What is up at the Guardian? I note that at 10:30 this morning none of the normal comment pieces that I would expect to have been posted on its website have, as yet, appeared.
Yesterday‘s editorials have not been posted to the site as yet, let alone today's.
And, the featured opinion article dates from 29th April.
Are they in trouble?
Do they have no staff?
Is the problem of posting daily overwhelming them? They have my sympathy in that case.
What I do know is that if they wish to be taken seriously, they cannot post like this.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Presumably this is because The Observer —The “Sunday Guardian” as I’ve considered it for the last thirty-odd years— has been sold to Tortoise media.
What you used to have been getting on Sundays was Observer’s content. Guardian sold the Observer to the Tortoise Media. The split happened just last Sunday – that’s why there’s no usual content anymore. Quiet a few columnist you used to read on Sundays were actually Observer’s columnist and not Guardian’s. You can find some of them now here: https://observer.co.uk/
As far as the question whether Guardian are in financial trouble is concerned – the answer is – yes they are, but not more than other printed media – even less in many respects.
That site does not work well in an iPad
But, this does nit explain why the Guardian had not posted its own editorials from yesterday.
I had a quick look and noticed an opinion piece from 3 hours ago and news items from 5 hours ago (bit of a lag there). Of course, the Observer is now a separate title. I didn’t look there.
Anything to do with the Observer sale?
Or a cyber attack?
Just after 11.30 and seems up to date. Issues separating from the Observer perhaps?
No idea.
But they need to sort their act out.
Richard,
Many people and organizations “need to sort their act out”.
Please refrain from getting your knickers in a wad over this matter! LOL! LOL!
To my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened so cut them some slack and give them until next Sunday to ” sort their act out”.
If they do not send out an email to their subscribers and supporters by middle of next week apologizing for whatever happened, then everyone, who is a subscriber and/or supporter, should go into overdrive complaining.
Remember, this is not high on the list of important things as we are NOT dealing with councils do nothing to fix potholes or reducing public libraries hours here. We are dealing with a Sunday newspaper.
Disclaimer: I am a financial supporter of “The Guardian” but have have no idea if this financial support included “The Observer”.
Possibly due to selling off The Observer?
@ Richard.
Seems counterproductive to me Richard; the comments are often (and always in the case of Simon Jenkins) more informative than the article.
There was a significant drop in the number of articles, open for comment, a year or so ago; they are also open for a much shorter time. Previously you expect almost every editorial or opinion cartoon to be open; ditto pieces by John Crace and Marina Hyde, amongst others. Those are the ones I noticed most, because several of them were open during my commute, or when I got home. Now, few are open and often only for an hour or two.
Whereas in the past there was plenty of time to get conversations going, with lots of back and forth, and time to check facts and find citations, it is now almost impossible; unless you chance upon a comments section that has just opened. As a result, the Gish Gallopers are at liberty to spout their nonsense without rebuttal.
Not that any of the above answers any of your questions about today, specifically, but the signs that all is not well have been apparent for a while.
“the comments are often (and always in the case of Simon Jenkins) more informative than the article.”
As is the commentariat for John Crace articles.
@ Drew Anderson, I so agree with you about not being able to make comments on various articles. I particularly miss the comments on Martin Rowson’s cartoons, as the knowledgeable people taking part would often know what some of his more arcane meanings could be!
I must declare an interest here – I have a collection of Rowson cartoons, a mix of originals and prints, in our hallway and up the stairs. I’m very slow at managing the stairs, grab the handrail and have crutch in other hand, so I get lots of pleasure looking at these cartoons on the days I manage to get downstairs.
The Sunday guardian is the observer which I think has been sold recently.
A lot of staff were laid off and some were striking. I’d expect this may have something to do with it
The new website is terrible.
I agree.I have been wondering what the hell was going on. Now, I know. Very unfortunate.
I noticed it was very slow updating the England local and Australian general election results. Must be short staffed – possibly due to the Observer thing.
@ Geof Cox,
There’s probably nothing to report from Australia. The BBC haven’t updated their projection in 22 hours.
From what I can gather, the early “results” all came from urban areas with heavy first preferences; but many are, in reality, projections. In rural areas, plenty of those in Australia, they use Sunday to move the ballots to central locations for counting. Anywhere that’s too close to call, they have to count all the votes before they can eliminate then redistribute the preferences of the least popular candidates.
Preferential voting systems can take an age to deliver a final result: days for the Australian House of Representatives; possibly weeks for their Senate, because some states, or territories can have hundreds of candidates for the latter.
Richard, I know we all pray to the God of the 24 by 7 news cycle buy in an earlier age Fielding of Tom Jones fame talked of the press contemptuously as daily or weekly historians.
I suspect this is even more true now than then. Perhaps we should be grateful that the we were spared the Guardians pearls of wisdom!
🙂
The Guardian’s reportage has been threadbare for a long time. There was no analysis of the significant breaking news on Friday about the successful appeal of the Tory law to restrict protest using secondary legislation. It featured a Liberty opinion piece instead, which was lazy. One could, however, find out all about the outcome in the headlines of The Guardian Nigeria News! I can’t bring myself to subscribe because so much of its content is trivial. Its climate change coverage is excellent, but then it debases itself by promoting a disappointing variety of unsustainable products and practices.
The trust which owns the Guardian effectively closed the Observer and gifted the title to The Tortoise along with a couple of million quid sweetener. Many of the Observer staff have been sacked or made redundant. If you’re on Substack you can get a detailed explanation from Carole Cadwalladr.
Thanks
Rob, can you provide a link to Cadwalladr’s commentary on this?
@ larry,
Here:
https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/fuckity-bye