Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

As a contributor of challopsy clickbait listicles in the past, i'm 100% in favour of The Guardian using them, as long as they're done well. It's more of a nuisance to read pieces that look to have been thrown together simply to provoke extended below-the-line arguments between commenters.

My favourite Guardian clickbait article was a French woman going on about how awful Great British Bake Off is and how much better it would be if the contestants were French patissiers. Marvellous stuff, perfectly targeted.

agnès poirier's an odd one, her ENTIRE schtick - not just in the grau - is to fixate on a really stereotypical version of frenchness-compared-to-englishness. my french housemate loathes her.

i think the grau's identity has been shored up as much by the rest of the mainstream media's conservatism becoming more entrenched in recent years - like, it might cover the same subjects as the mail but in a necessary-counterbalance kind of way

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/david-cameron-chillaxing-instagram

^^^ This sort of shit. It's not even well-written on a basic sentence level. Or funny.

That's interesting. See, I don't think it's supposed to be funny or "vaguely matey" but Jonathan Jones's tone when he approaches politics in this series is perhaps hard to get a handle on, so can put people's backs up. I think it's supposed to be more withering or venomous.

So, liveblogging the royal christening …

lol i don't think anyone's gonna defend that

BURN THE ROYAL FAMILY, etc

10.46 baby about to be christened
10.48 baby christened

Meanwhile, Alice Sheffield sits half-dressed in front of the disarrayed bed. Was that too part of the family joke?

It's more of a nuisance to read pieces that look to have been thrown together simply to provoke extended below-the-line arguments between commenters.

yeah fair point. they do less of these, as far as i can tell, in recent times. cif seems a lot more newsy these days.

It's not that they care what's not in the Guardian – they care what is in it. For a section of long-standing readers, I think it's all about identity.

this is definitely a bit part of it for me.

without necessarily defending all of the fluff, i resent the assumption that anything to do with popular culture or celebrity or lifestyle is inherently unserious and unworthy and that the only legitimate journalism is about syria or whatever - only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces.

i totally agree with this. i don't have a problem with the good writing about popular culture. i'm not talking about that (although tbf it probably sounds like i often am). i'm objecting to cynical, tossed off click/comment bait, which is the pop culture you see on the front page.

who are the guardian's funny writers these days? (not imagining halcyon days. humour in the guardian has always been absolutely dreadful.)

bit part = big part

so i don't reject the premise of articles about british bake off/xfactor being in the guardian. i object to the specific articles.

matt is right that at least 50% of the sport section is vulnerable to the same criticism.

That's exactly it, nobody even mentioned celeb-related articles.

i resent the assumption that anything to do with popular culture or celebrity or lifestyle is inherently unserious and unworthy and that the only legitimate journalism is about syria or whatever - only a small step from that position to being one of the angry dude commenters under lost in showbiz pieces. firmly believe that pop culture, and analysis thereof, is as ~important as anything else; dismissing it as "fluff" just means your classist and misogynistic biases are showing.

haha lol

idk I get the identity thing but the third biggest newspaper website in the world is inevitably going to be a big tent catering to a diverse group of campers. I'm happy not clicking on GBBO/Strictly/"trading up" articles as long as I find a bunch worthwhile reads every day.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/2/12/1360693289952/Suzanne_Moore.jpg

shit it didn't drag the headline

"Lady Gaga is no substitute for Lou Reed"

The plan to illuminate Rjukan was cooked up 100 years ago by the Norwegian industrialist Sam Eyde, who built the town to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant he located at the foot of a nearby waterfall.

Occupied by the Germans during the second world war, the factory was a staging post in Hitler's quest for the atomic bomb.

In contrast to the shadow cast over Europe by Hitler's plan for an atomic weapon, the three mirrors, measuring 183-sq ft (17-sq m) and ironically being remotely controlled from Germany, captured the sunlight and sent it in an ellipse that illuminated about one-third of the square below.

What is the context of the irony?

Beckham's son Brooklyn hoping for Manchester United chance

Last updated five minutes ago
Los Angeles Galaxy v Colorado Rapids
Manchester United have been running the rule over Brooklyn Beckham with a view to offering him a place in their academy

= the main story on the football page

he is 14 years old

all the beckham boys will be fashion designers

show me someone born into that sort of privilege and I'll show you someone who'll live cushy

plus their mother is arguably as good a fashion designer as their dad is a footballer, and the former fits far better as a career with their lofty station

Don't the big clubs start recruiting even younger than 14?

Celtic have players in the youth academy at 6.

Brooklyn was in the la galaxy academy though, so already been professionally coached before, just at a smaller club.

he's in the QPR academy apparently?

the chance of a 14 yr old at man utd becoming a successful premier league player are probably about 4%, and he isn't even there yet, so until or unless the kid gets within some proximity of professional football file it with the rest of the sleb blather

isn't Sleb Blather chairman of FIFA though?

I'm a sucker for these sorts of lavish designs

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded

i'm not a fan of auto-play video in any form.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/posh-pop-debutante-ball-inequality

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/13/i-fucking-love-science-elsie-andrew/print

url gets her name wrong, A++

elsie!

if they have to do a long article about the inventor of 'i fucking love science', misspelling their name is the least they can do

Mexican costume
Are they racist?

I am usually a staunch defender of the website but snidely liveblogging a 1970s Carry On film may be a bridge too far.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/11/carry-on-dick-liveblog

wait a minute.
Back in the 1980s when the alternative comedy thing was huge and Carry On and Bruce Forsyth was "out" would the Graun be live blogging something like this?
Think not.
Right on!!!!!!

More news and comment

Villas-Boas told to leave out Llorism by medics

no place for Llorism in the modern game

"http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=98014#unread"; no longer accurately titled then

They were liveblogging No Country For Old Men the other day. I don't understand that at all.

it allows them to keep running investigative journalism

http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/quiz/2013/nov/12/is-your-child-a-yob-quiz?CMP=fb_gu

classy

J ‏@piercepenniless 5 Jun
I can't imagine what it must be like to have so profoundly little to say about the world as Tim Dowling does. Acres of paper, utterly wasted

dim owl ting

craig brown used to write things like that for the telegraph

dim owl ting

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Tuesday, November 12, 2013 2:35 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IRL LOL