a lot less than my 5-7 day a week newspaper habit that I had bitd. Still waiting for my complementary National Trust membership mind, it's only been a year.

the BBC has 8,000 journalist whereas the Mail has 400.

The Mail may have 400 with that job title, but I'm not convinced it's an accurate description. As long as you can trawl Reddit and lift stuff, and find pictures of celebs looking chubby for some body-shaming, you're in!

I doubt that it's anything like 8,000 journos at the Beeb. News and current affairs production staff included, perhaps, but then the BBC tends to cover car crashes in Maidenhead instead of what Scarlett Moffatt is wearing in the jungle and how judges are shits if they don't agree with you.

The BBC has been successful online because people want a frequently-updated, accurate, wide-ranging news service, and was one of the first news organisations to get the formula right.

Dacre wrote an article in the Guardian a few years ago which says the BBC has 8,000 journalist whereas the Mail has 400.

I don't usually bother with trolls like you, but don't you think that says more about the Mail than the BBC?

the BBC tends to cover car crashes in Maidenhead instead of what Scarlett Moffatt is wearing in the jungle and how judges are shits if they don't agree with you.

I've had some insight into how the MailOnline "newsdesk" works and it's far more terrifying and pathetic than I had imagined.

Why do you think the BBC has been so successful online?

The BBC doesn't have to worry about actually making a profit. They could churn out junk no one watches or reads for ages before anyone will take any money away from them...

...having said that my TV Licence fee is worth it just for Radio 4 - but I don't actually watch any BBC TV.

They could churn out junk no one watches or reads for ages before anyone will take any money away from them...

Did you miss all the reports of the massive cuts the BBC is being forced to make?

I hope the Guardian survives - It's doing such a fabulous job of displaying just how morally repugnant the progressive left has become .

Why is no-one citing articles to back up their claims of how awful the Guardian is?

Didn't they once run a piece on how the Thomas The Tank Engine tv program was a racist sexist abomination.
I think they were also behind the recent scheme to stop children from receiving free lego. It was revenge for Brexit and Trump apparently.

Dacre wrote an article

When you say wrote you really mean 'made up some random figures and then blamed it all on immigrants / black people'.

Why is no-one citing articles to back up their claims of how awful the Guardian is?

Pah, facts / references! We're in a Gove Approved (TM) post expert era when you just make up whatever you want...

I'm really up for this, whichever one you decide to support. Investigative journalism isn't cheap and we need it now as much as we ever have. It really doesn't seem expensive for the Guardian and even the Economist or the FT have to be worth it just to get a bit of analysis rather than more clickbait

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/do-you-subscribe-to-any-online-news-sites

[quote=noltae ]I hope the Guardian survives - It's doing such a fabulous job of displaying just how morally repugnant the progressive left has become .

what is it that you hate most about trying to look after others?

When you say wrote you really mean 'made up some random figures and then blamed it all on immigrants / black people'.

I'm torn on this. I read the Guardian online daily and appreciate a lot of the articles and opinion pieces. The thing that irks me is that they keep bleating about a lack of cash but yet publish a dizzying array of utter nonsense and ill thought out opinion pieces, apparently by anyone with access to a keyboard. I'm fine with differing opinions to my own but some of what gets published is sub GCSE standard in its arguments. The endless obsession with identity politics at expense of the base of left leaning voters is exactly the kind of self congratulating, virtue signaling that alienates large swathes of the population and leads to the cluster**** of brexit and Trump. It's largely preaching to the converted or at least the non-plussed. I'm not sure they need someone to live blog Strictly come Dancing, it's on the bloody telly! I get the circular argument that populist articles drive clicks and everyone paid then there would less need for it but ultimately I wonder if my £5 will be spent wisely.

I used to subscribe to the Independent. Once it left the world of print I took out a print and digital sub for the Grauniad. It is the only paper left that isn't pushing a right wing agenda, and as such it is precious. A free and diverse press is a fundamental requirement for a functioning democracy, and seeing how close we are to losing that preserving the Guardian is essential.

I read the Guardian online daily

I wonder if my £5 will be spent wisely

molgrips - Member 
Not quite convinced there. Journalism is an essential part of democracy; which is itself an effort to govern the world for the greatest benefit to the most people. So it's important.

Which is great, so long as you understand journalism is defined as presenting a particular viewpoint and opinion on a topic or item of news. So many people seem to fail to understand this and believe newspapers and TV news are actually presenting them with factual unbiased pure news. They are not. If they were, it would be tediously boring.

My news feed comes from my own internal filter using a wide array of sources and best where I can dig into some independent fact checks. I'll form my own opinion then. I can remain biased and opinionated of course, but at least mine isn't swayed by so called journalism.

Far easier to get your news from where all the papers get it:
Reuters

Thanks, Dragon, the Reuters site is superb.

It is the only paper left that isn't pushing a right wing agenda,

Apart from the FT. They're not pushing anything.

At the moment no. £5 a week is money I could use elsewhere. I also object to their comparison of less than the price of a coffee a day. I don't buy a coffee a day. I'm not a Londoner.

More seriously, I don't find they have anything that isn't on the BBC website. Apart from the occasional recipe. I often get fed up with their opinion pieces too. I want the news only. Then I'll draw my own opinion.

It seems to me that for a while there is too much emphasis on constantly updating the news website. Even when nothing has happened for the last day. I find I skim read far more than I used to, because it's the same story I read yesterday, only tweaked slightly to make it look like something has happened since I last looked at the item. As with so much of today's life it's too much rushed delivery and not enough time taken to do a proper job.

I pay them £5 a month out because I never get round to buying paper copy and end up reading the site a lot.

I occasionally buy an FT. Got a New Scientist sub for Christmas - excellent that is.

Thing about the Guardian is that it's not pedalling the agenda of a single rich individual with no stake in our society apart from the desire to make as much money out of us as possible.

I would certainly, as soon as i have a couple of beans to rub together again, sigh.

"No P, no me"

Which is great, so long as you understand journalism is defined as presenting a particular viewpoint and opinion on a topic or item of news

Absolutely.

So when I'm in charge the core curriculum in schools will include politics, economics, history, philosophy AND media studies.

Criminal that it doesn't, tbh.

Considering they were Apples mouth piece for a long time you'd have thought that for all the PR they'd have made some money. Nice to see two tax avoiding companies together.

Had anyone ever read the Guardian's car reviews, utterly bizarre sh*te, makes you wonder who commissions them.

well worth it imho

the news is variable in quality, but best one out there, lots of opinion pieces that are a bit lefty even for me

live blogs are still the best ones around

their long reads are very good and some of the other stuff on there is brilliant (and apolitical)
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/series/the-story-of-cities
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/series/lost-cities

science reporting is generally a lot better than other sites too (bbc isnt bad)

I have free FT subs through work and its not bad

I use the G website 2x every day and I cannot understand why they don't just charge like The Times. If G did that and the Torygraph then I and millions like me who are addicted to newspapers would have to do what we all did happily for years and that was pay cash for our daily fix.

I haven't read The Times since it added its paywall and the G remained free but if they all charged.... I would pay.

Ahhj turn my back and the conversations moved on...
Anyway, to those who reckon Alan R was a quality editor I say nahhh, he was a one dimensional charlatan who took a paper that had a broad and strong journalistic base, scooped out that broad base, landed a couple of lucky scoops and lost a ton of money in an ill conceived attempt to future proof the graun. And before you ask I'm a life long guardian reader, so were my parents and my grandparents. Does that qualify me to pass judgement - absolutely not! 🙂

a fiver a month is worth is for football weekly alone.

I don't usually bother with trolls like you, but don't you think that says more about the Mail than the BBC?

I've been called a troll, how frightfully exciting, the problem is, Sweetcheeks, not everyone shares your world view. One of the biggest criticisms of the BBC is that despite having so many journalists it hardly ever breaks a big story and when it follows up someone else's scoop it fails to credit them using the mealy mouthed phrase "The BBC has learned".

Newspapers are like sausages, you don't really want to know how they are made. Journalism can be a mucky business, which too many people have a romantic view of because they have seen All the Presidents' Men. The Press in this country is fantastic, it is loud, vulgar and respects noone and long may it continue.

I want the news only. Then I'll draw my own opinion.

A common misconception. Who decides what "the news" is? Which 100% accurate facts shall we choose to present as "the news".

The BBC is being looked into for its right wing bias at the moment too, Mefty.

when it follows up someone else's scoop it fails to credit them using the mealy mouthed phrase "The BBC has learned".

I don't go to the G for actual things that have happened - I go to the BBC for that. I read the G website for comment and opinion - some of which I disagree with (frequently the two headliners Monbiot and Toynbee); and also the random magazine type content. And I like the funnies too.

I find myself reading it quite a lot - interesting range of stuff.

Worth a fiver I think.

I flicker between The Times and the "i", both of which are pretty neutral in their reporting (Times less so).

The Guardian makes no bones of the fact that it's biased in both its article selection and writing style, and I prefer to make my own decisions on what to take away from a paper. Also, it's slightly too big to read easily at work.

Quite enjoy The Observer on Sunday now that the Independent isn't out any more.

To be fair, on most political stuff recently the Indy, Gruniad and Times reporting has taken a similar line, while the Torygraph (I'm an equal opportunities insult slinger) has tended to differ although it has started to question the logic of Brexit in particular a little more of recent weeks.
I'm a poll of polls sort of news consumer - if 3 of those 4 agree then the truth won't be too far away.

I'm a poll of polls sort of news consumer

I'll go along with that.

The Graun, Indy, Times & Beeb with the odd random source thrown in.

I can't bear the Torygraph...

I can't bear the Torygraph...

My dad reads it, and often leaves at mine. This is convenient as it's quite big, which means I have plenty of paper to light my fire with.

Been a long time reader of the Guardian, originally the paper but more so online now and mainly for the football (and excellent football weekly podcast) plus the opinion pieces but I'm starting to think the latter is now more about click-bait than actual thought inducing articles.
Bring back comrade Milne, even as a slightly right of center person I did used to enjoy his opinions, its good to anger the blood every now and then.
As for the newspapers and their readership, Yes Minister had this covered years ago....

In this day of easy access to news its also ironic that the same technology makes it even easier to spread false news probably more a result of robots farming joke fake news sites more than anything.

I haven't opened that clip and I could probably recite it line for line - unless you've fooled me with a British sausage clip.

I've been called a troll, how frightfully exciting,

You weren't trolling?

Unfortunately conviction doesn't make up for ignorance, and the more "facts" you share the more ignorant you're making yourself look on this topic.

But hey, you remembered someone compared the media to a sausage factory (it was Jeremy Paxman BTW), well done. You can now consider yourself an expert.

Mwa

The Graun does also feature Steve Bell, for which I am eternally grateful.

[img] ?w=940&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c958743353cfd5f8236d3582e596edcf[/img]

Ahhj turn my back and the conversations moved on...
Anyway, to those who reckon Alan R was a quality editor I say nahhh, he was a one dimensional charlatan who took a paper that had a broad and strong journalistic base, scooped out that broad base, landed a couple of lucky scoops and lost a ton of money in an ill conceived attempt to future proof the graun. And before you ask I'm a life long guardian reader, so were my parents and my grandparents. Does that qualify me to pass judgement - absolutely not!

I don't think that's true at all: they've authored their own demise through a lack of courage and alienation of their readership.

Rusbridger saw the writing on the wall - that print journalism is dead - and focussed on building an on-line market in the US. Then the Guardian appointed the execrable Viner, turned 180 degrees, and retreated to the already-occupied centre and a market that no longer exists. It now routinely trashes the likes of Corbyn & Sanders, and increasingly is pulling the tabloid trick of sensationalist headlines barely on nodding terms with the story underneath.

I'm not a fan of Rusbridger particularly, but the Guardian would be in much better shape if Facebook and Google hadn't started hoovering up about 50% of digital ad revenue between them.

Basically the goalposts have been moved.

We've been notified of an expected 10% increase in print costs in the new year due to the currency tanking and pretty much all the UK's paper stock coming from the EU. That's going to have a big knock-on effect across all print based publishers. I'm currently trying to work out what we are going to do about it.

We do of course offer a monthly digital option here for just £1.49. We have 1.4 million website visitors a month. Current tally for monthly subscribers is 199.

We have others on the annual £15 plan of course and our subs total including print is just over 7000. But still, we could really use some more monthly subscribers.

After VAT and transaction fees we net £1.04 for each monthly sub.

Print subs prices are going to have to go up and we've increased our cover price on the next issue by £0.55, which is the first price rise we've done in 4 years.

It's a struggle to keep print going and it's a struggle to pay for journalism. Content is expensive and the margins are tiny. My advice is if you like a particular paper or mag then please support it. I predict we are going to see some major changes in the journalism/print landscape in the next few months. No one is immune.

And I'll finish this with an unabashed plea to subscribe to Singletrack if you have been at wavering. Now would be a very good time for all of us.

@Mark - I will re-sub ASAP 🙂

Is a digital sub more profitable than a print sub?

Rusbridger saw the writing on the wall - that print journalism is dead - and focussed on building an on-line market in the US. Then the Guardian appointed the execrable Viner, turned 180 degrees, and retreated to the already-occupied centre and a market that no longer exists. It now routinely trashes the likes of Corbyn & Sanders, and increasingly is pulling the tabloid trick of sensationalist headlines barely on nodding terms with the story underneath.

Yep, he tried to find another way, just didn't pay fast enough. I don't think he deserved the vilification he seems to get. I quite liked his journalism.

Well, of the £1.49 you pay we get £1.04. That's pretty much all gross profit so you could argue the gross profit is extremely high and it's very profitable. However, we have just 199 at the moment. If we doubled that over night it will make little difference to our bottom line despite that product having a high profit margin.

The profit % on a print sub is much lower but the fact the transaction value is much higher means we get a larger amount of cash/subscriber.

So, it's a difficult question to answer simply.

We don't want something for nothing so I'll just say if you are thinking of buying a sub from us then buy the one best suited to you. Either way you will be helping us and we'd rather have happy subscribers getting what they want from our subscriptions than a print subscriber who thinks they'd be better off with a cheaper digital sub but only bought the print option to help us.

It's my job to make sure that every sub option we offer works for us.

That said, if you really twisted my arm I'd say the annual digital sub at £15 works really well for us.

suburbanreuben - Member 
Apart from the FT. They're not pushing anything.

They come out and support one party or another, favourite leaders and businesses at times. Just they might flip from left to right, but not unbiased. I'd say they're generally more right wing than left, as fits their readership (wealthy capitalist business types 😉 ).

On Brexit, they were firmly Remain (and at the time, fairly Tory in their opinions on the EU. Not any more as Tories have become UKIP post Brexit).

https://www.ft.com/content/3748166e-3151-11e6-ad39-3fee5ffe5b5b

And I'll finish this with an unabashed plea to subscribe to Singletrack if you have been at wavering. Now would be a very good time for all of us.

Mark, do you think the website could push paid-for content a bit harder? For example, "subscribe" is over on the top right, and not IMO all that obvious. On the front page, you need to scroll down below all the free content for the "premier" stuff. Just my 2p...

Make the classifieds subscribers only?

Offer a support STW option at £5/month similar to the Guardian....

Make the classifieds subscribers only?

Like it nick

I had an enjoyable 15 mins reading a hard copy of TG at the pool cafe this lunchtime. The level of angst was almost amusing. You can imagine the venom in the key strikes as Jones and Co are bashing out their latest diatribes. It would be a shame to miss them.....

The level of angst was almost amusing.

That's because they actually care about other people rather than just in life for themselves. I realise that's a completely unfathomable concept to many on here.

Good old Polly & Co - their angst is as warming as a charity blanket but less than the freetrade latter being drunk at the time!

Still it was a better read today that the Brexshit Bugle, sorry Torygraph, that was also in the rack today. They have gone doolally recently

suburbanreuben - Member
Apart from the FT. They're not pushing anything.

You don't think they push capitalism?

You don't think they push capitalism?

They'd push socialism if there was a profit in it.

The level of angst was almost amusing

So should just not care then THM?

No mol.

And I'll finish this with an unabashed plea to subscribe to Singletrack if you have been at wavering. Now would be a very good time for all of us.

I dont think these forums help at all in getting subscriptions. I imagine the magazine to be full of leftwing politics & roadbikes based on the threads on here.
Perhaps offer an older magazine to download for people to check out?

You weren't trolling?

No, but it would be easier to understand why you think I might have been if you identified what you disagreed with - now there's a thought.

But I am very glad I was quoting Paxman as he is very sound.

I thought that was the BBC's way of flagging an exclusive. It was when I worked there.

That was what I thought to, but then I saw quite a lot of rival journalists bitching about the fact that they were using it when referring to other peoples' stories on my Twitter feed - Peston was a serial offender.

The BBC is being looked into for its right wing bias at the moment too, Mefty.

I wasn't knowingly making a point about bias, but I imagine the more reactionary members of the left are just as unhappy with its output as the more reactionary members of the right are. Of course the former haven't had a lot of coverage in the past, whereas the latter had the Daily Mail on their side and BBC/Daily Mail spats really do add to the rich tapestry of life.

The BBC is being looked into for its right wing bias at the moment too, Mefty.

The BBC is very clearly left of center, imo

Mark at the risk of Not the Nine O'Clock News "I'd gladly sell my house to help STW" if you make more money from Digital I will renew that way in future, as much as I like the print version it seems win win if digital is cheaper and you make more money.

The BBC is very clearly left of center, imo

Yes, but compared to you Hitler and Mussolini are hand wringing lefties.....

Possibly even Trump himself 😉

That's so lame.

The BBC has been left of centre for at least 20 years...since those hand wringing infiltrators started taking over at the top.

Its only been the Nats having a go at Nick Robinson for daring to ask a sensible question or two, followed by the lovely Laura Kuenssberg (ME ME ME!) who has been trying to pin down JC to also answer the odd question, that has got the lefties scweaming BBC bias.

What a joke!

jambalaya - Member
"The BBC is being looked into for its right wing bias at the moment too, Mefty."
The BBC is very clearly left of center, imo

Knew that would be your opinion when I wrote it 😉

Nevertheless, I didn't make it up though I can't remember which paper published that (ptobably not the Mail) - 'twas on my Apple news feed.

Given the amount of time the BBC has given to UKIP and Farage over the last 24 months I fail to see how they could be accused if being leftist.

As I pointed out way back there, if both sides think they're biased toward the other then they're probably doing an OK job.

Given the amount of time the BBC has given to UKIP and Farage over the last 24 months I fail to see how they could be accused if being leftist.

Seems on natural given we knew we'd be having an EU Referendum

@footflaps and @igm 🙂

@Rockape in this PC world we can't make such comments, Laura K or Emily M ? Tough choice 😉

My honest opinion is that the BBC is probably naturally left of centre, knows this and knows it is expected to be unbiased, tries to compensate and sometimes completely over compensates.

The easy ride they gave the Brexiteers, and particularly some of the Brexmaniacs, was disgraceful.

And I'll finish this with an unabashed plea to subscribe to Singletrack if you have been at wavering. Now would be a very good time for all of us.

You've now got one more, at least. 🙂

Either way you will be helping us and we'd rather have happy subscribers getting what they want from our subscriptions than a print subscriber who thinks they'd be better off with a cheaper digital sub but only bought the print option to help us.

Why would someone take news from FB - does it not end up as a massive confirmation bias experience?

NB I dont use FB so I am guessing/asking

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/media/woman-chooses-coffee-over-safeguarding-guardians-future-20161121117565

🙂