Talk:The Guardian

Its international reprint weekly is titled Manchester Guardian Weekly, which leads Americans to frequently refer to the British version as the Manchester Guardian though this has not been its name for many years.

Hmmm... the Guardian Weekly (http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/) section of the Guardian's website refers to it as just that, and the British Library catalogue of newspapers (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/newspapers/record.ASP?lngMTitle=7109) doesn't indicate that it switched back to being the MGW. A Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22manchester+guardian+weekly%22) seems to find mainly American sources like the NYU library catalog (http://library.nyu.edu/research/westeurope/unionlist/titleindex/manchester.htm). I can't help wondering whether the Weekly is sold as the MGW in America but not worldwide, or something like that. --rbrwrˆ

This may be a case of its use for disambiguation purposes, much like The Times being catalogued as The London Times. Mintguy (T)

...in which case the recently-added passage quoted above is essentially wrong. But it still seems to be commonplace for US libraries to refer to it as the Manchester Guardian Weekly, even where they use The Times [London] or some other method of disambiguation for other papers. Some (see the NYU link above) also suggest it went back to being the MGW in 1978, as does the edit summary (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=The_Guardian&action=history) by 12.144.5.2. Furthermore, The Library of Congress catalogues it as GW from 1968 to 1984 (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&ti=1,1&SC=Title&PID=7359&SA=Guardian+weekly+(Manchester,+England)&SA=Guardian+weekly+(Manchester,+England)&HC=1) ("Sometimes published as Manchester guardian weekly, Jan. 1, 1972-Dec. 30, 1972; Dec. 17, 1978-Jan. 7, 1979"), MGW from 1985 to 2000 (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=3&ti=1,3&SEQ=20040404070150&Search_Arg=guardian+weekly&Search_Code=TALL&PID=7359&CNT=25&SID=1) ("Scattered issues have title: Guardian weekly, 1999") and GW again from 2000 (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=2&ti=1,2&SEQ=20040404070706&SC=Title&PID=7359&SA=Guardian+weekly+(Manchester,+England+:+2000)&SA=Guardian+weekly+(Manchester,+England+:+2000)&HC=2&SID=7). This is starting to make a it more sense, though I'd still like to know whether GMG uses the MGW title oficially anywhere at the moment.--rbrwrˆ

Grrr. Those LoC links were tied to a session and have timed out. --rbrwrˆ

Note, They have a forum which has many virtues. many erudite posters, but... is extremely poorly moderated. For instance, they have two 'policies' pages, one is extremely liberal (the one which is available from the ordinary users pages) and has four elements. The worst censure there is is "ocassional" removal of text, which "they really hate to do". They have another, hidden ( if one sees the first (s)he will not expect a second ) much longer and leads to banning at the drop of a hat. I've seen gangs of posters hunting down and mercilessly harrasing individuals with no response from mods after complaints. When the offended returns the offense (s)he is banned. No sense of context, no even hand, capricious acts of destruction, give the guardian a bad name. Thus an instutution of potentially great global signifigance is whittled down to a shadow of it's potential. If only the Guardian would take moderation seriously, we might expect great things from their 'talkboards'. Wblakesx

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Let me summarize the main points of the Introduction section:

1. The Guardian is known for carrying an extraordinary amount of typographical errors.
2. Its readers are a bunch of weirdos.

Not exactly NPOV, eh? Doesn't the paper have some positive qualities? regards, High on a tree 15:35, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I've just removed the following sentence: "There is a section of the educated British Middle_Class that consider the Guardian to be a relatively good newspaper, marred largely by anti-middle-class rants by intellectual journalists who come from a middle-class background. " This seems to me a bit POV, a bit trivial, and not really encyclopedic; all it's really saying is that some readers like some contributers to the paper less than others, and that's probably true of most newspapers, at least most of those in which the words outnumber the pictures. seglea 18:52, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I spotted this addition earlier and meant to revisit it once I got home. It is just the view of... some people. I think it's a weasle word too far. --rbrwrˆ 19:04, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"a weasle word too far", nice phrase, I quite like it! WblakesxWblakesx

Contents

1 Screen Burn controversy 2 Operation Clarke County 3 Cutting down OCC section to more concise summary 4 purpose of name 5 Typos uncommon? Serious?

Screen Burn controversy

I reverted this addition:

Immediately preceding the 2004 election, the paper, in an editorial, called for the assassination of George W. Bush. While the paper tried to explain that it was a joke, it nonetheless hurt the newspaper's standing and credibility.

Well, yes, the paper did explain that it was a joke (as well as apologising), which is reasonable given that it wasn't in an editorial but in a humorous column ("Screen Burn") in the TV listings supplement. It is already mentioned in the article on Charlie Brooker, who wrote the column. Did this really have any long-term effect on the paper's standing? It seems like a storm in a teacup to me, but I'm a long-term Guardian loyalist. --rbrwr^± 21:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Operation Clarke County

I've added this:

The point of this venture was for the writers to give Clarke County voters a taste of international opinion. The Guardian's web pages describing how to get the name and address of a Clarke County resident stressed that this campaign in no way encouraged letter writers to endorse any candidate in the election.

I know this because I actually got the name of a resident of Clarke County from the Guardian's web site. I didn't send a letter as I know that I'd resent an outsider 'explaining' my countries politics to me.

Long live The Guardian, one of the few voices of reason in the British press. Alun Parsons

Cutting down OCC section to more concise summary

I think it's time the OCC section was reduced to a short summary within the main text. The episode is a pretty tiny affair in the paper's history which appears to have gained undue weight simply because many Americans heard about it. Joe D (t) 23:34, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

purpose of name

It was decided to call the newspaper the Manchester Guardian. A prospectus was published which explained the aims and objectives of the proposed newspaper. It included the passage: "It will zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty, it will warmly advocate the cause of Reform; it will endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy."

source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRguardian.htm --Mick2 16:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Typos uncommon? Serious?

I would dispute the assertion that typos are now uncommon. And what the hell is a "serious broadsheet"? I know this is a term often used in the UK to differentiate papers from the tabloids (mainly because the tabloids have much much higher circulations) but it's not common elsewhere. Shermozle 12:45, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think it no longer has the reputation for an excessive or exceptional number of typos - obviously, anything with a turnaround as short as a daily newspaper will have some, but I don't think the "Grauniad" is any worse than any others these days. But I could be wrong.

As for "serious broadsheet", by all means clarify it - I notice Broadsheet#Connotations is similarly biased towards this UK viewpoint. To a UK reader, "serious broadsheet" is almost tautological already; it's not to do with "higher circulations", it's to do with [perceived] difference in editorial style, focus and attitude. The Sun and Daily Sport are undeniably different from, say, The Times and The Guardian; "tabloid" vs "braodsheet" is (or was until recently) just a neat short-hand for referring to that difference. - IMSoP 19:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, what IMSoP said. I'd add that I read the Guardian on a regular basis in paper format and I certainly don't feel that typos are common. The ones that do slip through are mostly homophones, with which they have a certain amount of fun in the "Corrections and Clarifications" column. The real point is that in the 1960s, when the paper was seriously under-resourced and editing and compositing functions were split in various ways between London and Manchester, typos really were common. --rbrwr^± 19:47, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And I'll add that broadsheet never meant anything to do with circulation, and while dictionaries no doubt still define it as the size of a sheet of paper it really has come to be a synonym of "serious editorial style", as the Times and Independent are still described as broadsheets despite no longer being that size. Joe D (t) 19:52, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I should be clearer what I meant by the "circulation" part... I'm talking about how papers, when either pitching for readers or advertisers, use ther term "serious" to differentiate themselves. So you get "The biggest circulation _serious_ daily", to differentiate themselves from, say, The Sun, which has a vastly higher circ than all the broadsheets. As for typos, well I guess I do this stuff for a living so it jumps out at me. Shermozle 09:25, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so what do you think is in need of elucidation about "serious broadsheet"? Is it the nature of the seriousness? It seems to me that there are a number of aspects to that:

• The news agenda is led by politics and world news rather than entertainment, celebrity and sports stories
• There is relatively little use of humour in the news pages
• The language is more complicated (reported in some places as a reading age of 13 vs. 7 for the Sun, though I don't know the origin of that claim)

...or is it the overloading of the term "broadsheet" to mean both a large-format newspaper and a serious or upmarket paper? That is dealt with in broadsheet and I suspect it would be somewhat of a digression in this article. However, if it can be dealt with in a reasonably elegant phrase, it would be a good idea. After all, we don't want to confuse people just because they're not au fait with the UK newspaper market. --rbrwr^± 21:28, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)