The Guardian CSP: Blog tasks
The Guardian newspaper and website analysis
1) What are the most significant front page headlines seen in the Guardian in recent years?
-Brexit
-the closure of news of world due to the phone hacking scandal
-The Joe Biden election
-Migrant shipwreck
2) Ideology and audience: What ideologies are present in the Guardian? Is the audience positioned to respond to stories in a certain way?
I believe that audiences are free to react or understand things anyway they see it fit. The Guardian are are a left wing ideology and base stories off a left wing ideology.
3) How do the Guardian editions/stories you have studied reflect British culture and society?
They go for major British concepts found in establishments like the government and large British companies.
Now visit the Guardian newspaper website and look at a few stories before answering these questions:
1) What are the top stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?
Threats, fear and surveillance: how China targets students in the UK who criticise regime
hard news
Energy price cap: Ofgem considers ‘dynamic’ limit based on time of day
hard news
Northern lights predicted in US and UK on Monday night in wake of solar storms
soft news
2) To what extent do the stories you have found on the website reflect the values and ideologies of the Guardian?
values were set out by CP Scott in his centenary leader in 1921. They are: honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and the community.
Our values and behaviours provide the basis of how we work together, how we communicate and what we should expect from each other.
• We foster a supportive and open culture
• We are curious and innovative, prepared to fail and willing to learn
• We embrace diversity, champion inclusivity and treat everyone with respect
• We strive for excellence to pursue the best interests of our audience and our colleagues
• We stand up for what we believe is right, not what is easy
3) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: what would an audience enjoy about the Guardian newspaper website?
diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance.
The Guardian obviously satisfies our desire to be informed because its mission is to “provide facts that help readers understand the word”. It has sections on politics, sport, and culture. The lifestyle section might also appeal to our personal identity by offering reports on fashion, health and wellbeing, and travel. Importantly, the values encoded in the articles and investigations can reinforce our own attitudes and behaviours.Of course, the content can become topics of conversation between friends, family and colleagues.The comment section after each article offers readers a chance to voice their own opinions and contribute to the debate. This user-generated contented and social interaction is another good example of personal relationships. Readers can also develop a sense of companionship with the columnists.
The Guardian newspaper Factsheet
1) Who owns the Guardian and what is their ownership designed to achieve?
The Guardian has a long history. It started out as the Manchester Guardian in 1821 before changing its name in 1959. Its founder was John Edward Taylor, a journalist who, along with other
Manchester businessmen, funded the newspaper’s creation after the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, in which eighteen people died and 400-700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of representation in parliament. This event outraged Taylor and others, so they wanted to form a newspaper that held governments to account.
2) How is the Guardian regulated? Note its very unusual regulatory approach and give examples where you can.
In The Guardian’s case, they have formed their own regulatory board with The Financial Times and are not regulated by IPSO. They are the only British national daily to conduct an annual social, ethical, and environmental audit since 2003, in which they examine, under the scrutiny of an independent external auditor, their own behaviour as a company. For example, they have been criticised for their coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, for which they commissioned an audit.
3) Pick out some key statistics on the Guardian's audience (see beginning of page 2).
The Guardian is a centre-left, quality, British broadsheet, national UK newspaper. The demographic of the readership is 86% ABC1. Fifty-four percent of The Guardian readers are
male, and the average age of the print reader is 54. The people who read the newspaper and online are interested in left-leaning politics and social issues, mainly social progressives [reformers] psychographic. The circulation for the newspaper is 3.2 million monthly, and the digital readership is 18.4 million. This compares favourably to other quality newspapers in the UK. The Guardian is also online and is now the 3rd largest individual newspaper website in the world, delivering news to over 62 million unique browsers worldwide every month, with almost two-thirds of these coming from outside of the UK. The Guardian has a global reach; therefore, its content reflects this.
The Guardian’s tone, style, and content are shaped by their values. They are a quality newspaper that adopts a formal tone. In the past, their final manual typesetting editing was not as sharp as other newspapers, which led to it being called The Grauniad, a mocking joke on its name. Nowadays, The Guardian is a highly respected global newspaper that has had some major journalistic scoops, such as investigating Uber for breaking laws, playing a role in the BBC documentary that accused Tim Westwood, a famous DJ, of sexual misconduct, and covering stories about cyberstalking and equipment shortages in Ukraine during the war.
According to The Guardian’s advertising information, its audience is a “global audience [that] is affluent and well educated with a passion for the arts, literature, film, sports, and travel. They are frequent visitors to the site and value its investigative journalism and trustworthy approach to international news coverage”.
International Audience Profile
• 79% men / 21% women
• 89% degree educated or above
• Average age: 44
• 34% are expats
• 66% are daily visitors to the site
• More than 1 in 4 earn €58k+ (in Europe, or $100k+
in the rest of the world)
• 26% have £100k+ in savings and investments
• International business people, who have budget
responsibilities and who travel frequently
• More than 1 in 4 are C-Suite or director level
• 42% are responsible for budget expenditure at work
• 61% travel on business (73% of these take 3+ business
flights a year)
6) Now look at page 3 of the factsheet and the Guardian online. Select a few examples of the different sections of the website and copy them here.
culture
Nobody can hold a candle to it’: David Attenborough backs BBC’s nature showsPresenter, whose series Mammals airs on Sunday, says broadcaster has changed opinions on conservation the world over
lifestyle
I never wanted kids, but now my partner is pregnant
Nigel Slater’s recipes for salmon and spinach gratin, and dark chocolate muffins
‘Is this how I die?’ John Crace on his terrifying
sport
Showman Ivan Toney must seize his chance at crucial England audition
Injured Andy Murray knocked out of Miami Open by Tomas Machac – video highlights
news
At least four judges resign from men-only Garrick Club after backlash
heart attack
7) What different international editions of the Guardian's website are available and what example stories are provided as examples of this?
The UK edition on April 29th leads with a story about the resignation of the BBC Chair Richard Sharp, who allegedly provided a “secret” £800,000 loan to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This is a hard news story because the BBC is expected to maintain impartiality and remain free from government influence, suggesting a failure to fulfil this role. Stories that expose corruption are appealing to The Guardian’s audience and position them to question the legitimacy of the BBC.
8) What is the Guardian's funding model? Do you think it is sustainable?
In a struggling economic climate, news institutions are finding it hard to adequately fund quality journalism. However, The Guardian has several ways in which it funds its journalism. The site delivers free news with no paywall:
• The sale of the print newspaper – although it is clear
that print news is declining rapidly and the costs
associated with print make it less profitable and
attractive to advertisers.
• Digital subscriptions – the newspaper offers a range of
packages to suit different economic groups.
• Patron support with exclusive offers.
• Traditional advertising.
• Philanthropic partnerships such as with The Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.
9) What is the Cotton Capital Commission and how does it link to the Guardian's values and ideologies?
As well as revealing the findings of their commission, the paper utilised a more magazine-style aesthetic in the telling of this story. The news site’s visual design has evolved over the years, with animations, font styles, infographics, and photojournalism. There is also interactive content, with “Have your say” areas on news stories. “The Cotton Capital” is investigative journalism, coupled with what amounts to a historical autobiography of the newspaper. It is a fascinating read that utilises a range of literary techniques to tell the story of the newspaper’s past.
10) What audience and industry theories could be applied to the Guardian? How?
Both the newspaper and the online website provide the gratifications [Blumer and Katz] of information, surveillance, and entertainment. Some aspects of the opinion page could provide identification with similar groups, and shared values unite some of the online community. This could be seen in the letters that responded to the “Cotton Capital” story. The Guardian is also encouraging a model where subscribers get involved with news-making, and this breaks down the gatekeeping model that news institutions use. That is not to say that The Guardian does not employ traditional methods of news sourcing; they actively advertise for people to come forward with stories the paper might be interested in.
Media Magazine articles
MM78 - The Guardian
1) What are the Pandora Papers and how does the story fit with the Guardian's ethos, values and ideologies?
Dreariness here equates to seriousness. This, combined with the continuation in iconography, signals a big story, one with many strands that needs to be reported on over a period of time. It is now clearly badged with a name, giving it added status: the Pandora Papers, bolded in eye-catching
red. In Greek mythology Pandora opened a box that released the evils of humanity into the world. Here the name refers to secret documents about the financial dealings of the world’s rich and powerful. They’ve been uncovered and released through the collaborative efforts of over 150 news organisations from around the world, including The Guardian.
2) Pick out all the key statistics and quotes from the section on the Guardian's funding model. In particular, the fall in paper readership, the rise in digital readership and the number of contributors paying to support the journalism
The Guardian still sells paper copies, but in nowhere near sufficient numbers to sustain its global operations. July 2021 sales averaged 105,135 copies per day (down from 248,775 10 years. previously). Its online readership, though, is huge. In the same period, it had 3.5 million readers per day online and 129 million monthly visits.
3) What does it mean when it says the Guardian frames regular payments from readers as a "philanthropic act".
The Guardian is free to read online, but at the end of many articles a text box urges readers to contribute either one-off or regular monthly payments. It frames this as a philanthropic act.
Those who pay are supporting a free press and making information available on a global scale to those who cannot pay.
4) What is the Scott Trust and do you think it is a sustainable model for newspaper ownership in the future?
The Trust operates for profit, but all money is ploughed back into the newspaper. It ensures that
editorial interests remain free from commercial pressures. The paper’s journalists, under the terms of the trust, must strive to maintain the liberal traditions and investigative principles upon which it was founded. The paper flags up this ownership structure when appealing to readers.
For example, in the video attached to the Pandora Papers summary, Head of Investigations, Paul Lewis, says: We don’t have a proprietor, we don’t answer to proprietors, and what it means is we can be fearless. The only thing that really limits us is our resources, so the more we’ve got, the more we can do. Without this ownership model, it’s difficult to see how the payment strategy would work. Readers would be unlikely to give cash simply to underwrite Rupert Murdoch’s activities. Any payment for his publications needs to be a straightforward transaction: I give you money, you provideme with a product that I want.
5) Why is the Guardian criticised as hypocritical? Give some specific examples here.
The answer perhaps lies in charges of hypocrisy that are often levelled at The Guardian and other liberal institutions. Liberalism is entirely compatible with capitalism and so allows its supporters to accrue wealth and power. In calling for a fairer, more equal society, within capitalist structures, it also gets to hold the moral high-ground – a form of power in its own right, and one that can be particularly galling for people on middle or low incomes, forced to engage with some of the more unsavoury elements of life in a capitalist society in order to earn a living.
MM87 - The Daily Mail and the Guardian front page analysis
1) What are the stories featured on the Guardian and Daily Mail on November 10, 2023?
Comparing the front pages of both papers from November 10th 2023 offers insight into how they promote their particular brand of news for their respective target audiences. The Guardian, we’ll see, sticks to its commitment to challenging those in power but can, in one way at least, be accused of being – to borrow from the language of another paper, The Sun – woke leftie phonies. The Daily Mail sticks to its unashamedly reactionary guns (in this case, overtly anti-feminist guns) in a way entirely consistent with its professed outlook on the world.
2) How do they reflect the values and ideologies of the two newspapers?
The Guardian would have no problems proclaiming its feminist principles and calling out how The
Daily Mail consistently reinforces the patriarchy despite having a majority female readership. The mid-range Mail, in return, would have no problem labelling its broadsheet rival as ‘woke’, a word now largely used derisively as part of the so-called ‘culture wars’ to connote an approach that puts the appearance of doing and thinking the right thing over the reality of how the world works.
3) Why does the writer suggest the front-page images on both papers might be exploitative? Do you agree?
Looking at the front page picture with these questions in mind, it’s difficult not to conclude that The Guardian is exploiting the very gender stereotypes it is supposed to challenge Of course, it is possible to view this image very differently. It could easily be read as a proclamation of female empowerment and humanity in the face of the male war-machine. Yes, the woman in the placard being held up might be a victim, but the victim of very real patriarchal structures. And the woman holding the placard appears to be anything but a victim. Instead, she has a face of grim determination. The two women beside her are grief- stricken but hold each other in an act of intergenerational solidarity. This isn’t hypocrisy, it’s feminism in action.
4) What else does the writer suggest regarding the Daily Mail's front-page image of murdered teacher Ashling Murphy?
When you interrogate The Mail front page further, it really is shamefully exploitative. The murdered teacher lived and died in the Republic of Ireland, where the paper isn’t sold. It’s a curious editorial decision to feature a non-British murder story in the first place, so presumably its inclusion can only be because of the age and appearance of Ashling Murphy. It’s feeding into a voyeuristic interest in female victimhood that sells copies and feeds into the general sense that women should be aware of the dangers out there and so know their place.
5) How does the rest of the Guardian's front page (features on Yoko Ono and Todd Haynes) reflect the values and ideologies of Guardian readers?
The Guardian’s top banner, promoting stories in other sections, has a similar playfulness. In Yoko Ono and Todd Haynes, they are featuring two artists associated with, respectively, peace movements and gender politics. Is it possible that Ono is there because she is linked to anti-war protests? After all, can anyone of any age recall a single Yoko Ono song, let alone rank them? (I can’t and I’m old enough to remember the murder of her husband, John Lennon, in 1980.) Haynes, meanwhile, specialises in films that explore gender identity, particularly female identity.
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