The Guardian > Reviews (37)

actually buying the Guardian a few years ago. I still read it because we get it at work, but I just wouldn't spend my money on it these days, despite it being the paper that probably comes closest to my own political views.

Why don't I like it? Well, first of all, on a technical basis, I can't stand the layout. I find it really, really hard to read. They've tried to use all sorts of feature page design tricks like leaving lots of space and arty use of pics in the news pages, and to my mind it just doesn't work when you've got so much text and so much space, and so little to pull it into a unified whole. It also means they've cut down on the number of stories covered, which makes their news coverage at least quite narrow.

I also have a problem with the editorial focus. It irritates me no end when people elevate the Guardian above papers like the Daily Mail on the grounds that one has more 'impartial' coverage than the other, because it's crap. Both work in the same way, by selling their reader's prejudices back to them, and the Guardian is as unquestioning of stories that fit its philosophy as is the Mail. The Guardian will give prominence to environmental and race-issue stories, just as the Mail will publicise those involving children and health scares. It's just a question of catering to your market. And as I say, the Guardian covers proportionally fewer stories than other papers, which only exacerbates the effect. As for the areas that you'd expect the Guardian to be good at, I find their foreign coverage in particular a real disappointment. Although they have a few superb individual correspondents (Maggie O'Kane and John Aglionby in Indonesia, for example), generally it's all taken from the wires and really marginalised within the paper.

I also object to the tone of the paper. Basically I think they've got hideously smug and self-righteous since the whole Hamilton and Aiken things, making out like they're establishment watchdogs or something. And they're not. TO base this on the Hamilton thing is especially objectionable, as they only got that story because Mohammed Fayed decided to tip all the necessary papers in their lap. All they had to do was publish.

Their saving grace, in my view, is G2, simply because it's a great format and it's nice to have a tabloid thing to read on the tube. The stories can be alittle predictable, but it does enables them to have a vastly superior jobs section.