The Stench of Death Hangs over The Guardian

Here:

The Haze was amused to read a recent slew of articles in The Guardian,  insisting that the Labour Party has been afflicted by some terrible disease and is close to death. 

Voters are getting involved in politics it seems and this has got The Guardian terribly upset. 

In this vitriolic piece Nick Cohen smears colleague Seamus Milne as being part of a Corbyn “insurgency” and Paul Mason for “taking braggart swagger and cocksure certainties of newspaper punditry into politics”. 

The article drips with anger and bile – but after reading it (and many others) it strikes us that it is not The Labour Party that is in danger of expiring – but The Guardian. 

Rewind to December of last year and we see The Guardian Media Group losing money – losses so serious that GMG proposed axing 250 jobs (13% of its workforce) including 100 posts in editorial.  

Look at this chart of losses since 2008. 

Not many companies can consistently lose this kind of money – the GMG can only do so because it had assets to sell, namely its stakes in Auto Trader Ascential, these one-off windfalls are now behind it. 

GMG is widely expected to lose more money this year. 

New editor Katharine Viner knew who was really to blame – social media! 

In this revealing article, poor Kath claims that Facebook and Twitter are “threatening the funding of public-interest reporting” and have “disrupted the truth”. 

A more self-aware editor might pause and reflect on why people are turning away from the former flagship of the liberal media. found that only 11% of articles about Jeremy Corbyn in the main UK print titles were free of distortion and bias – The Guardian fares better than the Daily Mail, but if one were to include all the smear opinion pieces and insidiously dishonest Live Blogs then the gap between The Guardian and The Sun starts to look wafer thin. 

The Guardian has been caught red handed inventing stories about sexist abuse against Laura Kuenssberg and anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

Its nakedly aggressive and dishonest campaign against Corbyn has poisoned the well of support from its own constituency – its coverage derided daily by its own online readership.

The Guardian no longer produces “public interest Journalism” but instead produces “Guardian interest journalism” – that is, news manufactured to defend the very cushy relationship that The Guardian has with the political establishment and the powerful. 

John McDonnell’s critique of Labour MP’s plotting to oust Jeremy Corbyn was spot on when he said:

This coup isn’t about Jeremy Corbyn. This coup isn’t about him, this is about you… This is the 1% telling the 99% to ‘get back in your place.’ …

That is also the function of The Guardian’s attacks on Corbyn – “voters, know your limits!”  The Guardian acts as THE gatekeeper of the so called “liberal” media. 

They use their dominant brand and position within the global marketplace to set limits and boundaries on what people are allowed to choose, think and discuss. 

It is because The Guardian colludes with the establishment in setting these limits that they are fêted and rewarded by the very system that they are supposed to be holding to account. 

Guardian staff get to hobnob with celebrity, wealth and power precisely because they are no threat to it.

As we outlined some time ago, The Guardian is owned and run by people with a vested interest in corporate power and that includes its journalists, paid opinion spinners and editors.

When one looks objectively at the role The Guardian now plays in the world, one has to wonder if the stench of death can already be smelt over this media behemoth.

The Guardian batted for Ed Miliband and his weakly diluted neoliberal politics – the voters ignored them. 

Then they batted for Yvette Cooper in the Labour leadership election – the voters ignored them. 

Then they batted for the EU – the voters ignored them. 

Now they are waving all their fists with infantile rage against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters – but he is more popular than ever, and the Labour Party is now the biggest socialist movement in Europe.

What is the point of The Guardian now? Nobody with even a vague interest in progressive politics trusts it anymore.

It cannot deliver swings in public opinion because its opinions are known in advance and vast chunks of its audience are no longer listening.

It doesn’t campaign for anything that might threaten the status quo – all its bluster about “fearless journalism” is just spin. 

The Guardian’s anticipatory compliance with the establishment view has been so exposed in recent years that its no longer even worth discussing. 

Does the world really need another group of stenographers for the wealthy and powerful? 

I think we can all get through another week without another lecture from Polly Toynbee or Suzanne Moore on the evils of voters getting involved in politics. 

The Guardian’s influence is eroding every day as it becomes a parody of its own neoliberal values.

It is running out of money, haemorrhaging staff and shows not a trace of the self-awareness needed to rebuild its brand.

Katharine Viner and crew continue on their right-wing suicide mission, blaming everyone else for their lack of integrity and relevance.

Against this backdrop, the Labour Party is ahead in the polls, has seen a quite extraordinary resurgence in membership, and is dealing with its extreme right-wing dinosaurs with each day that passes. 

I would suggest to Nick Cohen and all the other smug shills at The Guardian that they should worry more about themselves than about the Labour Party.

But if the unthinkable were to happen and The Guardian were to close, who would miss it? Tony Blair?