Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

One of the leading stories on the Guardian's online front page today:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/together-because-it-feels-good-french-man-who-goes-everywhere-with-a-pigeon

Guardian clearly improving

This must have taken all of 10 minutes for JJ to knock up, wonder how much he got paid for it?

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/18/from-tubular-bells-to-horses-10-of-the-best-pieces-of-album-artwork

haha, one of them isn't even an album either

I could put a band name over the top right hand corner of a Bruegel print quicker!

Lou Reed Live? I don't think so.

Christ. 10 LP covers and one isn't an LP.

"You had one job".

The article contains little text, yet still gets basic facts wrong.

And:

The cover of Animals, with its pig floating over Battersea power station against a lurid sky, defined how I imagined London.

Welcome to Philippa Perry, who has taken over from Mariella Frostrup. I think Phiippa Perry is great. I actually preferred her graphic book 'Couch Fiction' to the couple of books of hers that I've read.

It is an interesting development. She makes a solid start in her first problem - my sex life has dropped off

There's a change of approach. Philippa's style is very much about coping and adjusting realistically to life, whereas Mariella was more of a cheerleader to get out there and live it up. Philippa's 'realism' approach can come across as slightly depressing at time, such as:

I’m afraid our bodies do reach a peak condition in youth and, as you age, you are allowed to mourn the loss of taut flesh, just as you are allowed to mourn the fact that sex is no longer a daily occurrence. But this will not dent your capacity to love and appreciate each other as much as you ever did. And, occasionally, such a body, with its bulges and aches, will also be the vehicle with which you enjoy great sex – just not as often.

Looking forward to read more over coming weeks though.

Yes. I hated MF’s answers, they used to make me silently shout at the screen. And I think PP is generally very thoughtful and grounded in reality when she responds.

Hey guess who won the Orwell prize for Journalism?

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-prizes/

I was thinking there were so many terrible Guardian writers to choose from but at least it won't be John Harris...

previous winners include

Suzanne Moore
Carole Cadwalladr
Fintan O'Toole
Peter Hitchens
Matthew Parris
David Aaronovitch
Polly Toynbee

from which I surmise that the criteria for the award is you need to be an overexposed fool who is wrong about nearly everything and a total dick, which is quite in the spirit of Orwell tbf.

jesus christ that list tells you everything

It really seems to favour opinionated columnists rather than the craft of journalism.

i only just realised this is a serious award, i'd always assumed it was some darwin awards type thing that you didn't want to get, handed out for alleged "doublethink" or what have you

The Orwell Prize.

If Hancock hangs on, we know England has turned into Animal Farm where all animals are expected to follow the Covid rules but some animals can do what the hell they like

— Lionel Barber (@lionelbarber) June 26, 2021

whoever it was who decided to make everyone read these books at school has a lot to answer for

short and easy to draw out an essay's worth of trite allegory, same reason An Inspector Calls is still going strong

it's worse than harry potter references, at least people don't get to pretend they're being intellectual with those

https://i.imgur.com/Ww4mPiK.png

lmfbo what, is this a terf

um how dare you guess that for no reason whatsoever, she has merely been ~just asking questions~ in the graun for at least six years

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/11/caitlyn-jenner-transgender-feminism-woman

You don’t have to link it

I’ll just take your word for it

Anyway I’m glad whoever this is is suffering social consequences from her former friends

I’m just an alien observer here but isn’t this the same Grauniad that harped on Corbyn’s alleged antisemitism for years? Is “just asking questions” now their editorial policy?

Just a mode of intellectual enquiry now, no matter if people get killed at least it's an interesting discussion at dinner parties.

Noticed in the column Tracer screengrabbed that HF called Corbyn ‘adjacent to antisemites’ so I guess the lawyers are watching? She went on that horrible Enough is Enough demo so her actual views are more than that.

observer is even more foul than usual today. in addition to the freeman thing, there's an editorial about how trans people should be up for debate forever and suggesting otherwise, plebs, is antifeminist. plus a foghorn racist piece about batley and spen by-election.

Toby Helm(et)

Toby Belm, please.

Zoe Ball’s pay cut means BBC’s highest-paid star is still a man

Hmm, seems to hint it was a man before, so.. Rubbish headline.

Not sure about Philippa Perry's tough approach on this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/11/ask-philippa-perry-will-my-menopausal-wife-ever-want-to-have-sex-with-me-again

She wants to make questioner think more deeply, but it does come across a bit 'internet hardman'.

from the intro to the reply:

There you are, living with your sexy wife and, oh dear, you don’t know if you are ever going to get a shag again. Not that you put it like that, that’s just how I read it. You are very measured in your email, showing me just how well you behave, almost as though you’re walking on egg-shells. Got me wondering whether you must walk around your wife on egg-shells, too.

Yeah, thought this was a terrible response. Guy’s not blameless and needs to ask himself some questions but this just seemed like a pile on.

Be hilarious if she is like this to every letter that after a while she stops ppl from writing in.

I didn't see her reply as being particularly "tough guy", and read in her voice a much more empathetic tone than Mariella Frostrup brought to the page over the last couple of years. Also, Perry is writing as a therapist, not just a columnist, and so she's offering advice and inviting the letter-writer to examine their own behaviour and take same agency, and even suggesting practical methods in doing so. She's aiming to help them solve the issue, not just making them feel better in the moment. I mean, also I didn't read her chiding the letter-writer in the slightest.

"She's aiming to help them solve the issue, not just making them feel better in the moment."

Yeah, that's what I read. I could imagine the letter writer feeling a bit "But ... but ... I've done research!"

I have a particular dislike for the "Not that you put it like that, that's just how I read it" formula which anyone who has experienced microaggressions in the workplace will instantly recognise as the classic "that's just my reframing of what you said - hey! don't blame me for the reactions that your words generate in me, they're your words " excuse in being aggressive.

I'd be more reassured by the answer overall if I thought the answer was likely to help the questioner examine their behaviour and take some agency. But I'm not sure about the usefulness of the scenarios - there are at least four more things that could be going on here.. I think they're just too open-ended and speculative:
And anorexia can be the body’s way of trying to solve a problem that has not been articulated and quite often after psychological investigation that problem seems to be the patient’s lack of autonomy in their life. Of course, I do not know enough about your dynamic to say whether it was like this for your wife, I’m voicing it only as a possibility. If you became too parent-like and controlling, this might have been her body’s way of rebelling.

I don't think columnists such as Mariella do just aim to make the questioner feel better in the moment btw

I mean everything Perry wrote sounded and felt like something a professional trained therapist/counsellor with years and years of experience would say, and I didn't find that any of it read tough or "internet hardman" at all, but ymmv. Therapists/counsellors will reframe what a patient has said as a way to get them to confront the situation as they see it from a different perspective, it seems it would be a fruitful way of approaching.

I'm not saying Mariella just aimed to make the questioner feel better in the moment, but I am saying that often Mariella's columns read like she was playing internet hardman because - at least for the last couple of years - she seemed burned out and impatient and not interested in the people writing in, or quick to identify the complainant as "actually the bad person". I've enjoyed Perry's columns so far because she doesn't bring that energy, and her answers have seemed empathetic and productive.

Lolol

Not only will I not pay for the Guardian, this is so bad it's making me wonder whether there's a way I can steal from it pic.twitter.com/o75AoJWs0n

— jan 🇵🇸 (@janhopi) July 12, 2021

I see Philippa Perry discussed this on twitter (kudos to her for doing so). I've often wondered what constraints columnists have to work with and what goes on that we don't see.

It’s harsh, it’s speculative, and it’s the best I could do. I wrote to him personally as well where I had more space for sugar coating. He replied and appreciated my efforts. I can see he’s doing what he thinks is right but it wasn’t getting them anywhere.

— Philippa_Perry (@Philippa_Perry) July 11, 2021

She’s a pretty good egg generally (I met her years ago when I went round to interview Grayson and at the time she was consultant psychologist for Big Brother).

i kinda get they're proud of hyde and crace -- they seem popular even tho i think they're both rubbish, him especially -- but is behr on the list for the same reason, or morely likely bcz he'll pout ands feel left out if mom and dad don't give him a lollipop? it's the internet so i've no doubt *someone* has linked a behr piece and called it "insightful! brilliant!" but come on lads he's a world-famous idiot

any fule kno

Bradshaw is a movie critic I trust less than even Commode - he's the absolute worst. He doesn't even review Sean Penn's latest turkey, he actually attempts to get invited round his yard so he can fuck him.

brb letting el chapo's henchmen know abt the tryst so they can take out the two of them in one go

Mark S is right -- no-one likes Behr, except Hyde, Freeman, d'Ancona, et al themselves.

Not only will I not pay for the Guardian, this is so bad it's making me wonder whether there's a way I can steal from it

that can't be real!!

i trust Commode 100% thru the simple expedient of assuming the opposite of anything he says is true

philippa perry seems like a terrible person sorry