COMMENT ON BRITAIN’S WORST PAPER, THE GUARDIAN
I have before called The Guardian, once a broadsheet
newspaper of respectable dullness, today’s worst newspaper in the world when it
comes to journalism.
As if to further bolster its claims, below is a list of
items taken from the front page around noon on the day of Donald Trump’s
inauguration. The titles – ranging from genuinely childish to asinine – tell
the story of a newspaper which has become almost a case study in “fake news,”
fake news from the establishment, the most dangerous kind. A paper that was
once respectably tedious has become flashily, even garishly, irresponsible,
bombastic, and prejudiced.
When it isn’t conducting all-out assaults on someone its
editors hate – examples have included Jeremy Corbyn, a thoroughly decent
political leader of the British Labour Party, against whom they conducted a
months-long McCarthyite campaign over completely unsupported charges of
anti-Semitism to comments on his dressing in an unacceptably ugly way, and
Donald Trump, who has had everything from the speculated small size of his
penis featured to a hundred unsupported claims of racism, misogyny, and
xenophobia hurled at him.
When they aren’t furiously attacking someone, they literally
are falling over themselves trying to build up someone they do like for
whatever reason – examples include proven criminal lowlife and liar, Tony
Blair, inept, never-closes-his-mouth politician, Owen Smith, and London’s new
mayor, Sadiq Khan, who does nothing but grant self-promoting interviews. Establishment
all, and quite dismally so.
To spice things up and maintain some kind of vague claim
about still being a progressive publication, we get a long trail of useless or
genuinely rubbishy articles along the lines of what it is like trying to have
sex when you have wooden legs or the perils of a vegetarian in a restaurant trying
to avoid inhaling the smoke from barbequed meats. Then we have declarations of
how someone bravely faces all the waves of misogyny that are crashing over us,
or why I am getting a German passport to leave the UK, horrible place that it
has become for racism and prejudice. These articles enlighten no one about
anything, but they do make loud self-applauded claims of tolerance and allow
for eye-catching, trashy headlines to raise readership, and they employ the well-established
advertising principle of great repetition keeping a theme on readers’ minds as
though it really were something important.
In eight years of Obama’s continuous killing in half a dozen
countries, there was never a concern raised, never a doubt expressed over what
was going on. More than that, there was very little truth told about those
events, the bloody events of Syria’s induced horror, for example, always being
blurred over, never explained, and indeed, outright lied about many times, with
re-written versions of the official line from Washington being offered as
reportage and analysis. Shabby almost beyond belief because, while it is all
just what we expect from a Washington Post or New York Times, this is a British
paper and one with historic attachments away from the power establishment.
That is because today’s Guardian marches
shoulder-to-shoulder not with the ordinary workers of its past, but with the ghastly
establishment who brought us the bloodshed, refugees, and terror-blowback of
the Neocon Wars. It joined their team, so to speak, some years ago. We see that
in everything from its reportage and comment to its regular efforts to
rehabilitate an utterly discredited lying killer like Tony Blair and its
sycophantic support – and that’s not in the least an exaggeration - of Hillary
Clinton, who, without a doubt, would have proved the most duplicitous and murderous
President ever.
Here is The Guardian dump of Trump-hating articles for
Inaugural Day:
“The honeymoon is
already over for President Trump”
Richard Wolffe - whom I would like to ask, what honeymoon
would that be?
“Late-night hosts on
the inauguration: 'How is that a president?'”
Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers took aim at the
inauguration proceedings and shared concern over the future: ‘We’re so fucked’ - note the language declaring how tolerant
The Guardian is.
“Women will march
against Trump. We may lose, but it’s still worth it”
Suzanne Moore -
who undoubtedly writes from a leather wing chair in a comfortable Mayfair flat.
“Music: this week's
anti-Trump songs reviewed’
Michael Hann -
note that is just “this week’s.”
‘I'm going to speak
out as often as I can, otherwise I can't live with myself'
Paul Auster -
well, I don’t think he has to worry about an outlet: The Guardian will print his
every gasp.
“How to Trump-proof
your life (in a minute) – video” -
now, there’s assinity, and writ large.
“The Peace Ball: black
brilliance and resistance on the eve of the Trump era”
Steven W Thrasher -
who should be asked: resistance to what?
“Why the next four
years will be a test for all of us’
Yaa Gyasi - a test
in what? Writing meaningless article titles?
“Why my seat at the
inauguration is empty”
“I will not be celebrating the swearing-in of
a president who rode racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry to the White House”
Barbara Lee - she may have left some name-calling quality out,
but I don’t know what it would be.
