Tabloid onslaught against Labour leader sparks social media ridicule, with aspersions cast on his jam-making skills
General election 2017 - latest updates
Less than 24 hours before voting starts in the general election, the rightwing press have turned up the heat on Jeremy Corbyn, with both the Daily Mail and the Sun accusing him of being an “apologist for terror”.
Continue reading...The Daily Mail’s awful treatment of Mishal Husain shows this election has become one of the most embittered – and not just because of the carnage on our streets
When did our political discourse become so feral that a journalist merely has to ask a politician to “set the record straight” to be accused of outrageous bias?
In an attack on the BBC’s Mishal Husain on Wednesday, the Daily Mail accused the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme of being a “spokesman for [Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn”. Husain had dared to ask Boris Johnson to “please stop talking” so that she could ask a question. Or as the Mail had it: “Husain insisted on breaking in to ‘set the record straight’ parroting exactly what Corbyn said in the aftermath of London Bridge”
Related: Daily Mail devotes 13 pages to attack on Labour 'apologists for terror'
The usual suspects threatening my job etc should know I've checked with the bosses and it's fine. So #tomorrowspaperstoday will continue.
Continue reading...While collecting my Guardian this morning, I was struck by the sheer hatred of Jeremy Corbyn and all that he and the Labour party stand for in the headlines in other papers. The Mail, Express, Telegraph were so full of hatred I fully expected them to be suggesting we all bought brown shirts and started parading in the streets. Never, as a proud citizen of this country for almost 75 years, have I felt so alienated from at least half of my fellow citizens as I do on the day before we all cast our vote. Let us hope the young people of this country come out and vote for their future in this election.
David Watson
Nutley, East Sussex
• Reading Gary Younge (6 June), I am guilty as charged. I feel like a rat returning to a ship that, contrary to reports, is not sinking. I had doubts about Corbyn, and I still have some. But I doubt my doubts, because I am not sure they’re mine. Portrayals in the media have been so deceitful that I am giving him the benefit of the doubt and voting Labour. Voting for another party would be a proxy vote for Murdoch and the Barclay brothers. Corbynites who have stayed on board throughout, please be nice to us rats.
Jason Buckley
Chelmsford, Essex
The Sun indulges its penchant for groan-inducing puns, the Mail pours scorn on Labour, and the Economist is a lone Lib Dem voice among the nationals
The Sun has urged its readers not to “chuck Britain in the Cor-bin” on its final front page before the country votes in the general election.
The tabloid, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, published an editorial on its front page under the headline “Don’t Chuck Britain in the Cor-bin” alongside 10 bullet points that described the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a “terrorists’ friend”, “useless on Brexit”, “puppet of unions” and “Marxist extremist”. The article said readers could “rescue Britain from the catastrophe of a takeover by Labour’s hard-left extremists”.
Continue reading...Charles Dickens died on Thursday 9 June 1870 at his home in Gadshill in Kent. He was 58. Our resource examines how the Manchester Guardian and Observer reported the author’s death
The Manchester Guardian related the circumstances of the author’s death on Friday 10 June 1870. Dickens had fallen ill at dinner on Wednesday, believing at first that he had toothache and would soon get better. He subsequently collapsed and became unconscious. Dickens never recovered from the stroke and died the following day. The account mentions that Dickens had fallen ill in Preston the year before and his doctor advised him that he could no longer continue with his famous reading tours.
Related: Charles Dickens at 100: How the Guardian marked the occasion
Related: Victorian news workshop: further information
Continue reading...Journalism has legitimate functions to fulfil, but needs to exercise careful judgment
As the UK ached with the suffering inflicted by two terrorist attacks in quick succession, some readers expressed a feeling that is as understandable as it must be widespread: just let it stop.
The images, descriptions and background information about the London Bridge attack, which journalists worked hard to gather, were thought by some to worsen the suffering and even to assist the terrorists.
Continue reading...Voters saw through the tabloids’ hysterical attacks on the Labour leader. Now their feared editors just look like strange angry blokes selling hate
It’s the Sun wot didn’t win it. And despite the Mail’s pages and pages of frenzied warnings about how electing communist terrorists would be the end of the world, the Mail didn’t do it for their woman either. Theresa May is a creature of the Mail after all. She is everything they want in a woman: repressed, married, slim. A stooping exercise in personal restraint, albeit one who will send out racist vans on a chill day. Her childlessness fits their agenda: this is what happens to “career women”, the price that has to be paid. She is uptight and puritanical, their idea of what Christian means. Shoes and statement jewellery stand in for recognisable human traits.
Related: Daily Mail and Sun turn on Theresa May for election 'gamble'
Having destroyed Ed Miliband, the tabloids took it for granted it could be done again with a few key words
Continue reading...Newspapers that heavily backed prime minister and attacked Jeremy Corbyn say she has ‘blown it’
Rightwing tabloids that backed Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election, accused her of running a shocking campaign and taking a gamble that backfired as they reacted to a result they had not anticipated.
The Sun and the Daily Mail, which had heavily criticised Jeremy Corbyn and supported May in the days before the election, turned on the prime minister overnight as it became clear that the Conservatives would not win a majority.
Heard from very good source who was there that Rupert Murdoch stormed out of The Times Election Party after seeing the Exit Poll #Vote2017
Related: Daily Mail devotes 13 pages to attack on Labour 'apologists for terror'
Continue reading...Immutable truths about British political culture have been breezily overturned by the electorate, confusing pundits and politicians alike. What next?
Well then. Nobody knows anything any more, do they? Michael Gove was mocked for saying that everyone was sick of experts (or thereabouts), and I’ve always been sympathetic to that mocking, but it is starting to seem as though – in political predictions at least – he has a point. There’s so much received wisdom about how to win a key marginal, and what will alienate the middle ground, and why you ignore this demographic or that at your peril. And yet, after the shock of Thursday, none of that received wisdom seems to be so wise any more.
"This is the election young people started voting." ✊️ And wouldn't this be wonderful? -> #BBCelection#Election2017pic.twitter.com/ycfr2wC6zH
Related: The Sun and Mail tried to crush Corbyn. But their power over politics is broken | Suzanne Moore
Related: Is this the end for Ukip? | Richard Whitaker
Continue reading...Of the three political earthquakes that have shaken the western political landscape in the past year – Brexit, Trump and Thursday’s general election – the latest has a claim to be the biggest shock of all. Remember that remain and leave were neck and neck in the opinion polls in the days leading up to the EU referendum: a leave win always looked a possibility. In the US, surveys regularly showed Donald Trump just a couple of points behind Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, which is exactly how things turned out.
Related: Corbyn stuck two fingers up at his critics and changed politics for good | Aditya Chakrabortty
It’s clear that many Britons are simply sick of stagnant wages, underfunded public services and unaffordable homes
Continue reading...Even the rightwing tabloids that backed the prime minister so vigorously before the election are now speculating about her future
• General election 2017 - latest updates
Theresa May is fighting for her future as prime minister, according to Britain’s newspapers, which have issued damning verdicts on the Conservatives’ failure to win a majority in the general election.
The Sun and the Daily Mail, which heavily supported May and criticised Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to the election, said senior Conservatives had turned on the prime minister and that she could be forced to step down within six months.
Continue reading...It was the Sun wot hung it
The Sun is our top-selling tabloid – for which witty devotion to Toryism can trump whatever fact. But on Thursday it made a wrong call. All over the country people competed to buy as many copies as they could and then picture what they did with them. Eclipsethesun, the website created to do just that, was once the preoccupation of a fringe – but suddenly it has triggered a growing social movement.
Related: Theresa May’s premiership in peril as loose alliance agreed with DUP
Continue reading...We all walk around with an unwritten list in our head; private and cherished. Our best-loved films, whether they once comforted us or exhilarated us, from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, are up there, haphazardly filed away, in a mental vault of privileged memories.
Some organised people, of course, actually write down these lists on paper and actively curate them. Such film buffs might be quiet, introverted enthusiasts, commonly also keeping an alphabetised vinyl album collection to match. Or they might be evangelical communicators. If they actually earn a living from it, we call them film critics.
Why isn’t Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon there? Or Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Saudi story, Wadjda?
Continue reading...Be clear about another great election loser. “Let’s reignite British spirit,” implored the Mail as it wound up its own bitter campaign with a 13-page special on the evils of Corbyn. He’s “Cor-Bin” howled the Sun, fearing “apocalypse” if he won. “Your country needs you,” boomed the Telegraph. “Vote May today,” said the Express. Only the Guardian (at the last) and Mirror stable supported Labour. And yet, and yet, it didn’t matter on the day. The supposed power of the Tory press was a bust.
Paul Dacre of the Mail instructed his faithful millions how to vote tactically. They turned a deaf ear. Rupert Murdoch’s fearsome Bun issued awful warnings. They were ignored. The printed press – with the FT and Times as reluctant Conservative backers – has seldom seemed more overwhelming. Labour cries of “fix” and “grotesque” were rising again as a reason/excuse for defeat, with the BBC added to that hate list. In the end, though, it didn’t matter – even before the May-bashing tabloid U-turns of hypocrisy the morning after.
A common angle was criticism of the campaign coverage of UK national newspapers
Continue reading...This election has seen the death of two received wisdoms that have dominated political punditry for a generation.
First, the reign of the tabloids is over. For weeks, the ancient bazookas controlled by Murdoch, Dacre and other press oligarchs were trained on Corbyn and McDonnell, portraying them as patrons of terror and fantasists forever shaking a magic money tree. The campaign failed because the British press is more distrusted than any other press in Europe (as revealed by the 2016 Eurobarometer survey), its circulation is in freefall, and young people in particular get their news and political information from the internet.
Continue reading...Moving from Berliner to tabloid will save us millions of pounds a year, so we can keep investing in what is most important
Today we’re announcing a significant change to the way you experience the Guardian in print: from early 2018 we will move the Guardian and the Observer to tabloid formats.
Over the past six months, we’ve been thinking hard about how we can continue to deliver great journalism to readers through our print editions. At the same time, we’ve also been examining every cost across our organisation, as part of a three-year plan to make the Guardian financially sustainable.
Related: Guardian and Observer to relaunch in tabloid format
Continue reading...Newspapers to move to smaller size and outsource printing to Trinity Mirror as part of three-year cost-saving plan
The Guardian and Observer will relaunch in a tabloid format next year as part of a three-year plan to break even in their finances.
Guardian Media Group (GMG), the parent company of the Guardian and Observer print and digital businesses, has decided to move from its Berliner newspaper format to the smaller size as part of a major cost-saving drive.
Related: Guardian journalism goes from strength to strength. It's just our shape that's changing
Continue reading...Trapped in their hall of mirrors the broadcasters and press wrote off Jeremy Corbyn. They have to change and reflect the world they report on
The election was a crushing defeat – but not for either of the major parties. The faction that now retreats in utter disarray wasn’t technically standing, though in the past it has arguably wielded more power than the formal contestants. I’m talking about the media.
Related: The Sun and Mail tried to crush Corbyn. But their power over politics is broken | Suzanne Moore
Continue reading...Judge orders News Group, part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, to disclose documents relating to private investigators
The owner of the Sun has been ordered to hand over thousands of invoices relating to the use of private investigators by the newspaper and its former sister title, the News of the World, before a new hacking trial later this year.
Mr Justice Mann made a judgment on Tuesday that News Group, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, must disclose invoices from between 2000 and 2010 for the use of private investigators that have been found to have connections with phone hacking and unlawfully obtaining personal information. This means News Group will hand over more than 6,000 invoices on its database.
Continue reading...MacLennan, who will become deputy chairman of Telegraph Media Group, to be replaced by Nick Hugh, former Yahoo vice-president
Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive of the publisher of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, is to step down after 13 years.
MacLennan, who has been chief executive of Telegraph Media Group since 2004, will take on the role of deputy chairman. He will be replaced as chief executive by Nick Hugh, the former European vice-president at Yahoo, who was appointed as chief operating officer at TMG in October last year.
Continue reading...
