[HN Gopher] The Guardian flourishes without a paywall
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The Guardian flourishes without a paywall
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 580 points
Date : 2025-03-29 00:31 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nymag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nymag.com)
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/xBA7x
| ggm wrote:
| An article .. about paywalls not being needed.. behind a pay
| wall.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| I know, writers and editors not deciding on the business model
| of the publication.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_(magazine)
| yen223 wrote:
| I was hoping this article went deeper into the Guardian's
| somewhat unusual ownership model, because I find it interesting
| and would love to learn more.
|
| The Guardian is owned by (and I think largely funded by?) a trust
| that was intentionally set up in a way to ensure no commercial
| interest could interfere with the paper. How well it achieved
| that goal is, of course, debatable, but it has survived nearly a
| century in that form.
| sambeau wrote:
| Yes, The Scott Trust.
|
| You can read more about it here:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/the-scott-trust
| johnea wrote:
| And of course, there's always wikipedia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited
|
| Bozo could easily establish a similar trust to support the
| Wash Post in perpetuity. But clearly he has other motives.
| mushufasa wrote:
| Here's how this happened as I understand it.
|
| The original founder of the guardian, Taylor, ran it like a
| business. While today journalism struggles to make money, in
| the 1800s news was lucrative.
|
| In his will, Taylor carved out a sweetheart deal (right of
| first refusal) to sell the paper to CP Scott, a progressive
| Liberal politician, and also his nephew.
|
| After running the paper for many years, CP Scott's will named
| his two sons to inherit. Both of whom worked as editors on
| the daily.
|
| In a freak turn of events, both CP Scott and one of the sons
| died within a few months. The remaining son was concerned
| about paying double for the hefty inheritance tax at the time
| ("death tax").
|
| The death tax could be so large as to force a sale of the
| paper, to create liquidity to cover the tax. I guess it was a
| tax on unrealized gains!
|
| The remaining son, John, cleverly found a workaround to avoid
| the silly death tax: by renouncing his ownership and
| transferring the business to a Trust. Since he worked at the
| paper as editor, giving up ownership was a clever tradoff
| that actually gave him de facto tenure as editor, by making
| his day job more stable.
|
| This is all to say: the guardian became a nonprofit-like
| trust at a point in time it was already a stable business,
| with capital to self-finance.
|
| This was not a case of a independently wealthy businessman
| creating a foundation to create a paper from scratch (like
| many created universities).
|
| The Scott trust was created by journalists for journalists,
| at a unique point in time where journalists had money to
| self-finance. Motivated not by some idealistic vision but by
| a more practical desire to avoid a hefty tax on unrealized
| gains.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>> The Scott trust was created by journalists for
| journalists, at a unique point in time where journalists
| had money to self-finance
|
| Where is the trust created by coders for coders at a time
| uniquely profitable for coders?
| mushufasa wrote:
| Honestly things like this can also be an argument FOR
| crazy high death taxes.
|
| Something similar happened in a history podcast I heard
| about Porche, which is still owned by the original
| family. At one point, germany told them their tax on
| ownership gains is 90%. So instead, they decided they
| would just re-invest into the business R&D to write off
| the taxes instead. That gave us the invention of Porche's
| Racing team. source:
| https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/porsche-with-doug-demuro
| laborcontract wrote:
| You can get unintended consequences from this, like
| forcing the increase of nepotism. If you look at South
| Korea, for instance, the Chaebol, despite facing some of
| the highest inheritance taxes in the world, still have a
| grip on power.
|
| How? You keep the kids in management, you encourage lots
| of cross holdings between corporations so that even
| though the kids' share falls, you enforce power through
| social contracts in the upper strata of classes that is
| horrible for shareholders and innovation as a society.
|
| That said Porsche indeed is an exceptional company in
| many ways in both the innovative end as well as their
| holdings structure.
| robocat wrote:
| Strong negative incentives create weird workarounds.
|
| > you enforce power through social contracts in the upper
| strata of classes
|
| Do you have any links that explain this?
|
| I'm planning to visit South Korea so understanding some
| of the politics is interesting...
| laborcontract wrote:
| The following links here are a good place to start.
|
| Elliott's activist letter to Samsung:
| http://sevalueproposals.com/assets/downloads/SEC-Press-
| Relea...
|
| Elliott's presentation:
| http://sevalueproposals.com/assets/downloads/SEC-
| Presentatio...
|
| Elliott famously disapproved of the Samsung C&T merger,
| which ultimately went through. The Korean media demonized
| Elliott for trying to reform the company. It was an eye-
| opening experience seeing how Samsung effectively
| captured Korea both politically and through the media.
|
| McKinsey Report (ctrl-f: "korea discount") https://www.mc
| kinsey.com/kr/~/media/mckinsey/locations/asia/...
|
| Bloomberg report on the Korea discount:
| https://archive.md/eBJdl
|
| FT Report about cross shareholding:
| https://archive.md/eYXGM
|
| For all claims of Korea's dynamism, it's still seen as
| investment rat poison and it's telling that it's still
| considered an "emerging market" by MSCI. Public markets
| aside, SK's venture capital scene is, for all intents and
| purposes, non-existent.
| robocat wrote:
| Perfect information! Snippets for other readers:
| Investors have undervalued South Korea's company stocks
| compared to other countries, leading to the term "the
| Korea discount." This "discount" is in part
| attributed to corporate governance in South Korea where
| some companies may have less incentive to grow their
| share price to pay less tax when gifting or inheriting
| financial assets. with analysts saying poor
| corporate governance is one factor behind what is known
| as the "Korea Discount." But investors often
| price [Korean shares] below their book value
| [Another] explanation is the risk discount because of
| nuclear-armed North Korea. To maintain control
| across generations despite South Korea's unusually high
| 50 per cent inheritance tax, they have resorted to
| elaborate solutions that depress the country's stock
| valuations. At Samsung, heir apparent Lee was
| sold equity at well below fair value to the detriment of
| other shareholders. Lee's equity value went from W9.5
| billion to W6.7 trillion [The Hyundai family
| owners syphoned value] largely at the expense of
| shareholders in other Hyundai companies, according to
| court and regulatory findings that affiliates unfairly
| supported a company through noncompetitive contract
| awards at inflated prices.
|
| I've abridged the above - see links for better details.
| vermilingua wrote:
| They exist? This is called FOSS and some outfits are even
| able to offer paid employment.
| ghaff wrote:
| One can imagine trusts devoted to open source. (They
| probably exist in some form.) But that probably means
| that modest amounts of money are distributed to a
| vanishingly small number of coders based on, likely, the
| preferences of some executive director.
|
| In general, it's fairly clear that jobs for open source
| developers is generally more effective than charity of
| various kinds which is subject to change at any time.
| (OK, jobs are too but that tends to be less related to
| political, etc. winds.)
| Centigonal wrote:
| FOSS is not a monetary instrument?
| koolba wrote:
| A commit bit may not be liquid, but you can earn from it.
| There's tons of companies that would pay for
| prioritization of their desired FOSS work.
| eru wrote:
| There's also the Ethereum foundation, if that's your
| jive.
| aorloff wrote:
| Tiny little businesses that you never hear about
| robocat wrote:
| We build open-source trust-equivalents (foundations) with
| valuable intellectual property on the balance sheet
| instead of crude money.
|
| However, is Mozilla a money oriented coder trust?
|
| If you've had any experience with small trusts, they
| often get captured by self-interested people. The Scott
| Trust seems to stand out from others with its outcomes.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| Fascinating!
|
| (I do find some irony in the fact that a majority of
| Guardian readers these days would abhor attempts by rich
| businessmen to dodge taxes.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Charitable trusts, depending on the type, often/usually
| provide shielding from various types of taxes. That's not
| intended to be a cynical statement--the end result may
| well still be positive for society--but nonetheless it's
| one mechanism by which at least relatively affluent
| people can keep profits out of the hands of the
| government. It happens at much smaller scale than in this
| case as well.
| Angostura wrote:
| As a Guardian reader, the idea of a wealthy person
| placing their money in a charitable trust - that actually
| does valuable work, rather than handing it to their
| children seems entirely reasonable
| hk__2 wrote:
| > ... a wealthy person placing their money in a
| charitable trust - that actually does valuable work,
| rather than handing it to their children
|
| Isn't it money that should have gone to the State here,
| rather than the children? They didn't do the trust not to
| give money to their children, but rather to avoid taxes.
| vidarh wrote:
| Some portion of Guardian readers might see the state as
| the main provider of benefits to society, but I very much
| doubt most would. Guardian is a (in the European sense)
| liberal paper, with a readership ranging from the centre
| and toward the left, with a large proportion along that
| entire range being totally fine with non-state
| organisations structured for the public benefit. You'll
| also find plenty who look on the state with suspicion to
| outright hostility and would actively _prefer_ if more
| businesses had ownership structured this way, whether or
| not the handover of wealth that creates them "avoids
| taxes".
| timewizard wrote:
| > While today journalism struggles to make money
|
| It rather depends on what you mean by journalism. I suspect
| your definition is true to the Guardian's apparent aims,
| publishing well researched truths to an interested
| population. What was being published in the 1800s was most
| certainly not that; instead, being very similar to the
| current forms of "opinion journalism" that are
| exceptionally lucrative today.
| eru wrote:
| > [...] very similar to the current forms of "opinion
| journalism" that are exceptionally lucrative today.
|
| They are lucrative, but I don't think exceptionally so.
| chgs wrote:
| Lucrative doesn't always mean monetary terms.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| They're exceptionally lucrative for the people who can
| get their viewers to buy their memecoin and send
| donations to own the outgroup.
| eru wrote:
| Memecoins are a very, very small part of the overall
| economy. Much smaller than journalism used to be in its
| heyday.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Boris Johnson was paid more by the Telegraph (PS220k) to
| write one column a week than he was as Foreign Secretary
| at the same time. Propaganda is lucrative.
| FabHK wrote:
| > They are lucrative, but I don't think exceptionally so.
|
| Probably not as lucrative as the despicable academic
| publisher parasites.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| In a post about why it's good thing to have a paper that's
| not owned by the super wealthy, you insist on using the
| term "death tax" - a right-wing pejorative - instead of
| just sticking with inheritance tax.
|
| The incongruity of this never crossed your mind?
| chgs wrote:
| He seems to think that the independence of the guardian
| is a bad thing.
|
| It's clear from his post that we need higher inheritance
| tax, and wealth tax in general, especially on unrealised
| gains.
| thworp wrote:
| > especially on unrealised gains.
|
| Right, absolutely brilliant idea. You live prudently,
| save some money every month and invest it (stocks, bonds,
| whatever). Due to factors entirely outside your control
| like a stock market bubble or an interest rate drop, the
| $50k portfolio you built over 30 years is now worth $70k.
| Your unrealized $20k gain is taxed at 10% for easier
| math. You don't have $2k cash on hand and are forced to
| sell some of your portfolio to pay the tax.
|
| Next year, there is a crash. You now have just $40k in
| assets. But there is a gradual recovery, and the year
| after it's back to $50k. You now owe another $1k. Sound
| good?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| The glaring incongruity is that the Guardian exists
| because someone used trusts as tax avoidance.
| tempfile wrote:
| > I guess it was a tax on unrealized gains!
|
| Inheritance taxes invariably are. The recent UK controversy
| around farm land inheritance was the same.
| pjc50 wrote:
| That was definitely a case of people buying up land
| purely for the IHT value and then doing some toy farming
| on the corner to get the exemption.
|
| I feel like a lot of these cases could be avoided if
| people wanted to structure their family business like a
| business and gradually transfer control to their
| children, rather than keep it as personal property right
| until the very last minute.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| _> found a workaround to avoid the silly death tax_
|
| I don't know if you're using the word "silly" sarcastically
| here, but if not, isn't this an example of this type of tax
| working exactly as intended? John still greatly benefited
| from his parents' work, and so did society at large to this
| very day.
| arp242 wrote:
| "Death tax" alone is already a very loaded way to
| describe inheritance tax.
|
| That said, having to pay inheritance tax twice over an
| organisation like this in a short span of time is rather
| unusual, and arguably, a bit "silly".
| Lutger wrote:
| It is very good example of political framing. It evokes
| the thought of tax as a punishment for dying, and its
| collection as a kind of harassment of the bereaved. So
| tax bad, case closed, no discussion.
|
| But of course, it is not death and loss that it taxed, it
| is rather the accumulated wealth being redistributed over
| both society at large and the heirs, in some kind of
| ratio. In favor of inheritance tax: the wealth somebody
| amassed has also been thanks to its participation in
| society, so it is only fair some portion of it goes back
| to society. The heirs played no part in it, so why should
| they get any, let alone all of it? Furthermore,
| inheriting wealth goes against the idea of meritocracy,
| and maintains inequality in an unfair way in modern
| societies. Why should inheritance tax not be 100%?
|
| Children often grow attached to the 'stuff' their parents
| have collected, be it things or land, houses or money. It
| seems unfair to take it all away from them, as they feel
| they already 'own it' merely by being their children. So
| inheritance tax is some kind of compromise.
|
| However, as each generation these days tend to fully
| 'break' with their parents, in a way (economically,
| spiritually), inheritance itself seems more and more like
| a thing of our tribal pasts. I imagine a future where
| there is no inheritance tax anymore, because the whole
| concept of inheritance will go away.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But wasn't the "society" paid off by all the "living
| taxes" before the person died?
|
| Imagine having nothing, your parents dying, you, an eg.
| broke college student inheriting a 2 bedroom apartment,
| which is somehow worth $1mio, and you owe so much tax
| (that you can't pay) that you're forced to sell the
| apartment, the only place you've ever known.
|
| With 100% inheritance tax, i'd literally stop working as
| soon as i reached enough money to retire. Why work harder
| if it all vanishes when I die, and my hypothetical kids
| gain nothig? Or, more realistically, i'd convert stuff to
| cash and give it to them without the government knowing.
|
| Tax the income, close the loopholes, once the tax for
| something is paid, the rest should go to the person, the
| government has got its share, it has enough.
|
| And i'm saying this as someone who already lives in a
| country without inheritance tax (in most usualy cases).
| Draiken wrote:
| This leads to what we have today: insane levels of wealth
| inequality.
|
| Everyone that inherits fortunes from their parents get to
| live life on easy mode while every one else is poorer,
| with less assets and barring winning a lottery ticket, no
| way to ever catch up. Wealth creates a feedback loop that
| if gone unchecked will hoard all assets from everyone
| else.
|
| We can't have both meritocracy and inheritance as they
| are mutually exclusive. If we want to keep telling people
| there's any modicum of truth to meritocracy, we have to
| stop all this inheritance bullshit. The particulars of it
| can be discussed with caps based on amounts, for example,
| but that's not the point.
|
| There's a reason that most wealthy people from the past
| are still wealthy today and I can guarantee you it's not
| through their own merit.
|
| Tax wealth, not work. There should be no billionaires.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > Tax wealth, not work. There should be no billionaires.
|
| NB. This does not mean that Inheritance should be a
| taxable event! There would be less need to have
| inheritance tax if we had a consistent wealth tax.
|
| It remains obvious to me that inheritance drives social
| inequality, and similarly it is obvious that parents are
| going to resent not giving their children as much help as
| they can.
| Draiken wrote:
| Yeah, if we had very effective wealth taxes, I could see
| it being less relevant. Right now, it kind of works as a
| very rare wealth tax and is probably dodged quite a lot
| by transferring ownership beforehand. I'm no expert since
| but I'm sure it's full of loopholes.
|
| But it's one of the very few wealth taxes we actually
| have today...
| Ntrails wrote:
| > I'm sure it's full of loopholes.
|
| Yeah, there are a few very well defined loopholes -
| gifting early, pension wrappers, some trusts,
| agricultural land, non-dom etc etc - some are being
| closed. In general the richer you are the more likely you
| are to be able to minimise and avoid the tax.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > There should be no billionaires.
|
| These moral judgements aren't great ways to make economic
| decisions. A billionaire can just be someone who owns a
| lot of shares in a company that's currently valuable. A
| company's value (in this sense) is just the total number
| of shares multiplied by the last share sale price.
|
| It doesn't mean they have a billion dollars in cash. The
| billions don't even exist. They're just a value based on
| the last transaction value of the company's share
| dealing.
| soperj wrote:
| That they can borrow money from the banks as if they do
| exist says you're wrong.
| pqtyw wrote:
| Well yes, companies do exist. How would you handle that?
| Nationalize all large businesses? That... rarely worked
| out historically.
| yazantapuz wrote:
| > These moral judgements aren't great ways to make
| economic decisions.
|
| In my experience, a lot of people who make these kinds of
| extreme claims (no billionaires, no inheritance, etc.) do
| not seek plausible economic solutions, they only want the
| moral high ground.
| Draiken wrote:
| In my experience, people that simply attack other people
| instead of contributing to the discussion are the ones
| that want the "moral high ground".
|
| That statement is in no way moral. Not sure why GP
| assumes that. It's simply not beneficial to society for
| small groups to accumulate disproportionate amounts of
| power.
|
| But as always, we have some "future billionaires" rushing
| to defend them.
| Draiken wrote:
| It's not a moral judgement. Morals have nothing to do
| with how power works. Society does not benefit from small
| groups owning enormous amounts of power.
|
| Whether they're kings from "divine right", corrupt nepo
| babies or even legitimate geniuses. Nobody should have
| that much power.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > Tax wealth, not work. There should be no billionaires.
|
| But what is wealth? And when should you tax it?
|
| Let's say I take a piece of duct tape and a banana and
| ducttape the banana to a wall.... how much tax should I
| pay for that? I mean... how much could a banana cost?
|
| If i sell that "art", for example for $6.2M (yes, it sold
| for that much), then sure, i did my "work", earned $6.2M,
| and in the current system i'm taxed for my "work" (well..
| income for my work).
|
| So, by your logic, when should I get taxed? And for what
| value? The net worth of that banana on the wall is $1, so
| should I be taxed on that value? But if someone wants to
| pay $6.2M for that, should my tax change, even before
| it's bought? Do I get my taxes back if he changes his
| mind?
|
| What if instead I start a small company named Sava (a
| river nearby) that sells books. Do I get taxed now, when
| the value of the company is $10k in books in the
| warehouse? What if someone believes in my company so
| much, he wats to buy 1 millionth of my company for $1000,
| should I be taxed on the theoretic value of my company
| (1B now)? Or should I be taxed only when I actually sell
| that stock and earn the money?
|
| Yes, life is not fair, kids of rich parents start with a
| lot of money. My parents were not rich, but believed in
| the future of computing and bought me (a kid back then) a
| computer in the time when you had to take out a loan to
| get one. My friends parents bought him a motorcycle. I'm
| an above-average paid 'developer' now and he works
| minimum wage in a factory. So, should i lose something or
| have to pay something back, because my parents made
| better decisions than his?
|
| Instead of focusing on taking away stuff where the taxes
| were already paid, lets rather focus on people like bezos
| paying the same amount of taxes as other businesses do,
| like mom and pop book stores (i'm talking percentages,
| not net values), and to stop the abuse of every goddamn
| tax loophole they abuse now.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > Tax wealth,
|
| Perhaps. However an extremely high inheritance tax is an
| irrational way to do that. It would incentivize everyone
| to spend all their money/wealth before they die e.g.
| directly or just by selling all their property and buying
| an annuity.
|
| A massive increase in consumption wouldn't necessarily be
| the best outcome. Though I do see some benefits.
|
| > we have to stop all this inheritance bullshit.
|
| That would only work if you ban parents from giving any
| gifts or financial support to their children. Which is a
| very slippery slope...
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Tax consumption, not work or wealth.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| > But wasn't the "society" paid off by all the "living
| taxes" before the person died?
|
| Governments look holistically at their tax revenue. If
| there is an inheritance tax, and they expect to get a
| certain amount of revenue from it, then other taxes will
| be lower to compensate.
|
| And vice versa: if an inheritance tax is producing
| revenue, eliminating it will result in higher taxes
| elsewhere. This is one reason such a tax continues to
| exist. Inheritance taxes tend to have very high
| exclusions so most people don't pay them. And getting rid
| of them looks like charging everyone else more in order
| to lower taxes on the rich.
| eitland wrote:
| Some would say: governments look holistically at it - if
| there is a way to get away with extracting more taxes,
| they will.
| eitland wrote:
| With that said, I'd like to say that I enjoy living in
| Norway and I enjoy our tax model and the health care and
| education system it funds.
|
| I just wish there was as much scrutiny on how the funds
| are used and as much creativity on getting as much as
| possible for them as there is scrutiny on how much each
| of us should pay and creativity around how to tax us
| more.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I like how you suggest that other taxes will be lower to
| compensate. That hasn't been my experience in general.
| I'm sure it's happened occasionally but I don't think
| it's the rule.
| yazantapuz wrote:
| A 100% inheritance tax is quite silly imho and very
| unfair for the parents. One of the reasons many people
| strive for success is to secure some well-being to their
| children... well at least myself and many people i know.
| tirant wrote:
| Exactly. It creates perverse incentives. One of the main
| drivers for millions of humans to work harder is to leave
| a better economic situation for their children and
| grandchildren. You remove that incentive and the economy
| will tank immediately.
|
| It's not only perverse but completely anti-human.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| ... the perverse incentive to raise your children to
| stand on their own two feet?
| pqtyw wrote:
| The potentially perverse incentive to spend every single
| $ you have before you die? If everything you have goes to
| the government after you're dead and you have more money
| than you personally need you can still spend it all on
| your children before you die.
|
| Presumably this 100% tax would also apply to gifts cause
| otherwise it wouldn't really work but where does it stop?
| Parents can't pay for college? Buy their children a car?
| Go on vacation with them? Spend any money on them at all
| so that they would "stand on their own two feet"? Be
| banned from giving any financial support to their
| children when they reach 18?
|
| I mean... it's an obviously not a good idea.
|
| Also the most optimal strategy would be to spend all the
| money you have in addition to getting a reverse mortgages
| on any property so that by the time you die your net
| worth would be as close to 0 as possible. Or just selling
| everything and buying an annuity.
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| Why is spending everything before you die a perverse
| incentive?
| pqtyw wrote:
| Lower savings rate, higher inflation, higher interest
| rates, less capital available for investment. So most
| capital intensive sectors wouldn't do well.
|
| A lot more volatility, without a (or much smaller one)
| buffer most economic shocks would have a bigger impact on
| the economy.
|
| Also there would still be a lot of inequality it would
| just be intra-generational.
|
| Then again.. all the annuity money has have to go
| somewhere. So maybe the insurance companies would become
| the primary sources of investment capital (which wouldn't
| be great). A lot of uncertainty though i.e. buying a
| house if you have a family would become much riskier..
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| I'd need a source to back up those claims, as you note
| it's not trivial to understand how economy would react.
|
| I also don't see why buying a house would be much
| riskier? If you buy a house for your family it's because
| you either prefer the lifestyle or think it provides
| economic advantages over renting. Given you only need
| housing when your alive, I think what happens after you
| pass is not as major a concern as presented.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The goal are in no way mutually exclusive.
|
| I can want my children _capable_ of providing for
| themselves.
|
| I can also want improve their situation beyond that.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Are you _actually_ advocating for an inheritance tax
| close to 100%?
|
| Because that is completely unworkable IMO, for several
| reasons:
|
| 1) Unless you introduce comparable "wealth transfer"/gift
| taxes, it becomes completely meaningless for the average
| case.
|
| 2) This would be insanely harmful in cases of unexpected
| deaths; inheritance is a really bad compensation
| _already_ when someone close dies, this would make it
| even worse. And dealing with any kind of shared assets
| would be a nightmare, too (father dies, mother has to pay
| tax on half the house?)
|
| Could be workable with large allowances though, but I
| don't hink you would ever get this pushed through in a
| democracy because it is too easy to put negative spin on
| it (even if it was in the majorities economical best
| interest).
|
| I don't think that inheritance tax is a bad concept, but
| setting it higher than the gift tax rate is actively
| harmful and would not achieve anything.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| You don't normally pay inheritance taxes for spousally
| shared assets. Is that not the case where you are, or did
| you purposefully give this the worst framing?
| myrmidon wrote:
| No, I'm not purposefully giving this the worst framing.
|
| My main point is that setting it higher than gift tax
| rates is effectively pointless, and basically just
| punishes people for dying unexpectedly (and/or not
| planning ahead for their own death), and neither is
| desirable.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| It's not pointless. It may be counterproductive but
| kicking rich people when they're down is popular among
| certain sections of society since it's a subset of
| kicking rich people, which they like generally.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Could be workable with large allowances though,
|
| Like US$13M ? That is the current situation in the United
| States.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Absolutely-- but if you have to exempt like 99% of your
| population from a law then its probably not too popular a
| concept (compare income tax, which a _lot_ more people
| are actually fine with paying).
|
| I still think this would have mainly negative effects if
| the gift tax rate is lower than inheritance tax anyway.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > but if you have to exempt like 99% of your population
| from a law then its probably not too popular a concept
|
| It is hard to take this seriously. Are you seriously
| suggesting that the threshold is set at this level
| because of unpopularity rather than the power of the
| extremely wealthy? Have you looked at how the threshold
| has changed over time, and why?
| pqtyw wrote:
| > than the power of the extremely wealthy?
|
| How does that make sense? In theory only the extremely
| wealthy have to pay the tax (not that they necessarily do
| that). In what way would it being so high benefit them?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| absolutely. If you removed the limit and applied to the
| 99%, it would be the most unpopular tax in the country.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I don't believe there's ever been a situation (at least
| in the USA) where there was no threshold at all. So the
| argument is over its value, not its existence.
|
| That said, sure, you're right. But why are you right? I
| would suggest it is because we live (in the USA, among
| other places) in a culture that strongly emphasizes the
| _right_ to pass along generational wealth. But this is
| not universally true across time and space, and our
| culture took a different tack (say, by quoting august
| Republican figures from the late 19th and early 20th
| centuries), the popularity or otherwise would likely be
| entirely different.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The argument is about the exclusion threshold because
| that determines who it is applied to. People generally
| support taking from other people but not from themselves.
|
| A flat 50% rate still extract much more value from the
| rich, but apply equally to the poor.
|
| My perception is that hereditary wealth transfer is about
| as universal and it's phenomenon get when it comes to
| humans. Not 100%, but close to it.
| jorvi wrote:
| > Absolutely-- but if you have to exempt like 99% of your
| population from a law then its probably not too popular a
| concept (compare income tax, which a lot more people are
| actually fine with paying).
|
| What? That is completely wrong.
|
| If you gave the populace the option of massively lowering
| their income tax by slightly upping taxes on anyone with
| assets exceeding.. say.. $15 million, and massively
| taxing anyone with assets exceeding $100 million, do you
| think they'll cheer for the status quo or for lowered
| income taxes?
| ryandrake wrote:
| A huge number of people see themselves as "temporarily
| embarrassed millionaires" and oppose taxes on the
| ultrawealthy because they think they might one day be
| ultrawealthy themselves.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| A 100% inheritance tax would encourage entrepreneurial
| behavior and force young people to take risks that they
| wouldn't otherwise. Capital would operate more
| efficiently if everyone was on the market in that way. In
| fact, the inheritance tax would be the only tax if it was
| total; there would be no other tax burden in one's entire
| life.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > entrepreneurial behaviour and force young people to
| take risks that they wouldn't otherwise
|
| Or get them stuck in a permanent debt cycle.
|
| > the inheritance tax would be the only tax if it was
| total; there would be no other tax burden in one's entire
| life.
|
| Wouldn't everyone be incentivized to spend as much as
| they feasibly can before they die and not accumulate too
| much wealth?
|
| I guess it depends on the specific implementation but the
| optimal approach would be to take on as much debt as you
| can to keep your effective net worth close to 0. So even
| a 100% tax on that might not result in a lot of
| revenue...
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I'd advocate for that. The dead have no property rights.
| Survivors have no automatic right to get rich when uncle
| pennybags kicks the bucket.
|
| All the rest is quibbling about logistics. Yes, we know
| rich people are very good at hiding their money.
| radiator wrote:
| Your view about each generation tending to fully 'break'
| with their parents, in a way (economically, spiritually)
| strikes me as particularly narrow. Perhaps it is so where
| you live, but this is simply not true for vast
| populations all over the world.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Most populations in the world: Latin America, China,
| India, Japan, Koreas, the muslims and the jews, and more.
|
| However, I think the grandparent post refered to Great
| Britain since the paper in question is english.
| piltdownman wrote:
| You've just named three of the top global cultures for
| transfer of intergenerational wealth down the patriarchal
| line.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| :/ Yes, I was agreeing with the parent post, which
| disagreed with the grandparent post:
|
| "Your view about each generation tending to fully 'break'
| with their parents, in a way *strikes me as particularly
| narrow*. "
|
| I then added examples of _vast populations_ where sons
| don 't isolate from their parents.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What happens is gifts are given out before death and
| names put on houses so the tax is paid by the poor or
| those who died unexpectedly.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > the accumulated wealth being redistributed over both
| society
|
| That's fair in principle. Yet in this case but his
| brother didn't really have enough time to accumulate that
| much additional wealth after inhering it from his father
| so it's a bit of a lottery.
|
| Also inheritance taxes are quite tricky to enforce and
| it's very hard to close all the loopholes (also the
| revenue isn't exactly reliable). IMHO a wealth tax seems
| like a better idea (then again there are quite a few
| complications as well as Norway's recent attempt has
| shown...).
|
| > because the whole concept of inheritance will go away.
|
| I fear the opposite. As property prices continue
| increasing and middle and lower class incomes stagnate
| inheritance might again become one of the few ways that
| are left for the majority of the population to attain and
| any significant wealth (I mean middle class level i.e. a
| hour or two). Birth rates also being so low might make it
| even more significant.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Let me introduce you to the concept of "property rights."
| What right do you have to tell someone who they can pass
| their property on to at their death? Your definition of
| "fair" is utterly irrelevant.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Property rights are meaningless without a social order
| that protects them. Aka a government and a civilized
| society with high trust.
|
| The value of that property increases when others in the
| society prosper. Government programs funded by "taking
| people's money" (aka taxes) very often make "private"
| property more valuable.
|
| People with the "f*ck you, got mine" mindset either don't
| get this or selfishly don't care (sometimes for
| understandable reasons, e.g. they come from a low trust
| area).
|
| Of course, there are lots of nuances and complex
| implementation details. Like how much exactly does a
| specific program affect different groups and on what time
| scales. But the fundamental principle is straightforward
| and essential to a healthy society.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Saying "you don't have a right to pass on your property
| to your family" is the opposite of high trust. I'll grant
| that the moral answer beyond a certain point is to limit
| your children's inheritance to what will give them a
| comfortable life, and then engage in philanthropy a la
| people like Andrew Carnegie.
|
| But claiming the government has to force people into this
| is low-trust to the extreme. It's saying "we're going to
| take these things we already taxed you on, because you
| can't be trusted to use them responsibly and we can."
|
| You can't regulate your way into everything. Good
| government can only exist alongside the unwritten rules
| that made people like Carnegie decide that the right
| answer was to give their wealth away to the public.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Property rights are meaningless without a social order
| that protects them.
|
| Where do you delineate this worldview from a simple
| extortion shakedown? e.g. your house is more valuable
| when it isnt on fire and your family isn't dead.
|
| It still leaves the question of what is an appropriate
| tax to pay for social order? is it 100%?
| jajko wrote:
| Silly is actually too nice a word for such extortion
| scheme. As you see if rich enough/business big enough, it
| could be easily circumvented. The little people without
| access to great lawyers and accountants got absolutely
| hammered when it got applied to them. But victorian
| England wasn't setup for little people in mind, it was
| all lords and wealthy businessmen ruling it all.
|
| So similar to current situation in many places - if you
| are rich enough, you basically exist outside of tax
| system, be it capital gains, investments, inheritance
| etc. Obscure tax structures spanning whole globe as ie
| Panama papers showed. Its the middle class that gets
| hammered out of existence, ie in France its around 40%
| for inheritance tax, and trusts are AFAIK forbidden /
| treated very punitively. Very rich still bypass this and
| everybody knows this, everybody below not so much. Its
| not even effective there, the amount extracted yearly in
| such way is minuscule, but it pleases crowds with 'social
| justice' so they don't protest so much and burn more cars
| on streets.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Most jurisdictions have a tax-free allowance or
| threshold. If you're affected by an inheritance tax,
| you're not poor.
|
| As I said in the comment you're responding to, this seems
| like an example of how this type of tax worked correctly
| for a very rich person, so the thread you're responding
| to is already a counterexample to your argument.
|
| I agree that inheritance taxes can be implemented poorly.
| Still, the concept of an inheritance tax is good, and
| poorly implemented inheritance taxes should be fixed by
| improving them, not removing them.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Recently proposed changes to the UK system to include
| business property (and farms) are going to further the
| take over of productive property (including farms) in the
| UK by private equity and large and multi-national
| companies who have shown to be pretty poor actors in
| furthering the public good. In my opinion, this is a
| particularly bad change to inheritance tax.
| davedx wrote:
| Insightful comment. Good example of the law of unintended
| consequences there.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I don't think this has been fully enacted yet - but is
| being done because it had increasingly become a way to
| avoid tax - ie. buy dormant/hobby farmland and pass it on
| to your children tax free
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-
| to-a...
| philjohn wrote:
| Except the farming changes is far more nuanced than that.
|
| The reason farms are worth so much at present, despite
| low margins, is because of the inheritance tax loophole
| that was introduced in the 80's, at the behest of the
| landed backers of the Conservative Party. This turned
| farmland into a prime investment vehicle as a way to
| shelter assets from inheritance tax.
|
| Is the proposed change (and thresholds, plus half rate
| with interest free payments spread over 10 years)
| perfect? No - it'll still catch some small family farms -
| but it's telling that the highest level of opposition has
| come from some very wealthy landowners, such as those
| using their "farmland" for grouse hunting, rather than
| making food.
|
| The tax break in the 80's was a textbook market
| distortion, if we believe in the power of free markets,
| the value of the farmland will now fall, which means
| fewer family farmers will need to pay inheritance tax.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Totally agree this is a problem, but I'm very much minded
| to think that a proper farming policy would include such
| distortions in the planning. The current government seem
| to think that putting the boot into farmers at every
| opportunity is just fine (classically, they are very
| conservative), the latest being the sudden ending of SFI.
| Let's sit down and have a grown up conversation about it
| all, including food security, sustainability and the best
| ownership models, rather than pissing around with
| inheritance tax.
|
| In truth, my concerns are primarily around business
| property relief, since I think it is there that the
| damage will be both more significant and less visible.
| Many businesses carefully built up over years will have
| no option but to sell off a chunk to private equity to
| pay the tax liability. Is it a surprise that the gov come
| up with such policies when Rachel Reeves thinks that the
| finance industry is going to fire up growth [1], when
| they are the rent seeking parasites that are suppressing
| it. The fox has been invited into the hen house and
| getting to dictate policy.
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-backs-
| britains...
| philjohn wrote:
| There are numerous ways of avoiding inheritance tax, and
| therefore not having to deal with business property
| relief.
|
| If the business is going to be a going concern for many
| years, then proper estate planning should be part of any
| careful running of a business. Passing it on 7 years
| before death is the most obvious play; yes, actuarially
| there will be some people who die before the 7 years have
| passed, so doing it early is important if continuity of
| the business is important.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Of course, which is why it's all so silly. It proves to
| be a headache that gets in the way of actually productive
| activity, and I know this from first hand experience.
| vbarrielle wrote:
| In France the inheritance tax is only applied above 100
| 000EUR, so it's really not 40% flat. What's more, it's
| possible to make donations before the death, 100 000EUR
| every 15 years, without taxes, meaning most of the time
| no taxes are payed at all below 200 000EUR or even 300
| 000EUR.
|
| These amounts are per-child, which means you can double
| them up if there are two children.
|
| Median patrimony in France is 175 000EUR per household,
| so your typical middle class family with two children
| ends up paying no inheritance tax, without having done
| donations in advance.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| For starters, 100.000 EUR is nothing. Also, in many
| jurisdictions that threshold only applies to direct (eg
| father-son) inheritance but not eg between siblings.
|
| I have an unmarried aunt with no kids. Most of her estate
| is land (that has passed through centuries in the family
| and is almost illiquid because the European Union has
| killed agriculture) and some stock (that cannot be used
| to pay the taxes because it's not yours until you pay the
| taxes). I just checked and when she dies, my mom (her
| only sister) will have to pay 45% of that in death tax.
| We may need to turn down the estate when she dies because
| we cannot pay the tax. And you think that's fair? Grow
| up.
| pluies wrote:
| The whole point of inheritance tax is to redistribute
| some of the accumulated family wealth across society. You
| think that's unfair? Grow up.
| gambiting wrote:
| I think it's unfair, you work your entire life paying tax
| on every single euro you make(a lot of tax in fact!) and
| then when you want to leave that to your child it's taxed
| again? What complete nonsense. I'm very glad the country
| where I'm from(Poland) doesn't have that.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| People could equally argue that it is unfair that some
| children are born with all the advantages while others
| have none. I don't think "fairness" is a strong argument
| here because it is entirely subjective. What seems fair
| to you looks like a huge injustice to somebody else.
|
| My parents are upper-middle class, and I've profited from
| their wealth all my life. My inheritance will be taxed,
| and I don't find that unfair at all. I was born on second
| base and had an advantage over others at every stage of
| my life; it would be fatuous to complain about an
| inheritance tax.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Suppose you've inherited genes which contribute in
| varying degrees to brains, beauty, longevity and charm.
| These are arguably advantages rather more significant in
| life than money. If there was a choice who wouldn't
| choose these? So should you be taxed given how you will
| undoubtedly profit from it? Or is it just the guy who's
| dumb, ugly, always ill with something and destined for a
| short life who's hammered if he or she happens to make
| some real cash?
|
| https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/how-genes-shape-
| perso... https://human-intelligence.org/intelligence-is-
| genetic/
| https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/beauty-
| may-... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23925498/
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| _> is it just the guy who's dumb, ugly, always ill with
| something and destined for a short life who's hammered if
| he or she happens to make some real cash_
|
| I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the exact point
| you're making.
|
| I follow the premise of your argument. You're saying
| genes are a birth advantage, just like money is. I
| absolutely agree with that. But I don't understand how
| this ends in "just the guy who's dumb, ugly, always ill"
| being "hammered if he or she happens to make some real
| cash."
|
| FWIW, in many Western countries, healthy people are
| already functionally "taxed" (although it's often not
| technically a tax) more than unhealthy people because
| both pay similar amounts into healthcare but derive
| different benefits from it.
|
| I also think that's good, just like taxing inheritance
| is.
| FabHK wrote:
| Those unearned traits might make you more money, and you
| might also bequeath these traits to your kids. It would
| compound the injustice if you could furthermore bequeath
| all the money to your kids, while it would ameliorate the
| injustice if the inheritance were largely taxed away.
| lores wrote:
| It's taxed above a pretty reasonable threshold. You have
| the option of gifting your money tax-free to your
| children, or to public-good organisations. Hell, you have
| the option to spend some of the money you made in your
| lifetime! You earned it, spend it! See the world! Eat the
| finest cheeses for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Have a
| masseur on retainer! The kids sound pretty entitled
| anyway!
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Read my comment: your brother passes away without
| children and the Tax Agency steals 45% of his estate (and
| that's after the "discount" for the threshold, the actual
| tax rate over the threshold is higher than 45%). That's
| not reasonable at all.
| lores wrote:
| Why should one be entitled to the property of their
| brother? What's special about a brother that should be
| unavailable with leaving property to, say, one's best
| friend?
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Communism never ends up well. Remember that when your
| wishes become reality.
| gambiting wrote:
| I don't see what this has to do with communism, and
| frankly I don't think you do either. And I do agree with
| you that taxing inheritance is unacceptable.
| lores wrote:
| Not only that's not communism, but, by the looks of it,
| greed-capitalism isn't turning out so well either, now,
| is it?
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I'm still getting 55% of the wealth my brother built for
| himself without putting any effort into it. It would be
| different if this were a spouse, but surviving spouses
| are not subject to these taxes.
|
| Also, taxation isn't stealing. But if you genuinely feel
| that it is, you have the option of moving to a country
| with no functioning government. The Somali government,
| for example, has effectively no ability to collect taxes
| in most regions.
| FabHK wrote:
| The fact that you call taxes theft is enough to
| disqualify your opinion.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| The fact that you think 45% tax is fair is enough to
| disqualify your opinion.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| The fact that you think getting 55% of something you did
| not earn is unfair is enough to disqualify your opinion.
| gambiting wrote:
| Parents everywhere in (almost?) every country of the
| world are allowed to give tax-free gifts to their
| children without limit. That's generally not objected to
| in any way, but suddenly people think it's fair when the
| exact same money or houses get taxed at inheritance time.
|
| Also - at the end of the day, someone is still getting
| something that they "didn't earn" - why allow it at all?
| Tax everything at 100% on death - why give people who
| didn't "earn it" something?
|
| Obviously I'm being fascicious about this now, but if the
| argument that it's "unfair" for people who "didn't earn
| it" to get something, why allow this at all?
|
| And also, personally - I think the argument is flipped on
| its head. It's not about people getting the inheritance -
| it's about people "giving" it - I paid taxes on my money
| throughout my entire life, why should the state take any
| more just because I'm leaving it to my children?
| lores wrote:
| Limiting the snowball effect of the wealthy getting
| wealthier generation after generation through no
| contribution of their own is considered a societal good.
| Whether it is can be debated, but Europe seems to be in a
| happier position regarding that than the US, at the
| moment. Why is it always the rugged individualists, the
| pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps proponents who are in
| favour of receiving unearned money? It feels less like a
| considered philosophical viewpoint than naked greed.
|
| (and, on a side note, where do you get that you can give
| unlimited tax-free money to your children in almost every
| country of the world? I checked the US, France, UK,
| Spain, Morocco, South Africa and Brazil, and all have
| limits after which tax apply. China and the Philippines
| don't, but neither do they have inheritance tax.)
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Whether it is can be debated, but Europe seems to be in
| a happier position regarding that than the US, at the
| moment
|
| I'm Polish and Poland doesn't have any inheritance tax
| for children, not sure what US has to do with this.
|
| >>I checked the US, France, UK, Spain, Morocco, South
| Africa and Brazil
|
| Did you really? Here a UK page about this, there is no
| limitation on how much you can give your children tax
| free, tax only applies if you die within 7 years after
| gifting it:
|
| https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts
|
| And
|
| Raisin UK https://www.raisin.co.uk Gifting money to
| children explained (2025)
|
| >>Limiting the snowball effect of the wealthy getting
| wealthier generation after generation through no
| contribution of their own is considered a societal good
|
| Again, so please tell me why you don't think we should be
| taxing it at 100%, to maximise the societal good?
|
| I already pay effective rate of 40% of tax on all my
| earnings - am I not doing enough for "societal good"?
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| You're making a good point. You've convinced me that the
| inheritance tax should be 100%.
| gambiting wrote:
| Great - now at least you're being consistent about it.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Considered good by whom? By socialist teenagers? Work
| hard and build a family, then re-read your comments in a
| few years. You'll think different.
|
| Also, again, the thresholds are ridiculously low. They
| don't even cover the cost of the deceased's house. Stop
| the theory, start the reality.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Stop the communist brainwashing "redistribution of
| wealth" and start thinking: 45%, that you saved after
| paying taxes, is pure robbery.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I would much rather pay less tax while I'm alive and the
| majority of it when I'm dead and will no longer give a
| shit.
| radiator wrote:
| You don't give a shit about your offspring? But even so,
| aren't you at least able to understand that other people
| do care about their progeny?
| petesergeant wrote:
| Distributing wealth in society on the basis of parental
| success seems like it would be a terrible idea.
| ath3nd wrote:
| There is a name for a system where people pass on their
| wealth (and titles) to their progeny, by birthright.
|
| I am sure the average 99%-er American would love to be
| back in medieval Europe, where kings and queens, and
| lords and dukes cared so much for their offspring! Wealth
| by birthright, that's so progressive!
| graemep wrote:
| Money is not the most important thing I can give my kids.
| Love, education, support and encouragement ...
| ath3nd wrote:
| Stop the tsarist/oligarch propaganda then /s.
|
| If you don't want to pay taxes, don't be a part of
| society, don't use public roads, public schools, public
| hospitals, and public education.
|
| If you do want to be a part of society, accept that it's
| a give-and-take situation, and move on. Some people give
| more than they take, and some people do take more than
| they have given, and that's alright with me.
|
| Side rant:
|
| It's no wonder that a show like Breaking Bad, where a
| teacher gets cancer and has to become a drug kingpin to
| finance his healthcare, has to be situated in the US. The
| plot simply wouldn't hold in any other civilized country.
|
| It's no also wonder that the name Luigi is no longer only
| the name of Mario's brother but synonymous with something
| else, and again something that happened in the US.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Nobody said "no" to taxes. Fair taxes are necessary. FAIR
| TAXES. Not 45% taxes on something that already paid taxes
| several times (income, property, VAT, etc). That's
| robbery.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > FAIR TAXES
|
| Agreed with you! A progressive tax (the more you earn,
| the higher % you get taxed) makes sense as a fair thing
| to me.
|
| Where I am from, it's 52%, and that's a reasonable price
| to pay for having bike paths, greening, parks, good
| roads, affordable public transport, great public schools,
| and paid time off and maternity/paternity leave.
|
| Once there was a strike of the public sanitation workers
| in my city due to their low wages. You know what
| happened? In 2 weeks it changed from a beautiful place to
| live to a cesspool. Don't know about you but I was happy
| to spend some of my $$ so I didn't have to fight rats,
| rabid dogs and mountains of garbage to take my kids from
| school.
|
| As a matter of fact, once somebody reaches a certain
| amount of wealth, I'd be very much in favor that it
| should be 70%, 80%, 90% and 99%. And, of course, then you
| get the prize "you won capitalism, now relax".
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| 52% is not fair but pure robbery. Not so long ago, people
| paid the tithe (10%) and if any lord, governor or king
| dared to go just a little further, they'd be killed,
| usually by hanging. There's many countries in the world
| with smaller taxes and still great services. Public money
| is just wasted by politicians trying to buy votes for the
| next election.
| halper wrote:
| But is the point not that the person who needs to pay
| this tax, if they accept the free gift of land etc, still
| gets to keep 55%?
|
| There are cases that can be imagined (a child inheriting
| an old house in a high-COL location) where it feels
| unfair, but in this case it sounds like free money.
| Surely the government is not asking for more money than
| the land is worth, or something like that?
| godshatter wrote:
| The government already got their share during the
| accumulation period. They have no claim on it anymore. If
| people want the government to spread their wealth around
| to help society they can specify that in their will.
| freejazz wrote:
| On what basis? Is there a law that says they can't tax
| estates?
| lores wrote:
| It's not nothing - with 1.8 children the tax-free
| allowance covers 60-70% of the population (outstanding
| mortgages and loans are not counted in the 170K figure).
| And why should anyone be entitled to a relative's
| property? How does it benefit society? Why not friends',
| then?
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| "Benefit society"??? Pal, stop with the communist
| propaganda and start thinking for yourself.
|
| One thing I can assure you: the moment you get a job, a
| house, a family, that's the moment you'll realize you are
| being systematically robbed by taxes that end up eating
| 70% of your income. If you are not socialist when you are
| young, you haven't got a heart; if you are not
| conservative when you grow up, you haven't got a brain.
| lores wrote:
| I'm probably older than you, pal, and I'm happy to pay
| taxes as long as they help make society better. This is a
| considered, rational, and ethical decision. Just because
| I'm a highly-paid engineer doesn't mean I work harder or
| am a more deserving human being than a nurse or a
| Bangladeshi immigrant working two shifts a day at a fast-
| food. I'm not so selfless I want to give all my good luck
| away, but not so selfish I don't want life to be easier
| for others too, don't want the kids to get a good
| education, don't want the sick to get treated, don't want
| interesting art in the streets. I love dystopias, but
| only in books. I also am not so deluded as to think
| everything is reducible to money, and that what I
| achieved did not depend on having a society around me
| that made it possible.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| _> "Benefit society"??? Pal, stop with the communist
| propaganda and start thinking for yourself._
|
| It's funny to me that you both think that "benefitting
| society" is "communist propaganda" and that _others_ need
| to start thinking for themselves. Who are these
| communists spreading this duplicitous propaganda of
| considering the well-being of others and the betterment
| of our community? I need to find them to thank them for
| their service and also scold them for being bad at
| communism.
|
| _> One thing I can assure you: the moment you get a job,
| a house, a family, that's the moment you'll realize you
| are being systematically robbed by taxes_
|
| I have all that, and I still care for people other than
| myself and my family.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > you'll realize you are being systematically robbed by
| taxes that end up eating 70% of your income
|
| Where does the water from your tap come from?
|
| Where did you or your children go to study?
|
| Did you make your own road, that you use to go to work?
|
| Do you have a pension built up?
|
| Do you fight your own fires and fight your own crime?
| ekianjo wrote:
| To be fair most of the taxes do not even go to what you
| describe and there is massive waste happening in the
| administrations.
| lores wrote:
| There is, unfortunately, in every large and small
| organisation. I can't say I've noticed any particular
| qualitative difference between the efficiencies of
| government departments and corps of equivalent size when
| I was working for them; if anything, the government
| employees were always conscious of the fact they were
| spending taxpayers' money that was not theirs, although I
| can't talk of the practical results.
|
| If these organisations were private, waste would be
| equivalent, but they would lose the mentality of acting
| in the public interest, and there would be a profit
| margin taken off. I'm pretty sure it would not be an
| improvement overall, purely from a viewpoint of
| efficiency.
| ath3nd wrote:
| Better some waste happening in the public sector and a
| still a public road being built than a crypto bro buying
| a lambo from a windfall they made on a rug-pull from a
| meme coin.
|
| If you don't artificially curb wealth accumulation with
| laws, taxes and wealth limits, you will always and
| inevitably end up having an accumulation of wealth that
| allows the rich to stay rich forever, and keep the rest
| perpetually in poverty. I have consistently been in the
| highest taxable bracket in my country, and am happy to
| contribute even a bigger % of my wealth towards the
| betterment of the living conditions of my country and
| city.
|
| Sauce:
|
| - https://ifs.org.uk/articles/inherited-wealth-course-be-
| much-...
|
| - https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/08/moving-up-the-
| income...
|
| > The gap was most pronounced in the US: less than 10% of
| sons with low-earning fathers made it into the richest
| 25% of the population, while almost 50% of those with
| top-earning fathers grew up to become high earners
| themselves
|
| Talk about "self-made". History has shown again and again
| that this can only go on as long until the poor and
| oppressed rise up, seize the wealth, and in the process,
| harm their "oppressors".
| freejazz wrote:
| Because giving it to Amazon is making society better?
| halper wrote:
| I was right-leaning when I was young and then I saw where
| the policies of the last three decades have taken us and
| I do not like it. I have earned a top-percentile salary
| in a rich western country and paid lots in income tax,
| and I would happily give more away to make sure people
| who make different life choices are taken care of and get
| more chances in life. The rich need no more money.
| ath3nd wrote:
| Also, what good is it to have a great house, an expensive
| car, and private tutored kids, if the outside of your
| house is a slum, the roads are too bad for your car, and
| your kids risk being kidnapped for ransom any time they
| go to play outside?
|
| The rich through times always have had the delusion that
| their wealth will protect them and isolate them from
| society, with their private armies, private healthcare,
| private tutors and expensive villas. But if anyone looks
| at history, it always ends up the same way. Based on that
| knowledge, it's the rich that should be actively
| supporting equality and progress in society as if their
| lives depend on it.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| "I just want everything to be the same it is now, except
| with no government that helps anyone else because I don't
| want to pay taxes, and I already have everything I need"
| is a pretty comfortable position. Until, inevitably,
| people run out of bread, and the guillotines come out.
|
| I'm more than happy to pay my taxes and ensure everybody
| else has a good life, too. I don't want to find out
| first-hand how long a head survives without its body
| still attached to it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The death tax more or less ended the UK aristocracy,
| apart from the absolute top echeolon of the very richest
| and the special case of the Royal family.
|
| e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cavendish,_11th
| _Duke_of... "Devonshire inherited the estate but also an
| inheritance tax bill of PS7 million (PS303 million in
| 2023), nearly 80 per cent of the value of the estate. To
| meet this, the Duke had to sell off many art objects and
| antiques, including several Rembrandts, Van Dycks and
| Raffaello Santis, as well as thousands of acres of land"
| desas wrote:
| For perspective, the family - currently headed by the
| 12th duke, were estimated to be worth PS910 million in
| 2024. They are not out of the top echelon, and are now
| structured much better for avoiding inheritance tax,
| which is also at a lower rate now.
| bmacho wrote:
| > Silly is actually too nice a word for such extortion
| scheme. As you see if rich enough/business big enough, it
| could be easily circumvented.
|
| Maybe it could have been easily circumvented, but it
| wasn't circumvented in this case. It obstructed direct
| inheritance, thus, worked as intended for the rich.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > The little people without access to great lawyers and
| accountants got absolutely hammered when it got applied
| to them.
|
| In the tax year 2021 to 2022, 4.39% of UK deaths resulted
| in an Inheritance Tax
|
| Inheritance tax only kicks in above PS325K of assets. If
| inheriting your parents home the threshold increases to
| PS500K (and increases again to PS1M if both parents die).
|
| That's hardly hammering the little people.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/inheritance-tax-
| lia...
| Ntrails wrote:
| > That's hardly hammering the little people.
|
| Agree. It hits the (upper) middle, as with most of the
| tax code afaict.
|
| I rarely resent paying tax until I see how little people
| earning multiples of me get away with paying.
| flir wrote:
| There are always unintended consequences. (This isn't an
| argument for not having an inheritance tax, it's an
| argument for being clear-eyed about the trade offs).
|
| In the case of inheritance tax, it has resulted in a
| _lot_ of British cultural treasures being shipped to the
| US to be auctioned.
| euroderf wrote:
| A death tax is a tax on death. It's not that. It's a birth
| windfall wealth tax.
| zmibes wrote:
| > A death tax is a tax on death. It's not that. It's a
| birth windfall wealth tax.
|
| weasel words if ever there was.
| euroderf wrote:
| Quite the opposite, thank you very much. "Death tax"
| sounds like cruelty compounded. And a birth windfall?
| It's all over the culture. Stupid people with inherited
| money and inherited power.
| Cpoll wrote:
| Sure, and income tax is just a labor windfall wealth tax.
| pyrale wrote:
| > This is all to say: the guardian became a nonprofit-like
| trust at a point in time it was already a stable business,
| with capital to self-finance.
|
| The same kind of logic was applied to two french
| newspapers:
|
| - Le canard enchaine, created in 1915, specific status
| preventing sale of capital made in 1958. Motive was foiling
| an attempted takeover by another company.
|
| - Mediapart, created in 2004, trust made in 2019. They made
| the change deliberately in order to protect the newspaper's
| future.
|
| Both newspapers are doing well today, so I'm not sure this
| kind of thing is a product of its time and impossible to
| copy nowadays. However, both newspapers are producing
| quality investigative journalism, which most news media
| don't these days.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| "Death Tax"? What the heck are you on about? The dead
| aren't taxed, they can't, they are dead. What are you going
| to do to them as punishment if they fail to comply? Shoot
| the corpse?
|
| It's a tax levied on those who get a completely
| free/undeserved sudden windfall; in the sense that they did
| not do anything to obtain it and didn't even have to expose
| risk or pay for a chance.
|
| Most nations put pretty serious taxes on earnings from
| lotteries, and an inheritance is like a lottery where you
| didn't even have to pay for a ticket.
|
| There's no obvious objective truth about the idea of taxing
| inheritance. But calling it "silly death tax" is, oof.
| Idiotic. Cut it out.
| card_zero wrote:
| _Now my advice for those who die_
|
| _Declare the pennies on your eyes_
|
| One of the punchier Beatles songs, good riff.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| Ah... Several other comments were complaining about
| "death tax", but until I read your post I didn't really
| get what their fuss was about.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| The inheritance will often have been arranged before the
| person dies, no? So they wanted to direct their assets
| (which were _already_ taxed in myriad ways) but you
| decide that you have more of a right to direct those
| assets for them.
| xenophon wrote:
| For more on how this model might have changed journalism for
| the better, this is a great old article from the former CIO
| of the Yale Endowment:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28swensen.html
| gadders wrote:
| Yes, partially created to save taxes or a forced sale.
| facile3232 wrote:
| > to ensure no commercial interest could interfere with the
| paper.
|
| How do they explain their taking ads, then?
| https://advertising.theguardian.com
|
| There's zero assurance that they could provide that would
| convince me this doesn't come with influence over editorial
| matters. It's the same problem NPR has (shoutout to the 'old
| "National Petroleum Radio" moniker from the invasions of the
| oughts).
|
| EDIT: you -> they
| protocolture wrote:
| Well theres not going to be shareholder direction to conform
| to advertisers wishes.
|
| And assuming the trust is well funded, they may not feel
| compelled to do so.
|
| That said, its very possible for not for profit entities to
| go very wrong so you cant rule it out absolutely.
| facile3232 wrote:
| Fair enough, the trust is certainly a stronger
| demonstration of commitment than most can offer.
| xenophon wrote:
| Universities with large endowments still charge tuition. The
| available proceeds from appreciation of the trust may not be
| enough to cover their operating expenses.
| facile3232 wrote:
| Universities aren't exactly a great model of freedom from
| private interests. And it's not clear why many of them do
| still charge tuition--i just assumed it was some effort to
| emphasize classism in a world where they also want to look
| gracious for paying for poor people.
|
| And believe me, for the colleges I examined this at,
| tuition was a rounding error compared to the return on the
| endowment. It is _just_ for aesthetics of charging students
| in a uniquely american show of stupidity.
| vidarh wrote:
| The paper is required to operate on a commercial basis, but
| the trust ensures that they can always afford to say "no" to
| anyone trying to influence editorial matters, and indeed The
| Guardian has operated at significant losses at times.
| scarab92 wrote:
| I'm not sure that it's ownership is the reason for The
| Guardians success. NYT has also been successful with a more
| traditional ownership model.
|
| Their success, I suspect, is due to being early to shift from
| addressing a particular geographic market, to addressing an
| ideological market, after the internet destroyed the
| geographical barriers to entry.
|
| I suspect this internet driven incentive to focus on
| ideological markets is a big part of why politics in most
| countries has become so partisan. When newspapers focused on a
| particular geography, but had limited completion, they had an
| incentive to avoid becoming partisan because that would only
| serve to limit their addressable market.
| harvey9 wrote:
| The guardian always addressed a left of centre audience even
| before the internet. The Telegraph a right of centre one. The
| print advert market used to sustain that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| UK press has basically always been partisan, which was why
| the Daily Mail was publishing pro-Hitler articles on behalf
| of its owner.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Harmsworth,_1st_Viscoun.
| ..
| damagednoob wrote:
| Or The Guardian supporting the Confederacy[1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#History
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think a big part of it is that the internet made the
| existing leaders into massive winners, a bit like how the
| teams at the top if the first division managed to cement
| themselves in the premiership when that happened.
|
| If you were to name some important newspapers in 1995, you'd
| probably also have the Guardian, NYT, WaPo, on your list.
| They just pulled away from the pack due to the was reputation
| works in the internet age.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| And yet the LA Times and the (London) Times and the Chicago
| Tribune did not, so however true this is, it took some
| extra magic sauce to "pull away from the pack". It wasn't
| just "being an important newspaper in 1995".
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think of it as a necessary, not sufficient condition.
| Same as with the football analogy. Everton and Spurs were
| in the premier league when it started, but they're not
| considered the cream of the crop.
|
| Checking the other side of this, what media properties
| did not exist in 1995 but are a world class now? Not too
| obvious to me.
| croisillon wrote:
| I never really looked into the details but i believe Le Monde
| Diplomatique is built a similar way with their foundation Les
| Amis du Monde Diplomatique
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Not journalism but I think Ikea and Rolex are owned by some
| trusts, too.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ikea trust is more of a _shell game_ to keep the family in
| charge while avoiding tax and general scrutiny and liability.
| fransje26 wrote:
| And Bosch.
|
| Edit: Scratch that. Bosch is owned by a foundation.
| erk__ wrote:
| In Denmark it is not too uncommon for the larger companies,
| JP/Politikens Hus which publishes two of the largest Danish
| newspapers is trust owned. Novo Nordisk and Maersk which are
| the two largest danish companies are trust owned as well.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| The Ikea Trust is for the benefit of the family that controls
| it.
| veunes wrote:
| The Scott Trust model is fascinating and doesn't get nearly
| enough attention, especially given how rare that kind of
| structure is in modern media
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| yes it's a bit dodgy. the guardian operates as a sort of
| propaganda magazine although it tends to have fairly high
| quality stuff scattered in there.
| jampekka wrote:
| A propaganda machine? It's an openly center-left newspaper.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's rarely "center-left", more clearly left-wing.
|
| Anyway, the very clear ideological orientation, even openly
| so, is what makes it a "propaganda magazine" of sort (like
| all ideologically orientated newspapers). I find it very
| similar to the Daily Mail on the other side of the
| spectrum, actually. I think the readership is more educated
| on average so it is more "intellectual" but overall it is
| the same type of highly orientated take on things.
|
| Interesting that articles from The Guardian appear so often
| here ;)
|
| Edit: It's saddening that this apparently cannot be said or
| discussed. Or is it a superiority complex because I
| compared it to the Daily Mail? (Oh dear, what have I done
| ;) )
| chgs wrote:
| Terms like "left" and "centre" lose all meaning
| internationally.
|
| It's clear to everyone in the ripe that the democrats are
| on the right leaning side of "centre right", but half of
| America thinks they are "far left". A party that can't
| even implement a national health service.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I am not talking "internationally". Within the UK and
| European context, The Guardian is left-wing and has many
| very left-wing columnists. Do read the public comments on
| articles, and you'll see this is the readership, too (at
| least the "vocal" ones, perhaps).
|
| Sure overall it is not as left-wing as, say, _Le Monde
| Diplomatique_ in France (someone mentioned it in another
| comment) but still.
|
| Overall, Wikipedia is quite accurate: " _The paper 's
| readership is generally on the mainstream left of British
| political opinion, and the term "Guardian reader" is used
| to imply a stereotype of a person with modern
| progressive, left-wing or "politically correct" views._"
| [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I live in the UK and this is simply not true. The
| Guardian is left-wing, for sure, in the sense that it is
| left of center. But it is not generally regarded as "very
| left-wing", nor are many of its columnists.
|
| Public comments on newspaper sites are a very poor judge
| of the newspaper's political position. Sometimes, even
| Daily Mail comment threads skew left!
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I am not sure what is your disagreement, then? It is
| left-wing, you agree.
|
| They do have very left-wing columnists, too, quite a few
| of them, most famous being Owen Jones.
| FabHK wrote:
| Nobody said "very" left-wing. Nobody seems to disagree
| that it is left-wing.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| From the GP:
|
| > The Guardian is left-wing and has many very left-wing
| columnists.
|
| Sure there's some subtle distinction between the paper
| itself being one thing but still having "many very left-
| wing columnists", but not a lot.
| FabHK wrote:
| Ah, missed that. Sorry.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Is this what it has come to? Trying to twist every single
| word as much as possible against their author in the
| least honest way possible?
|
| I stand with what you quoted. This was a honest and
| rather matter-of-fact statement... But I obviously
| deserver to be shot for it by the "progressists" it has
| somehow managed to offend.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The author of what I quoted seems to have reacted to it
| differently than you are doing. Or perhaps even _very_
| differently ...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Could you please name one of these "very left-wing
| columnists" ? Or maybe two, since you claim it has "many"
| of them?
|
| Owen Jones is perhaps as close as they come to "very
| left-wing", and while he is a bona fide socialist, he's
| certainly not a revolutionary.
| mdemare wrote:
| > that the democrats are on the right leaning side of
| "centre right"
|
| This is repeated frequently, but, no, just no.
|
| Name one position by the Democrats that is to the right
| of typical center to center-right parties such as
| CDU/CSU, La Republique En Marche, PP, CDA, OVP.
|
| Immigration, abortion, environmental regulations?
| kubb wrote:
| Healthcare, welfare, labor rights, public services,
| hawkish foreign policy.
| jampekka wrote:
| Public healthcare, tuition-free higher education, gun
| regulation, unions, social security, taxation, business
| regulation, criminal penalties.
|
| On some/many social issues (minorities, abortion, drug
| policy) Democrats are relatively liberal even by European
| standards.
| pyrale wrote:
| All of these parties are equivalent to the dems. They're
| rightwing, not center.
|
| There's been a trend recently to call them center-right
| to make the distinction with far right parties which were
| anecdotal 50 years ago, but make no mistake, when a party
| is called center-right, it's a rightwing party, not a
| center party that could align either with the left or the
| right depending on the topic.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I can't comment on the others but " _La Republique en
| Marche_ " in France (Macron's party) is not rightwing. It
| goes from centre right to the centre left. From a British
| perspective it pretty much covers the right of Labour,
| the Lib Dems, and the left of the Tories.
|
| Macron himself is very centrist to centre left. He
| started in government in Hollande's cabinet, which was a
| Socialist Party (= Labour) government. Many top figures
| in Macron's party now are former Socialist Party.
|
| The rightwing party in France now is effectively the RN
| (although it is still referred to as "far-right" for
| historical and tactical reasons).
| pyrale wrote:
| From a french perspective, it is definitely rightwing.
|
| You would have trouble finding which major policy they
| made that aligns with the left, while many of their
| policies effectively dismantled workers' rights.
|
| Also the former socialists were from the PS' right wing,
| which was (in a classic sense) liberal economically as
| well as on societal issues. That wing was happy
| supporting rightwing laissez-faire policies. That was the
| reason Hollande's PS destroyed itself.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is quite surreal... especially after I've just
| described the French perspective.
|
| This reminds me of Maoist China where just suggesting a
| milder approach was enough to get you labeled
| "rightwinger"! Similarly, the views of the French far-
| left are not the "French perspective".
| pyrale wrote:
| > From a British perspective [...]
|
| > especially after I've just described the French
| perspective.
|
| Make up your mind.
|
| > Similarly, the views of the French far-left are not the
| "French perspective".
|
| No one in France is seriously challenging the idea that
| Macron is rightwing. He's been pursuing the classic
| rightwing agenda, and has years of political alliance
| with the other rightwing parties in France.
|
| But then again, considering your talking point is that RN
| is the only rightwing party, I'm not sure we're having a
| honest discussion here.
| gadders wrote:
| Certainly on culture war issues they are far left.
| jampekka wrote:
| This is (deliberate) moving of the Overton window. The
| Guardian was e.g. heavily against Jeremy Corbyn and was
| actively involved in purging the left wing of Labour.
| Left-wing/far-left in UK is something like the Morning
| Star.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Don't assume bad faith when someone expresses their
| opinion (see rules). When even Wikipedia describes The
| Guardian's readership as " _generally on the mainstream
| left of British political opinion_ " (as I quoted in
| another comment) there is nothing wrong, disingenuous, or
| inaccurate in saying that The Guardian is left-wing.
| Angostura wrote:
| When the person starts out by describing a mainstream
| paper as left-wing propaganda, I think its fair to be
| sceptical about the degree of good faith, no?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I think it is your reply that is not in good faith at
| this point because either you haven't read my comments or
| you have chosen to ignore them.
|
| Anyway it is getting excessively tiring not to be able to
| discuss or say anything so have a nice day.
| jampekka wrote:
| You're right, I should have talked about the Overton
| window more generally. But public usage of terminology is
| part of moving/spreading the window. It's quite apparent
| in the US discourse when very moderate politicians like
| US mainstream democrats are characterized as "radical
| left-wing extremists". Granted, there's a lot of
| hyperbolical "fascists" and "nazis" thrown around from
| the other side.
|
| I find mainstream left of UK to be quite clearly center
| left. The current Labour government policy could be
| characterized even as center right.
| vidarh wrote:
| Yes, they are generally over the centre line. They are,
| however, still firmly _centre-left_ , in that The
| Guardian has opposed every major push towards even mild
| social democracy. Most of the UK left would find The
| Guardian's editorial line well to their right.
| pyrale wrote:
| > Edit: It's saddening that this apparently cannot be
| said or discussed.
|
| The sad part is that you can't make the distinction
| between a paper being opinionated and it being
| propaganda. Plenty of newspapers have historically had a
| very strong bias but also a strong commitment to
| journalism ethics and standards.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| _propaganda, noun: information, especially of a biased or
| misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or
| point of view._
|
| Well if it is "opiniated" and has a "very strong bias" I
| call it propaganda. Again, they are not the only ones and
| I am not singling them out.
|
| I used a blunt term that seems to ruffle some feathers
| but it is better to be aware than to take everything we
| read at face value.
| pyrale wrote:
| There's a difference between a journalist and an
| information or an article.
|
| Any journalist or newspaper carries a bias when looking
| at information. Their ethics and process is what allows
| them to still publish information that is verified,
| relevant and to treat topics which they would personally
| not want to hear about.
|
| If a journalist with a strong bias doesn't check their
| information and write only what they would like to hear,
| that's propaganda. But that's not a necessary outcome of
| having a bias.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
|
| None of what you mention contradicts your previous
| statement, and mine, that they are "opiniated" and "very
| biased" or that it isn't propaganda according to the
| dictionary definition I quoted...
|
| Perhaps the issue is that people associate propaganda
| with false information (which is what you imply). That is
| not the case.
| vidarh wrote:
| By European and UK standards, it's a centre-left
| _liberal_ (as in classical liberalism) paper. In Europe,
| liberalism is firmly centrist. The Guardian was firmly
| far to the right of Labour under Corbyn, for example,
| when Labour was mildly social-democratic, and somewhat
| more aligned with Labour now when Labour is at its most
| right wing since Blair - arguably more so. Often to the
| great frustration of the UK left, where The Guardian is a
| haven of last resort due to the lack of any major left-
| wing UK newspapers.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _Labour under Corbyn, for example, when Labour was
| mildly social-democratic_
|
| Corbyn and McDonnell were hardcore socialists and
| Marxists so if that's what you call "mildly social-
| democratic" then The Guardian might be Conservative...
|
| It seems that younger people have no references and
| understanding of political concepts. Corbyn had full-on
| socialist policies in the Labour manifesto of the time
| but simply because he used terms like "coop" they seem to
| have been missed by some...
|
| Blair was centre-left. He didn't try to destroy private
| schools so that still makes Starmer's government more on
| the left.
| jampekka wrote:
| > It seems that younger people have no references and
| understanding of political concepts. Corbyn had full-on
| socialist policies in the Labour manifesto of the time
| but simply because he used terms like "coop" they seem to
| have been missed by some...
|
| Social democratic and labour parties are, at least were
| openly socialist at least until the 1990s. UK Labour
| party is part of the Party of European Socialists and an
| observing member of Socialist International. Most social
| democratic parties were "Bernsteinian" with the explicit
| goal of democratic transition into socialism. Coops have
| been promoted by both left and right.
|
| At least with a bit longer reference span democratic
| socialism is not radical or far-left in the European
| context.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes back to the socialist roots, indeed.
|
| > _Coops have been promoted by both left and right._
|
| The "coop" in Corbyn's Labour manifesto were effectively
| "soviets" as the proposal was to nationalise companies
| and hand control to the workers by turning them into
| "coops". This was not "mildly social-democratic"...
| jampekka wrote:
| The proposal was to (re)nationalize some infrastructure
| sectors like energy grid, water, rail and mail.
| Nationalizing these is a very popular policy. There was
| also proposals for multiple stakeholder boards in these
| companies, including some worker representation. Worker
| representation in company boards, including large private
| companies, is mandatory in e.g. Germany. Calling this as
| establishing effectively soviets is quite a take.
|
| The separate "right to own" proposal was an option for
| workers to buy the company in case of it being sold or
| dissolved. Similar laws exist in e.g. Italy and in some
| US states. There was also a proposal for public financing
| for worker coops, which is also in place in many
| countries.
| FabHK wrote:
| Disagree. The Guardian has employed identity politics
| that are very in line with current left-wing politics,
| but quite at odds with classical liberalism.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Classical liberalism (Bentham, Mill etc.) is (in today's
| terms) a center-right philosophy.
| gadders wrote:
| I don't think you can be classically liberal and also not
| be in favour of free speech.
| regularjack wrote:
| They appear so often here because they tend to be good
| articles.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| > It's rarely "center-left", more clearly left-wing.
|
| To give you some perspective: I'm a leftist, the guardian
| represents the polar opposite of very fundamental beliefs
| all leftists share, they actively undermine and oppose
| what we believe in. Just because you disagree with both
| liberal and left-wing views doesn't make them the same.
| Leftists aren't allied with liberals, we despise them,
| sometimes we hate them even more than conservatives.
|
| Just a few examples: [1] They were smearing Corbyn
| constantly as antisemitic (which we leftists view as a
| smear-campaign by liberals to purge the labor party of
| it's left-wing, which they successfully did btw.), [2]
| they did partner with the gates foundation on global
| development (leftists view the foundation as neoliberal
| and their development of the global south as part of
| neocolonialism, we think those are all bad things btw.)
| and finally [3] they push Israeli/Zionist framing of the
| genocide in Gaza.
|
| [1] https://mondoweiss.net/2020/08/how-the-guardian-
| betrayed-not...
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-
| office/guardian-launch...
|
| [3]
| https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/03/17/guardian-
| israel...
| s_dev wrote:
| This is the same as the Irish Times:
|
| https://www.irishtimes.com/about-us/the-irish-times-trust/
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yup; it's a different legal structure (the IT one is a CLG),
| but same intent. I think there are a few other similar things
| around.
| fergie wrote:
| The Guardian is fairly protected from commercial influence but
| its not that well protected against elitism, which
| unfortunately still means a lot in the UK today.
|
| This is why the Guardian is simultaneously "progressive", yet
| also at times openly hostile to the working class. Its
| "progressive but not working class" stance promotes identity
| politics, and probably does more to pit left-wing voters
| against each other than any other UK-publication.
|
| That said, I am a subscribe to the Guardian Weekly which I
| supplement with the Spectator, a traditionally conservative
| publication, in order to get a decent balance of UK news.
| gadders wrote:
| I believe I am right in saying that every editor of the
| Guardian has been privately educated, apart from the last
| one.
| rc_mob wrote:
| ok ya'll talked me into it, I'll setup a recurring donation
| beardyw wrote:
| Maybe because it's a good newspaper?
| ghaff wrote:
| A number of things can be simultaneously true.
|
| You need funding sources (subscribers, ads, in this case a
| trust) but it doesn't really matter if you don't have quality
| content.
| rozab wrote:
| The other day they forced me to give full consent to all
| advertising cookies in order to read without a subscription. I
| found this surprising, I do read them a great deal, it might only
| happen for heavy users.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah weird, it's never done that to me. I'm in the EU though.
| Maybe that is a difference.
| KomoD wrote:
| Nope, I'm in the EU and I've gotten it.
| sega_sai wrote:
| Yes, I had the same. After that I decided to put them in
| separate firefox container.
| Nursie wrote:
| Apparently the ICO in the UK has decided that "consent or pay"
| can be compliant with the UK GDPR, the post-brexit version of
| the GDPR that's in UK law.
|
| It feels wrong to me, but there we are.
|
| Personally I use an ad-blocker, but I also subscribe for a few
| bucks a month.
| pests wrote:
| I have no issue with "consent or pay".
|
| They have to pay the bills somehow. The alternative to
| "consent or pay" is "pay". I'm really struggling to see how
| you feel its wrong.
|
| I am actually having difficulty writing this, as "consent to
| share your data" is ultimately a way to track and collect
| data on you. But what can you do? They are offering you
| something which takes time and money to produce. You can pay
| for it with money or with your data.
|
| Isn't this choice better than companies just always tracking
| you, and also trying to get you to buy something?
|
| Deep down I know most people don't understand the amount of
| data and other information companies collect on them nor what
| they do with it. But at a certain point we have autonomy. I'd
| rather be given a choice between "we track all your data" or
| you can pay verses the default of tracking all data and
| paying. There is always the third option of not consuming the
| content. The choices we make.
| Nursie wrote:
| > I'm really struggling to see how you feel its wrong.
|
| https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-
| re...
|
| On the same page that the ICO gives guidance that "consent
| or pay" is legal, "take it or leave it", in which you are
| invited to pay with your data or go elsewhere, is not.
|
| This seems very weird to me. Either data is a form of
| payment or it isn't, and I had laboured under the
| (mis?)apprehension that the GDPR removed it from this sort
| of situation - that one had a right to say "no" to invasive
| tracking and that shouldn't affect the service provided one
| way or another. This muddies the water over true consent to
| track and it seems the ICO agrees -
|
| "When the only alternative to consent is paying a single
| price which combines access to the core product with a fee
| for avoiding sharing personal data for the purposes of
| personalised advertising, it can be difficult to
| demonstrate freely given consent."
|
| > They are offering you something which takes time and
| money to produce. You can pay for it with money or with
| your data.
|
| In this case I do pay for it with money
|
| > I'd rather be given a choice between "we track all your
| data" or you can pay verses the default of tracking all
| data and paying.
|
| Personally I'd rather government legislate away the
| tracking unless it can be genuinely demonstrated that
| someone opted in, with no form of coercion at all, and
| those who wanted to be paid to host advertising switch to a
| more context-sensitive rather than audience-sensitive
| model. And I had thought that was where we were going. This
| feels a bit like backsliding on that.
|
| (I'm not going to argue this is black and white "OMG so
| wrong!", I can definitely see there's room for differing
| opinions here, and I am aware I carry an anti-advertising,
| anti-tracking bias.)
| pests wrote:
| I do agree with you. This is an issue that I need to
| think more on before I decide my stance. My initial
| comment was my immediate reaction but I do agree this is
| a difficult and nuanced decision. Even reading the quotes
| you provided gave me a feeling of the amount of time and
| decision making that went into the law and the various
| guidelines.
|
| On one hand, content creators need to be paid. On the
| other, users should be able to protect their privacy. In
| the case of news, all should be welcome to participate in
| their society.
|
| Is there a limit in where providing data in compensation
| opposed to money makes sense? I wouldn't trade my data
| for the weather, they can get a zip code. On the other
| hand, I do trade my data to my financial institutions so
| they can do fraud checks. So we do exist on a spectrum of
| data intrusion and getting our needs met.
|
| Is trading data for news closer to checking the weather
| or doing banking? In todays world, I would say access to
| news is important and if you can't pay with money, its
| okay to pay with data in order to be informed about the
| news.
| jampekka wrote:
| > They have to pay the bills somehow. The alternative to
| "consent or pay" is "pay".
|
| There was plenty of ad funded media before tracking.
| chgs wrote:
| Tracking inevitably involves shovelling money from the
| rest of the world to America. It's unpatriotic to allow
| it.
| FabHK wrote:
| Agreed. The advertisement oligopolies Alphabet and Meta
| basically destroyed special interest journalism, and
| regional journalism. These kinds of papers (special
| interest, regional) had an interest in long-term
| relationships with their readers, and at least somewhat
| of an incentive for honest and fair reporting. That's
| gone out of the window, leading to the SEO and
| algorithmic engagement wars of today.
| brnt wrote:
| > I have no issue with "consent or pay".
|
| I have an issue with control over my browser. If you are
| sending me bytes, I am and should be free to render it as I
| see fit. If you send me bytes containing your product, you
| should understand this. If you want me to pay for your
| product, then place it behind an actual paywall. Don't
| offer the product together with some instructions that show
| commercials. I won't look at them, and no reasonable
| argument will make me.
|
| I have no issue with paywalls and paying. I have an issue
| with attempting to control how I render what your webserver
| sends me.
| pests wrote:
| There was the third option. "consent or pay or go away."
|
| If you want to continue benefiting off others work for
| free, that's on you. The server didn't just send bytes to
| your browser, you asked your browser to do so.
| reidrac wrote:
| I've seen it in some Spanish newspapers and those are subject
| to the regular GDPR.
|
| You get tracked when you subcribe as well. The Guardian is
| far from perfect, and that bothers me more when I'm paying a
| subscription.
| Nursie wrote:
| Fair enough - I don't think the laws have diverged much in
| this area in the last several years, and while there was
| always a difference in national legislation and how the
| actual enforcement bodies would act, there's generally more
| commonality than difference.
|
| And yes, that sucks. I object very much to the "you
| subscribe and we still track/advertise" model, just as I
| object to ads creeping into paid tv streaming services now.
| And yes, I would expect the guardian to hold itself to a
| higher standard :/
| rwmj wrote:
| Yeah that's what the ICO thinks and it's clearly wrong, since
| you don't consent if the alternative is paying.
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| NoScript resolved this issue for me.
| robocat wrote:
| I haven't seen that - but I recently saw them do a self-
| advertising segment before one of their videos on their site.
| puttycat wrote:
| The Guardian is simply a truly great paper with excellent
| writers. Maybe that's their secret?
| briandear wrote:
| It's "great" if you believe in their ideology.
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| Conservative leaning newspapers weren't always total dogshit
| and good reporting is good reporting, regardless of ideology.
| This is a belief that you don't seem to share, given you make
| out ideology to be the problem as opposed to the quality of
| the journalism itself. Very shallow thinking and it's a
| perfect exemplification of poor media literacy.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Good reporting is not skewed by ideology.
|
| Good reporting is presenting facts about all sides.
|
| Good reporting is not about demonizing your perceived
| enemies while excessively praising your idols.
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| "Good reporting is presenting facts about all sides."
|
| Nonsense. Good reporting is about carefully filtering the
| evidence and reporting the essential stuff. Sometimes
| that's heavily skewed to one "side" or the other. What's
| suspicious is when it's always the same side.
| thesumofall wrote:
| Unfortunately, in today's world facts are interpreted as
| ideology. Take climate change: with the given scientific
| consensus you don't need to ,,present all sides." A
| factually correct report will present the consensus. And
| still, some people will take this as ,,ideological."
| mojuba wrote:
| There is no "scientific consensus" on things like the
| Israel-Palestine war. It's incredibly difficult to be
| impartial on some of this type of issues.
|
| You could say humanism is the absolute variable good
| journalists could stick to, but the Guardian seems to be
| going beyond that, deeper into the left ideology.
|
| I'm still a big fan, regular reader and supporter of the
| Guardian, but I do at times skip over some of their more
| openly leftist pieces.
| chgs wrote:
| Journalism isn't getting one person to say it's raining
| and one person to say it's not raining. It's to look out
| the window and report reality.
| thworp wrote:
| You look out the window and see rain. I see light
| drizzle. A journalist writes about meeting a subject of
| his article in a "raging autumn storm".
| hk__2 wrote:
| "Reality" is subjective and not always so easy to
| observe. What about political debates, economy, social
| issues? I don't want to read a journal that tell me "this
| politician said that", but one that tells me _why_ they
| said it, in which context, if this is "right" or wrong,
| why, what does the other side says, etc.
|
| (all of this thread resonates well with my last HN
| submission btw:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43538847 )
| lordnacho wrote:
| With all due respect, this strikes me as a middle school
| opinion on how media should work.
|
| > Good reporting is not skewed by ideology.
|
| You can't not have a perspective. You can be upfront
| about what your perspective is, while giving reasonable
| time to other perspectives.
|
| > Good reporting is presenting facts about all sides.
|
| Here I think the school-age lessons about what is fact
| and what is opinion does us all a massive disservice.
|
| > Good reporting is not about demonizing your perceived
| enemies while excessively praising your idols.
|
| If you can make a good argument supporting your
| demonization or praise, why not?
| concordDance wrote:
| I'd put the Telegraph as the right wing equivalent of the
| Guardian. Biased in the opposite direction but relatively
| reliable too.
| te_chris wrote:
| The telegraph is split brained where the reportage is
| excellent and the comment and opinion is the worst,
| shrill, reactionary.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| The Guardian can have that tendency as well.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It _used_ to be, possibly, but it really went off the
| rails a bit during Brexit.
| graemep wrote:
| and what they do have in common (although the guardian
| has become less so recently) is that they both do publish
| some opinions that greatly dissent from their editorial
| line.
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| The Telegraph pumps out a lot of culture war trash now.
| You could argue the guardian pumps out a lot of socially
| liberal stuff, but I'm not sure it actively engages in
| culture war stoking.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The Telegraph has long been compromised:
| https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-
| news/peter-ob...
|
| Having James Delingpole as climate change denial
| columnnist also is really unimpressive.
| lores wrote:
| The Telegraph has become only one rung better than a
| tabloid... The Financial Times has taken the mantle for
| reliable, centre-right information, even if their focus
| is a bit narrower.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| You neglected to state what their "ideology" is.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's a fairly left wing paper, but not crazy-left. Very
| middle class. "Guardian reader" is pretty much a social
| class. They even had a dating service for a long time!
|
| I'm not criticising; I think they're a little too indignant
| at times - woke even - but overall they're probably the
| least objectionable newspaper in the UK, maybe the world.
|
| Kind of like the left wing mirror of The Times.
| tmnvix wrote:
| Watching them throw Sanders and then Corbyn under the bus was
| a wake up call for me. It's not the leftist paper it makes
| out to be, but strongly establishment.
| pmyteh wrote:
| The Scott Trust established its editorial line as "liberal"
| (in the UK, not the US sense) and it's generally hewed to
| that. Despite occasional flashes of appearing radical it's
| an establishment, social liberal paper that believes in
| slow reform.
|
| I also wish it were more of a leftist paper but it is what
| it is.
| permo-w wrote:
| it's sad but I would imagine that it probably wouldn't
| exist as it does today if it genuinely rocked the boat.
| at some point--probably in the 70s and 80s when the
| establishment was really reasserting itself--there would
| have been some kind of hostile takeover or other method
| of silencing it. maybe that did happen in fact, I do not
| know
| griffzhowl wrote:
| Yes, and they threw Assange under the bus too, after being
| one of the papers working with Wikileaks on the original
| cablegate revelations. It was one of their own journalists,
| Luke Harding, that originally exposed the unredacted cables
| from Afghanistan and Iraq by publishing the password to the
| encrypted file containing them as a chapter heading of a
| book he wrote on the episode. That's what forced Assange to
| publish the unredacted cables in the first place, so that
| the informants mentioned in there would know what
| information about them was insecure. (Apparently the file
| had been shared around a bit, but the information was
| secure as long as the password wasn't public)
|
| The Guardian (and Luke Harding especially) have never
| really come clean about this, which is grating since
| publishing the unredacted cables is the ostensible reason
| for Assange's decade-long persecution and imprisonment, and
| the Guardian essentially followed the establishment line
| over this period, arguably then being complicit in the
| persecution of Assange for something which Harding was
| really responsible for.
|
| Of course, the primary reason for Assange's persecution
| wasn't the release of the material per se, but to
| discourage him and others from further exposing govt
| crimes.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| It's also pretty much a safe space for TERFs too.
| permo-w wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I will point out that Sanders writes
| for them occasionally
| concordDance wrote:
| I wouldn't call the writers excellent. The guardian is famous
| for its typos.
|
| (Separately the writing style is mostly not to my taste, but
| that's subjective)
| rsynnott wrote:
| That's a failure of editing, not writing. Though it's mostly
| a historic thing in any case; its heyday was about a century
| ago.
| DrBazza wrote:
| It's not called the Grauaniad for nothing. Private Eye have
| mocked it for years.
| chgs wrote:
| Private eye, who famously backed Wakefield and led to
| thousands being unvaccinated.
|
| Still haven't seen an apology. Maybe they like rfk.
| arp242 wrote:
| I have seen Ian Hislop list that as one of his greatest
| failures in an interview. I don't know if they printed an
| apology and obviously they were dead wrong here, but they
| (or at least, Hislop) have recognised it as such.
| musiciangames wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| In a review article published in 2010, after Wakefield
| was disciplined by the General Medical Council, regular
| columnist Phil Hammond, who contributes to the "Medicine
| Balls" column under the pseudonym "MD", stated that:
| "Private Eye got it wrong in its coverage of MMR" in
| maintaining its support for Wakefield's position long
| after shortcomings in his work had emerged.
| arp242 wrote:
| Meh; it's mostly little more than a meme. And also something
| from the age of printed papers and typesetting errors.
| lores wrote:
| I'm surprised at all the love for the Guardian... It's better
| than nearly all the rest, sure, but it's still often outrage-
| bait or inaccurate information. Media bias / Fact check give
| them a rating of 'Mixed' on accuracy:
| https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/
|
| I had a free subscription to the Financial Times through a
| weird cookie misshap, and I was impressed by the quality of the
| reporting and the fact they were happy to shoot down
| corporations behaving unethically, which I hadn't a priori
| expected.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Lindsay Anderson the left wing film maker always read the
| telegraph to be able to see the lies more clearly. A centrist
| these days might want to read both that and the guardian to
| steer a true course!
| permo-w wrote:
| that is my method, but I have to remind myself that the
| telegraph is evil every time I open it because otherwise it
| can start to get to you
| FabHK wrote:
| In my view, both the FT and The Economist are better, more
| balanced, more centrist, and less conservative/neoliberal
| than many people give them credit for.
| christkv wrote:
| The economist used to be that. Its unfortunately degraded a
| lot over the last decade.
| justincormack wrote:
| The FT is definitely the best UK paper. Expensive.
| cma wrote:
| Mediabiasfactcheck is run by someone on the Council of
| Foreign Relations fwiw. While their Foreign Affairs publishes
| stuff critical of US policy, they are heavily America biased.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait. I don't mean that
| as an attack or dismissal-- they do have good reporting
| sometimes-- but you have to keep that in mind when talking about
| their business model and what it implies for the broader
| industry. Any doofus on Substack or YouTube can make a living
| posting ragebait because it keeps engagement high. The question
| is whether the same business model (no paywall, unobtrusive ads)
| can work for sober and honest journalism, and IMO the answer
| sadly appears to be no, because not enough people value that to
| pay for it.
| abstractbill wrote:
| It's been a long time since I've been a regular reader of any
| newspaper, but when I was (admittedly at least 20 years ago!) I
| don't remember it being that way at all. Can you suggest a good
| example of a recent Guardian article that's ragebait?
| ipv6ipv4 wrote:
| What do you think about this one, from 2017?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/ashamed-t.
| ..
|
| I remember this one in particular for random reasons. But
| these kinds of articles aren't particularly rare in the
| guardian. The guardian's editorial policy appears to be to
| generate a steady stream of random human interest stories
| with the common agenda of finding fault with everything that
| isn't British.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| If you consider that rage bait, it might be time for a
| little counselling.
| Nursie wrote:
| > common agenda of finding fault with everything that isn't
| British.
|
| Believe me they find fault in everything that is British as
| well!
|
| They are most definitely at the forefront of the
| "everything here is shit and we are all dreadful" mindset
| that infects a lot of the centre-left of the UK. For all
| that I like them better than most other news sources, the
| repeated refrain that we are all awful and should be
| ashamed of ourselves does get tiresome.
| Symbiote wrote:
| They find fault with lots of British things, but you'll
| need to look at the UK section.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news
|
| The article you linked has some sources, though maybe a
| survey would help (if one exists). It might be applying a
| British viewpoint on America, in Britain the "shameful"
| jobs are in banking.
| ljm wrote:
| AI Slop. s/The Guardian/The Telegraph/ and the result is the
| same.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Uh no. They are radically different newspapers.
| nisa wrote:
| > extremely-polarized ragebait.
|
| From all the newspapers the Guardian isn't exactly what comes
| to mind here. Their opinion section might have some content
| that is very liberal or left from an American perspective but
| their news reporting is factual and pretty good while succinct
| in my experience.
| LorenDB wrote:
| It's not just the opinion section. While I don't regularly
| read The Guardian, I do read some articles from it that show
| up here, and the donation nag at the end of every article is
| always specifically anti-Trump. Not trying to say that's
| right or wrong, but definitely doesn't give them a
| "unpolarized" look.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Being a bit polarised (and really most newspapers have a
| political leaning and this is part of the reason
| subscribers pick them!) is a very different thing from
| 'ragebait'.
|
| And really Trump is doing enough to warrant rage, all the
| guardian needs to do is report on it :)
| simonw wrote:
| Relevant paragraph from the linked story:
|
| > Despite The Guardian's strident anti-Trump fundraising
| pushes, its broader audience is less partisan, as is the
| tone of its news coverage. It's a weird line to straddle.
| "The appeals that you see at the bottom of articles are
| really framed around issues of press freedom and our
| identity and our structure of ownership," Reed said. "They
| are not appeals that say, 'Trump is bad, you need to
| support The Guardian, we are against Trump.'" Maybe not
| explicitly. But they are clearly benefitting from this
| moment and using the new money to hire, with expectations
| to continue growing its staff in the U.S. this year.
| brigandish wrote:
| > as is the tone of its news coverage
|
| I read the Guardian for 20 years, it's not less partisan
| in its output, it's _incredibly_ partisan - just like all
| the other big papers. Thinking a news source doesn 't
| have a slant is incredibly naive, in my view, but since
| this is coming from another newspaper or journalist with
| their own biases and slant, it's at best false and at
| worst a lie.
| YZF wrote:
| https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/
| Symbiote wrote:
| I'm not sure that site is fair.
|
| The Guardian has some statistical errors (600 vs 30), a
| couple serious and the others less serious (9% vs 3%).
|
| It seems to be being held to a higher standard than media
| known to be less trustworthy.
| Nursie wrote:
| Does seem odd to have Fox News, which they describe as
| exhibiting "promotion of propaganda, conspiracy theories,
| pseudoscience, the use of poor sources, and numerous
| false claims and failed fact checks", ranked _above_ the
| guardian for factual reporting, when it describes the
| guardian as having "numerous failed fact checks over the
| last five years."
|
| Neither is desirable, but one seems quite definitely
| worse than the other, and I wouldn't say the one making
| mistakes is worse than the one they call out as "PANTS ON
| FIRE"...
| blitzar wrote:
| I thought Fox News had declared themselves to be
| entertainment television only and not the news for legal
| purposes.
|
| But yes, The Avengers is riddled with inaccuracies and
| may not reflect yesterdays actual events in New York,
| London and Wakanda.
| kergonath wrote:
| > the donation nag at the end of every article is always
| specifically anti-Trump
|
| It's not really surprising, or even controversial, for a
| European newspaper to be mostly anti-Trump. They are also
| anti-fascism and pro-democracy. All perfectly logical.
| chgs wrote:
| The Daily Mail was very pro Hitler in the 1930s
|
| Even they, and the rest of the right wing press in the
| U.K, seem to at most indifferent to Trump at the moment.
|
| Quite odd really. Hitler in the 30s was threatening to
| invade neighbouring countries, saying Germany needed
| places like Austria, Czechoslovakia, for national
| security reasons
| kergonath wrote:
| > Even they, and the rest of the right wing press in the
| U.K, seem to at most indifferent to Trump at the moment.
|
| I must admit that I don't go out of my way to read the
| Daily Mail. Maybe I should. I wonder which way they are
| going now, with the conservatives missing in action,
| Reform intent on sabotaging itself and Trump quite
| hostile and not very sensitive to the "special
| relationship" argument. Same for the Telegraph, actually.
|
| > Hitler in the 30s was threatening to invade
| neighbouring countries, saying Germany needed places like
| Austria, Czechoslovakia, for national security reasons
|
| The history of British international policies is
| fascinating. It has always been a combination of splendid
| isolation and playing continental countries against each
| other. I can see how there could be a tendency to support
| anybody just to annoy the French, or to have a strong
| right-wing government to eliminate the Communists. There
| is some kind of internal consistency, if you assume that
| no problem will cross the Channel.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > always specifically anti-Trump
|
| A lot of newspapers in Europe are also explicitly pro-
| Ukraine for instance. How is that different?
|
| And politically being anti Trump is an extremely moderate
| position.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Disliking Trump isn't really a polarising issue in the UK.
| ascorbic wrote:
| The ones I see aren't explicitly anti-Trump, but rather
| pro-press freedom. The one I just saw said "It's clear that
| in 2025 rigorously fact-checked journalism will be more
| vital than ever".
|
| That said, being anti-Trump is not a partisan position for
| a UK newspaper. Since the Zelenskyy/Oval Office events,
| he's unpopular even among much of the right. Nowhere near
| as unpopular as Vance and Musk though.
| groby_b wrote:
| It is in no way "extremely polarized ragebait".
|
| It has a mild bent to its reporting, and that's about it. The
| world isn't "ragebait" just because you happen to disagree.
| mmooss wrote:
| > The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait.
|
| Doesn't that describe your comment? I don't meant that as an
| attack or dismissal.
| afavour wrote:
| IMO it's telling to view something as innocuous as The Guardian
| as "ragebait". Yes, it leans mildly left but that's only
| notable because so few other outlets do. Most major news
| outlets lean center to center-right, they just look left wing
| because they get compared to Murdoch tabloids and FOX News.
|
| Just because it makes you angry doesn't make it "ragebait".
| dannyobrien wrote:
| (Disclosure: I used to work at the Guardian, a million years
| ago, and helped with their early entry onto the web, including
| decisions about not having a paywall.)
|
| What the Guardian has, throughout its editorial, is a political
| _position_. This is something that UK national newspapers
| naturally evolved over time as a differentiator, and is common
| (but not universal) in many countries. There are various
| political stable-ish ecological niches -- left, center-left,
| center-right, upper class, business, popularist right, and
| various news media that have staked out their territory. That
| means that they can attract with "ragebait", and also build a
| reasonably consistent (or self-consistent, at least) factual
| reportage. Someone who leans right-wing but wishes to be
| informed might buy the Guardian regardless, because they can
| disregard and triangulate. You have a core audience, and as
| long as that audience is loyal -- and needs some connection to
| reality, you can fund greater than just ragebait.
|
| Ragebait isn't the only business model for supporting honest
| journalism, and one of the lessons I learned at the Guardian is
| that the actual business models can be surprising and
| frequently unrelated to news reporting. For many years, the
| Guardian was kept solvent through used car sales via Autocar,
| the most profitable asset in the Scott Trust. (One of the
| reasons why the Guardian was so early going online is that its
| editors, in particular Alan Rusbridger, recognised presciently
| that the Web was going to absolutely gut Autocar's profits, and
| so they needed to get ahead of the game.) You will be surprised
| about how many booms and busts in UK media industry have been
| determined by audience-pullers like crosswords, bingo, photos
| of naked models, and sudoku.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| Pre-Trump, I had a paid online subscription to Guardian for a
| time, because it was so well written and informative.
|
| After 2016, however, they seemed to adopt a firm anti-MAGA
| stance which I found to be biased and off-putting. Their
| highly critical stance against Israel after the Hamas attacks
| of October 2023 was the last straw.
|
| Then, they withdrew from the X platform and now they might as
| well not exist, as far as I'm concerned. I think that was a
| mistake, given their significant following on X, but I guess
| they felt they don't need it.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Their stance regarding Israel and Palestine is well within
| the mainstream in Europe, including the UK.
|
| How has the NY Times reported this?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-
| killed-...
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Why wouldn't they be critical of Israel? They killed over
| 200 children in one day just last week.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Funny, I started following the Guardian around then as it
| was the only paper that had a common sense takes on Israel
| instead of the highly compromised ones like the NY Times.
| lmz wrote:
| > For many years, the Guardian was kept solvent through used
| car sales via Autocar, the most profitable asset in the Scott
| Trust.
|
| Wasn't that _Auto Trader_ , not Autocar?
| dannyobrien wrote:
| You're right!
| mmooss wrote:
| Most US newspapers will financed to a great extent by
| classified ads, until the Internet destroyed that model -
| very many never recovered. The NY Times is financied in part
| by people who will pay for crosswords, cooking, games, and
| other non-news products.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| I was a fan of the Guardian back during the Snowden leaks. Ive
| had to dodge them in recent months for what you described.
| Since people are doubting you, let's look at the headlines on
| the front page of a newspaper they is mostly factual despite
| having some bias. Here we go:
|
| Musk is evil, most scientists warning about Trump, Trump takes
| over Chips Act, and Trump is a "dictator."
|
| Then, Trump cuts Planned Parenthood, Trump reviews Harvard for
| antisemitism claims, and Trump pardons "Jan 6 loyalist."
|
| Also, Israel are killers and woke people were right per someone
| on TV. Then, a few, normal pieces of news if the articles
| themselves had no slant.
|
| Most of the front page would make those considering source
| integrity wonder if the paper was funded by a top opponent of
| Trump or Musk specifically to attack them. I'm not saying
| there's any data for that. I'm saying that, as a former liberal
| who used to want high-quality news with a range of views, I'd
| have thought the Guardian today was as extremely polarized as
| CNN or Fox.
|
| Then, a popup that billionaires control the media with only
| two, right-wing ones mentioned. No mention that richest
| oligarchs funding or controlling education, media, and
| political campaigns are leftist:
|
| https://youtu.be/fwZPrgcSRaw
|
| Such papers are highly misleading with much drama following the
| games they play.
|
| It's unfortunate given that the Guardian's ownership model
| might let it be a politically neutral paper with a range of
| views. They could be independent with quality, non-extreme
| writing from many sides. We could see a range of views. If one
| side, reporting with data representing many perspectives where
| we know they aren't cherry picking.
|
| I want more news like that. Even the reliable sources that
| write in endless attacks or pour gas on the fire are draining
| to read. I'd rather it just be a little work or even pleasant.
| I dread reading the news these days.
| Nursie wrote:
| Sometimes things are just bad, reporting on them at that
| point is a duty. Do you dispute that Trump has started
| talking about a third term? Or that those other actions are
| actually taking place?
|
| > was as extremely polarized as CNN or Fox.
|
| The guardian is an openly left-leaning publication, that's
| what it is, that's more or less what it's _for_.
|
| If you're in the US I understand that you may not understand
| such a thing, or it may seem extreme to you because there is
| effectively no political left wing in America, and news is
| generally captured by oligarchs with a right-leaning slant.
| In the other geographies where the Guardian has a presence
| (UK, Australia) its reporting doesn't feel particularly
| extreme, probably because the ideas and viewpoints of the
| moderate left are a normal part of our political landscape,
| and we also have national broadcasters that are (generally,
| in intent) pretty neutral.
|
| They're not in any way a Fox equivalent - the Guardian
| doesn't just make shit up or shit-stir for the sake of it, or
| try to pass itself off as an 'entertainment network' rather
| than news...
| smackeyacky wrote:
| So to avoid being polarising, the guardian should stop
| reporting on the things that Trump is actually doing? What
| curious logic that is.
| Nursie wrote:
| > The Guardian is extremely-polarized ragebait.
|
| Errr, nah. It's mostly very high quality, sober and honest
| journalism.
|
| Yes, a lot of the opinion and editorial is very obviously
| politically biased, and they do publish some absolute lefty
| tripe occasionally, but the news coverage is generally high
| quality and the longer form stuff thought provoking.
|
| For ragebait in a British publication see "The Daily Mail".
| analog31 wrote:
| At one point I began to suspect that, but realized it was just
| the events themselves, reported in a straightforward fashion,
| were making me outraged.
|
| Since then, I have a personal filter that I apply to all
| journalism, which is to avoid articles of the form: "X is
| outraged by Y" (or horrified, shocked, etc). I don't need meta-
| outrage. With my filter turned on, I'm quite satisfied with the
| G's journalism.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > extremely-polarized ragebait
|
| What's not then? I'm genuinely curious since Guardian seems to
| be one of the most balanced major newspapers in their reporting
| that there is.
|
| Sure it's slightly left leaning overall and there are some
| quite unhinged editorials now and then but they are mostly
| isolated from the rest of the paper.
|
| > sober and honest journalism
|
| Well again.. can you give examples of more sober and honest
| journalism (besides just fact reporting news services like
| Reuters)
| smackeyacky wrote:
| No, it isn't. Compared to any of the Murdoch news sources it's
| even handed and thorough. If anybody feels rage reading it
| perhaps some introspection is required.
| xkbarkar wrote:
| I agree, don't really see as much quality journalism on the
| guardian as the thread implies.
|
| I donated for the longest time until they succumbed to rage
| bait journalism.
|
| For a while I started avoiding it entirely, especially during
| the worst of the Trump and C19 years sanity and objective
| information seemed to have left everyone.
|
| Also HN remember this is NOT reddit, downvote only if the
| comment brings nothing to the discussion. The above comment is
| simply disgreeing with the current blind guardian admiration.
|
| They do not deserve all that praise, and those who point it out
| are not breaking HN rules and thus should not be removed from
| the discussion with mindless downvotes.
|
| Read the rules ppl !!!
|
| ( wish reddit users could just stay in their own ruined toxic
| echo chamber and leave the still relatively healthy forums
| alone. Dont you people have a Tesla somewhere to scratch??)
| ziofill wrote:
| If you are on iOS you can also use the app via TestFlight (in
| beta). It's free of banners and you get to contribute to its
| development if you spot a bug.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| In the Netherlands newspapers have traditionally been funded by
| subscribers. Running a newspaper is not that expensive- most of
| the news is after all happening in the third world were a few
| thousand euro can get you far. Have your journalists fly economy-
| or worse Southwest lol.
|
| People who cannot afford your product are not your audience, it
| is okay to be elitist.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Not exactly they've always been co-funded by ads too. We've
| even had free newspapers in the Netherlands that were given it
| for free purely funded by ads. They tended to be light though.
| Like the spits and metro papers that are handed out at train
| stations. I don't think either exists anymore, I don't live
| there anymore but I didn't see them last time. Probably because
| everyone now has a smartphone.
| simonw wrote:
| From
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Neth...
| it looks like the newspaper industry in the Netherlands is
| having similar problems to that industry in other countries:
|
| > The number of national daily newspapers in the Netherlands
| was 108 in 1950, 38 in 1965, 10 in the 2010s, 9 since March
| 2020, and 8 since March 2021.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yes this is basically the result of two pretty terrible
| Belgian media conglomerates buying everything up and
| combining it into one pulpy slop. The government let it all
| happen.
| afavour wrote:
| Are you sure they've always been funded by subscribers? Things
| like classified ads used to be a core money maker for
| newspapers and the internet destroyed that market. Then the ad
| market got turned upside down by the internet too (though
| interestingly paper ads still attract higher rates!). Very few
| newspapers have actually thrived directly from subscriber
| revenue.
| Havoc wrote:
| They have an Ad-lite option. Literally give us money monthly and
| we'll still show you ads (just not personalised)
|
| Quite possibly the most obnoxious route to take
| wkat4242 wrote:
| True. Give us money and we will show you less ads (which is
| what they literally say for the supporter plan) is really
| annoying. There doesn't seem to be a truly adfree option.
|
| For me this is very counterproductive. If I still need to use
| my adblocker why bother to sign up?
|
| I have the same thing with YouTube. Even if I pay for premium
| I'll still need to mess around with the sponsorblock plugin to
| get a truly adfree experience. In that case I'll just go the
| full way and just block everything. Especially on the TV as it
| means I'll still need to use smarttubenext. Because the
| official YouTube app doesn't support sponsorblock.
|
| If they offered sponsor free videos to premium subscribers I
| probably would subscribe.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > I have the same thing with YouTube. Even if I pay for
| premium I'll still need to mess around with the sponsorblock
| plugin to get a truly adfree experience.
|
| I wouldn't say this is the same thing at all. The sponsors
| are something that the individual video creator chose to do,
| and which youtube doesn't really have power over. If you pay
| for premium and you don't get ads injected by youtube, then
| they are holding up their end of the bargain in a way which
| "ad-lite" deals aren't.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They do have power over it. They can force the creators to
| make sponsor-free versions for premium users. It can simply
| be part of their T & Cs just like they don't allow porn
| etc.
|
| Don't forget the creators already get a lot more money for
| a premium view than an adsponsored one. And nothing for an
| adblocked view.
|
| Besides, I deal with YouTube. Not the creators.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| While I agree overall, for me it's not as clear cut with
| sponsors as I do genuinely find some sponsored content
| very interesting and informative.
|
| A creator might not have the means to buy the equipment,
| so not being sponsored would mean not making that
| content, which would be a net loss in these cases in my
| view.
|
| That said, sponsored segments for BetterHelp, NordVPN and
| similar can f right off.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > and which youtube doesn't really have power over.
|
| I can't be certain but I remember sponsorships and other
| monetization methods being against the rules from 2005 to
| around 2010. Everything had to be done through the official
| affiliate program (YouTube Partners, I think they called
| it), which required an application and a large number of
| views and subscribers. I don't remember seeing sponsored
| segments regularly until well after 2013. Sponsorblock
| already crowdsources this information. It wouldn't be a
| technical hurdle to require uploaders to demarcate
| sponsored segments.
| anticensor wrote:
| Sponsorships (unless demarcated "includes paid
| promotion") and IRs are still against the rules today.
| d3v1an7 wrote:
| The people that are most likely to pay are (in most cases)
| the most loyal users, who visit the site regularly. If those
| loyal users who push up ad views then move to an "ad free"
| plan, ad views go down, ad sales team gets sad.
|
| Don't get me wrong, everything about this model sucks -- it's
| just not as straight forward as it might seem.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| So what if the ad sales team gets sad? The subscription
| sales team would be very happy. You just got a regular
| recurring income stream. You could even shift employees
| from one to the other team.
|
| And by being unethical and double dipping you're setting a
| great example for your customers who won't feel bad about
| being unethical themselves and just blocking and bypassing
| all your monetisation. If a site is being honest and fair
| I'm also much more motivated to play fair with them. I used
| to with Amazon and Netflix and paid my subscription until
| they started charging extra to remove ads. Now I pirate
| again.
|
| Ps by 'you' I mean the companies that choose to do this,
| not you the poster.
| kergonath wrote:
| > And by being unethical and double dipping you're
| setting a great example for your customers who won't feel
| bad about being unethical themselves and just blocking
| and bypassing all your monetisation.
|
| I don't disagree with the message wholesale, but blocking
| ads is _not_ unethical. It's a vital defense mechanism
| against outright malicious actors or the excesses of the
| attention economy. There is no opt-out or alternative,
| and there is no consent.
| Nursie wrote:
| > There doesn't seem to be a truly adfree option.
|
| We're still talking about The Guardian?
|
| They advertise a $20 (AUD) per month "All Access Digital"
| plan here -
| https://support.theguardian.com/au/contribute?pre-auth-
| ref=h... - which they say gives you access to "Ad-free
| reading on all your devices"
|
| But that might be through their app rather than the browser.
| Hard to tell.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Oops. You're right.
|
| I was confused with the "far fewer asks for support" that
| put me off. I mean if you're already supporting them, why?
| kergonath wrote:
| > If I still need to use my adblocker why bother to sign up?
|
| Personally I don't disable my ad blocker, ever. Regardless of
| whether I subscribe or not, or whether the website is ad free
| with a subscription. I give them (a bit of) money because I
| support them, not to avoid ads. The ad infestation is a
| battle we lost a while ago, now we can only make do.
|
| > I have the same thing with YouTube.
|
| Same, except that I am not giving (willingly) a cent to
| Google, ever. They mine me enough already.
| _dan wrote:
| That seems to be the approach most UK newspapers are taking.
| Consent or pay.
|
| https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
| Nursie wrote:
| > "Consent or pay" models differ from a "take it or leave it"
| model, as the presence of a "pay" option means that accessing
| the service is not solely conditional on people providing
| consent.
|
| I feel like this is ... slimy.
|
| I suppose it does at least make things explicit - your data
| is very obviously a form of payment at that point.
| stevage wrote:
| So, like a traditional print newspaper then.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Websites with novel content get more views without a paywall.
|
| Breaking news whenever it feels like breaking.
| xp84 wrote:
| "This story is free for a limited time. Subscribe to enjoy
| uninterrupted access."
|
| Not going to lie, I was really hoping that this would be much
| more like the 99% of articles on NYMag that is fully paywalled,
| for irony's sake.
| zem wrote:
| I subscribe to the guardian specifically because it is not
| paywalled - I get to feel like my subscription helps keep it free
| for everyone to read, which is genuine value for money.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| Exactly this. Paywalled news is by definition elitist and works
| against the democratic principle that the free press exists to
| inform the public. The way I see it, my choice to subscribe to
| The Guardian is a choice to invest in society more broadly.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Paywalled news is by definition elitist and works against
| the democratic principle that the free press exists to inform
| the public
|
| You had to pay for a newspaper. Was that elitism?
| alisonatwork wrote:
| From my perspective, yes, however newspapers are not really
| comparable to websites.
|
| Printing a newspaper costs more money than serving a static
| pageview. But cost of reproduction aside, people could read
| the newspaper for free at their public library, or down at
| the local diner, coffee shop or bar. There were newspapers
| in the break room at work. Teachers got stacks of
| yesterday's newspaper for free to use in class. Friends and
| family members could clip articles to share with friends.
| You could even fish one out of the trash or pick up an
| abandoned copy from a park bench or public transport seat.
| And if you really could not find any other way to read it,
| you could simply buy a single copy - no subscription
| required, no need to trade PII for access, no cookie
| popups, no tracking pixels. It's quite a different product.
| sitkack wrote:
| Yeah, me too and I have never made an account. I don't pay them
| for me, I pay them for everyone else.
| neilv wrote:
| And third-party trackers? They do DoubleClick (Google).
|
| (This is better than most US news organizations I've checked, who
| seem to sell out the news-reading behavior to numerous third-
| party trackers.)
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| The Scott Trust (owner of the Guardian Media Group) made 25m GBP
| profit in the year to March 2024. The previous year it made a
| loss of 60m GBP.
| mushufasa wrote:
| My vague understanding is that the Trust has enough interest on
| its treasury/endowment to keep the paper independent and free
| from shareholder profit-maximization pressures, but not enough
| money to fully fund the paper off interest on it's endowment.
| Hence why they can afford to forgo a paywall, but still have to
| ask for your subscription/donations.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Guardian Media Group plc's accounts for the same periods show
| 18m profit (2024) and 2m profit (2023).
| sitkack wrote:
| I send The Guardian $3 a month and have never logged in. I
| permanently bypass their "please give us money" banner.
| mcswell wrote:
| Does The Guardian do any investigative reporting? Like the
| Washington Post at least used to do, and I think the New York
| Times still does.
| rfrec0n wrote:
| They revealed the existence of PRISM and afterwards published
| lots of analysis on the Snowden leaks. I believe they were also
| involved in the Panama Papers and I believe they broke the news
| about a UK/US black site and some war crimes after the invasion
| of Iraq
| laurencerowe wrote:
| And Spy Cops:
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jan/09/undercover-
| office...
|
| The BAe bribery scandal: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20
| 03/sep/11/bae.freedomofi...
|
| And before that the downfall of Jonathan Aitken and Neil
| Hamilton in the 1990s.
| Symbiote wrote:
| They have a search tag for it, although it's also used for
| articles about investigative journalism so you have to scroll a
| few pages.
|
| If you just want examples, the articles about various
| journalism awards often list topics from that year.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/investigative-journalism
| jayelbe wrote:
| If you combine it with the 'tone/news' tag, it narrows the
| field quite a bit:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/investigative-
| journalism+t...
| mcswell wrote:
| Thanks for these replies, I may "buy" a subscription!
| julianeon wrote:
| I'm reading Nagourney's The Times now and a point it makes is
| that the owner's (Sulzberger) decision to institute a paywall,
| over the objections of his team, made the NYTimes the profitable
| digital success story it is today.
| antasvara wrote:
| >The Guardian US expects to hit $44 million in voluntary reader
| donations in the U.S. and Canada this year, up 33 percent over
| last year
|
| >"We're now at a place where our audience is actually bigger in
| the U.S. than The Wall Street Journal's audience in the U.S."
|
| That feels like not that much money considering the readership,
| right? The WSJ has somewhere around 3 million subscribers; they
| would need to be making only 14 dollars per subscription per year
| to do that sort of revenue.
|
| Not to say that's necessarily a bad thing, but more that you need
| a pretty substantial readership to get there.
|
| Put another way, that revenue is like 200k subscribers at 20
| bucks a month. That would put you at the level of a newspaper
| like the Minnesota Star Tribune as far as subscription revenue.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >that revenue is like 200k subscribers at 20 bucks a month
|
| I suspect donors (as opposed to subscribers) pay much less than
| $240/year.
| antasvara wrote:
| That's my point. This is a website with readership comparable
| to the WSJ that is pulling in reader revenue closer to the
| Minnesota Star Tribune.
|
| It's just something that I feel should be in the
| conversation. The Guardian's business model is clearly
| successful for them, but IMO it's not something that can
| apply to most other newspapers.
|
| Based on my napkin math for the WSJ compared to the Guardian,
| the WSJ would only expect to get ~5% of their revenue
| replaced if they switched business models. Even if I'm off by
| a factor of 5, you'd still be looking at a 75% reduction.
|
| I don't say this to be critical of the Guardian. I love their
| work and I'm happy they've chosen the model they have,
| because it enables access to high-quality journalism for
| free. It is also a great case study proving that this
| business model works and can be sustainable. But I don't want
| people drawing the conclusion that every newspaper could
| survive like this.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Hilarious I couldn't read that article because of a paywall.
| ackbar03 wrote:
| From the way they keep asking for donations, I thought they were
| constantly about to go out of business. Props to them though,
| good journalism is important
| mmooss wrote:
| Their focus on their mission of informing the public, not just a
| few, is impressive and heartening:
|
| > "... there is a real crisis of access to reliable information
| for people who don't want or have the means to subscribe to the
| New York Times. That is a real problem that we have an answer
| to."
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| How much government money are they taking?
| defrost wrote:
| Revenue is broken down in the fourth paragraph of the article.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| That does not seem to account for all their revenue, it does
| not say what percentage of all revenue comes from tax money.
| defrost wrote:
| The Guardian US expects to hit $44 million in voluntary
| reader donations in the U.S. and Canada this year, up 33
| percent over last year [..]. These contributions
| account for more than 60 percent of the American
| operation's total revenue, which last year exceeded costs
| by $16 million (the rest of its revenue comes
| from advertising and philanthropic support from
| foundations).
|
| By my reckoning "more than 60 percent of the American
| operation's total revenue" + "the rest of its revenue comes
| from" adds up to 100 percent.
|
| Can you expand on what it is that you feel is not accounted
| for?
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... Wait, what makes you think the Guardian is government
| funded? Which government?
| beezlewax wrote:
| I think you are thinking of other businesses here? A certain
| electronic car manufacturer for example.
| wiether wrote:
| In France the figures are public and funilly enough, two of the
| three receiving the most public funding are conservative
| titles. With one of them (Le Figaro) being famous for
| complaining about how much help the progressives/left titles
| are getting.
|
| https://www.culture.gouv.fr/thematiques/presse-ecrite/tablea...
| EasyMark wrote:
| Never donated to the guardian, because I only go there
| occasionally when an agregator punts me there. I do give annually
| to AP News which also does good work at aren't beholden to
| billionaires like Musk and Bezos
| rao-v wrote:
| The Guardian feels like the last good normal newspaper at this
| point. Great book and movie reviews, normal detailed circa 2005
| coverage, and none of the NYT's wierd if we didn't break the
| story we won't talk about it.
| euroderf wrote:
| Yes the Guardian hits all the bases, and without sounding too
| self-satisfied about it.
| zmibes wrote:
| self-satisfied is pretty much the official editorial style of
| the guardian
| euroderf wrote:
| Isn't it the norm for online media ? But i meant, their
| general reportage does not feel like claims to be a Single
| Source of Truth.
| n4r9 wrote:
| The reporting is good. It's more the opinion pieces that
| are notorious for giving off "smug leftie liberal
| intellectual" vibes.
| permo-w wrote:
| I'd argue somewhat less so recently. my gripe with the
| guardian is that like many left-wing publications and
| sources recently, they've been far too willing to engage
| in nothing-y culture nonsense and nowhere near willing
| enough to engage in the class and wealth inequality
| issues that are plaguing us nowadays. it has felt a
| little bit too aimed at the comfortable upper middle
| classes for a good while now (if it ever wasn't)
| n4r9 wrote:
| Do you mean that the reporting is less good recently? Or
| that the opinion pieces have been less smug leftie
| intellectual recently?
|
| Either way I take your point. There's been a lot of
| fodder for right-wing figures to attack the guardian for
| ignoring or alienating the white working class.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Good sports coverage as well.
| timeon wrote:
| > the last good normal newspaper at this point
|
| I guess "in English" was implied.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Guardian is a drop in the ocean. Printed press died and website
| journalism will follow soon.
|
| Social media is the new journalism.
| thesumofall wrote:
| Maybe, but the opposite might also be true. There is value in
| aggregating sources and filtering signal from noise. The value
| of such should increase with the growth of social media. Maybe
| you won't reach everyone with such a business (see the decline
| in newspaper) but some will always pay for this
| jgilias wrote:
| Social media is not journalism. It's an algorithm driven click-
| bait echo chamber full of 5s long "hot takes".
|
| Anyone who builds their model of the world primarily from
| social media without grounding it in actual journalism is doing
| themselves (but mostly the wider society) a huge disservice.
| frabcus wrote:
| Who on social media, and paid to do investigations how? And
| with whose algorithm recommending it with what incentives?
|
| It's not journalism to only read the primary sources you have
| time to read. That's not proper research, it's narrow and
| limited. By definition nobody has time to do their own
| journalism, any more than they have time to write their phones
| operating system themselves.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| I discovered through the Guardian that a guy I was suing was a
| known criminal from another country. That's when I donated.
| veunes wrote:
| Wow! That's an incredible real-world impact
| veunes wrote:
| It's a bit of a unicorn model - you need massive scale, a global
| brand, and a steady stream of high-stakes stories to make reader
| donations work at this level. Smaller outlets probably can't
| replicate this
| mentalgear wrote:
| True, yet above all: integer instigative journalism.
| kaiyuanzg wrote:
| The Guardian's open access model, supported by reader donations,
| grants and targeted ads, offers an intriguing alternative to
| paywalls. It's a bold strategy that seems to be working, but I
| wonder about its long-term sustainability and whether it could
| work for publications without The Guardian's brand recognition.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| And without its massive trust that funds most of it.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I love The Guardian! It is one of my two ongoing donations, along
| with the Internet Archive.
|
| Back when it was The Manchester Guardian, they produced one of
| the most remarkable TV commercials in history, "Points of View":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SsccRkLLzU
|
| I first saw this commercial when Will Hearst (yes, of _that_
| Hearst family) screened it at a Software Development Forum
| meeting in the late 1980s.
|
| I wish this were a better transfer, but it is what we have. Does
| anyone have a link to a higher resolution transfer?
| atoav wrote:
| Simple but effective, I like it. Journalism in the best form is
| exactly this: trying to give you the whole picture with all the
| context you need to contextualize the information.
|
| Sadly a lot of what calls itself jouranlism today is the exact
| opposite: Not showing the whole picture, serving prexisting
| world views, overly emotional and out to entertain.
| hk__2 wrote:
| > Sadly a lot of what calls itself jouranlism today is the
| exact opposite
|
| I don't think this is something new, I feel that most of
| "journalism" has always been like this with few medias making
| the effort to show the whole picture.
| klelatti wrote:
| Not from before 1959 when the paper was renamed. 'The Guardian'
| name actually appears in the ad.
| smcl wrote:
| It is one of the better UK papers but the bar there is
| extremely low. They're often still _painfully_ "both sides" on
| things, they're slow on the uptake and they're often quite
| credulous. Wonderful example that I had scrolled past shortly
| before I switched tabs and read your comment:
| https://x.com/Obseyxx/status/1906396387031368067
|
| As I said, they're the best of a bad bunch but that's damning
| with faint praise.
| PickledChris wrote:
| They've gone downhill in the last few years in my opinion,
| they've become more overtly partisan and got substantially
| downgraded on factual reporting by MediaBias Fact check:
| https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/
|
| They've always been left of centre, but they're lazy and jump
| more into the predictable culture war pandering.
|
| The FT is streets ahead of anyone else, they've become more
| centrist and less dry in recent years. I don't know what
| their revenues are like but I'd wager that they're doing
| better as they're one of the only ones with a business model
| that allows them to pay for good journalism.
| smcl wrote:
| If they were "left of centre" that would be fine there are
| few if any major left-wing newspapers in the UK. The
| pandering from my perspective has been to those on _the
| right_. They seem to be doing the "well if both sides hate
| us we must be doing something correctly!" except the right
| want rivers of blood and the left want public transport,
| healthcare and to ensure the more vulnerable among us are
| treated with dignity and compassion.
|
| The "culture war" people refer to is not "woke ideology"
| being pushed everywhere as is so often the accusation, but
| an enormous, orchestrated push against an otherwise fairly
| organic process where the world had otherwise become more
| naturally more accepting of immigrants and LGBTQ+
| minorities.
| basisword wrote:
| If you think the Guardian panders to those on the right
| you need your head examined. I would love nothing more
| than a left leaning socialist government and even I shake
| my head at some of the nonsense the Guardian publishes,
| especially in their opinion section. It's an effort to
| get clicks and cause outrage and some of it is no better
| than the tabloids.
|
| I also disagree that there has been a "fairly organic
| process where the world had otherwise become more
| naturally more accepting of immigrants and LGBTQ+
| minorities". That's a rewriting of history. Equal rights
| for the LGBTQ+ community were incredibly hard fought for
| over many years. It's been anything but organic. It's
| important not to forget how recently most of the civil
| rights we take for granted in many areas of life were
| rights that were denied by a majority.
| klelatti wrote:
| It's interesting that The Guardian's name itself reflects one of
| the UK's enduring problems: the extreme dominance of the South
| East and London in particular.
|
| Originally founded, written, published and printed in Manchester
| and bearing the name 'The Manchester Guardian' it's now abandoned
| all of these in favour of London with just a handful of
| Manchester based journalists.
|
| The contrast with the US and Germany say is stark.
| dzonga wrote:
| till the UK finally admits London is its fifth country. the UK
| won't devolve and diversity development.
| permo-w wrote:
| till London finally admits that there's a country outside of
| itself, the UK won't evolve and diversify development
| dzonga wrote:
| fair point
| solarkraft wrote:
| I may have donated to them before - it feels much better to pay
| for public good than for someone's personal profit.
| dzonga wrote:
| maybe also the major paper you can rely on for the truth. yeah
| it's left leaning but it won't spew lies and spread propaganda
| like the NYT / Washington Post.
| navaed01 wrote:
| Their success in my opinion is having great content in a world
| where peers have degraded.
|
| I recently went back to the guardian after 10yrs as NYT and even
| WSJ just got crappier in every way.
|
| The Guardian podcast 'long reads' is so good. I hope they
| continue to thrive
| cbeach wrote:
| The Guardian flourishes because it has a huge trust fund to
| spend:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited
| damnitbuilds wrote:
| I am vaguely left, but I find the Guardian's hatred of men so
| offputting that I cannot bring myself to read it any more.
|
| Similar to how Trump made CNN unwatchable. I mean, I hate the
| man, but I want an independent, factual slant on the news, not to
| be continually told how bad Trump is.
| kubb wrote:
| I never felt it. Could you link me the most extreme men hating
| article you remember, I want to test how fragile I am.
| damnitbuilds wrote:
| You could have tried googling "guardian manhate" yourself?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyiha.
| ..
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/french-
| writer-...
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-is-The-Guardian-so-increasingly-
| mi...
| kubb wrote:
| Quora is useless and so is Google, but the other two are
| hate because of trauma.
|
| The people whose villages were pillaged by the Red Army,
| who raped all women there and stole everything of value
| will likely hate Russians.
|
| Women who experience a lot of violence from men, even
| second hand, will likely hate men. It's normal, hate is a
| natural response to harm.
|
| Doesn't mean all Russians are bad, or all men. I don't feel
| personally attacked.
| damnitbuilds wrote:
| People who experience violence from <race> might well
| feel hatred for <race>. That doesn't mean that when they
| state "I hate <race>" they are not being racist.
|
| You can make up all sorts of excuses for racism and
| sexism and all the other -isms. They don't make it right.
|
| TL;DR: The Guardian is misandrist.
| kubb wrote:
| Yes, if you apply this logic, you'll reach this
| conclusion. I don't think this is equivalent to racism
| though. The latter is rooted in violence against the
| hated, not the violence of the hated.
|
| The problematic racism is when people hate <race> despite
| <race> never harming them in any way, usually because
| that helps them justify systemically disadvantaging
| <race>.
|
| You don't make the distinction, and draw equivalence
| between the two, so for you it's equally bad, I
| understand that.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| 2 articles in 20 years definitely proves your point.
| donatj wrote:
| I really wish the web would have adopted micropayments at the
| HTTP level as has been talked about since the late 1990s. I would
| be far more willing to toss a website a dime or quarter to read a
| single article than I am to buy a full subscription to your
| stupid regional newspaper I've never heard of before or since.
| Paywalls as they exist now are just dumb and kind of geo-lock
| news.
|
| Beyond that, I personally take issue with Google not SEO
| banishing news companies for providing different results to
| Google than the average user. It's been over a decade since I've
| worked in the SEO industry but at the time that was a mortal SEO
| sin.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| As a long-standing Guardian reader, I couldn't disagree more. It
| might be financially solvent, but the business model of the paper
| under the leadership of Katherine Viner has shifted to high
| throughput, low quality content vying for clicks in the attention
| economy. They have gone all-in on volume.
|
| Compare that to the Financial Times, which has a low throughput
| of very high quality content, enabled by a discerning and high
| paying subscriber base. I read the Guardian for the lifestyle /
| cooking sections these days, but the FT is an incomparably better
| and more serious publication, whatever your politics (mine are
| the diametric opposite of the financial class).
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Yeah, me too. I'm definitely more on the side of the Guardian
| politics wise, but the FT is SO MUCH BETTER.
|
| To be fair though, the FT is both really expensive, sells
| market data for a large price, and has a tier of subscription
| that can only be bought by organisations (they didn't even show
| me a price).
|
| The Guardian has been going downhill massively over the last
| few years. I think the point at which I lost faith in them was
| when they trumpeted that 50% of carbon emissions were caused by
| 10 companies (i.e. the oil majors).
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| They approach environmental reporting like a campaign
| organisation, it's just not serious. Politically, I will
| never forgive the Guardian for the mendacious editorial
| campaign they waged against the Corbyn project. In general,
| the Guardian leads with cultural issues geared towards the
| liberal professional managerial class, which only compounds
| the logic and superficiality of its clickbait business model.
| It is incredibly hard to learn anything by reading the
| Guardian. This quote from the nymag piece is telling: "The
| reason I think that it works for us is we cover so much
| breaking news and it drives a lot of traffic, and we have the
| scale to make it work," Reed said. "Even if we only monetize
| one percent, it's still a lot."
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > Politically, I will never forgive the Guardian for the
| mendacious editorial campaign they waged against the Corbyn
| project.
|
| Yup. As Harold Wilson is reputed to have said, with friends
| like the guardian who needs enemies?
| dkobia wrote:
| I've often wondered what impact the fact that major prominent
| liberal media outlets are often paywalled while conservatives one
| are not, has on public discourse. I have to imagine this
| translates to conservative media dominating online spaces, no?
| munchler wrote:
| I recently cancelled my Washington Post subscription and would
| love to replace it with something better. Unfortunately, my
| impression of The Guardian US so far is that it is still very
| much a UK paper. It's not bad, but it doesn't yet have an inside
| view of US news.
| FabHK wrote:
| May I suggest that you look at The Economist and the FT. Still
| an outside view, though.
| jwblackwell wrote:
| The Guardian used to be considered a serious paper, then a few
| years ago the quality declined dramatically. Now it's not much
| better than most tabloids.
| cubefox wrote:
| Political polarization increases as traditional "newspapers"
| shift to the Web and get ever more specialized, and don't have
| to appeal to a broad political audience anymore.
| Dylanfm wrote:
| It sounds like there have been some changes to the Guardian and
| Observer lately, such as the sale of the Observer to Tortoise
| Media. [0] Journalists were concerned enough to strike. [1]
|
| [0] https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/who-is-the-money-
| behind-t... [1] (PDF)
| https://www.nuj.org.uk/asset/18CD4D84-FD26-4CDB-AF43E11F6A6C...
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| It's the internet.
|
| The default has always been no friction, especially no paywall.
|
| Anything less is supposed to raise an eyebrow.
|
| If you've got significant visitors to your website, the default
| is flourishing also.
|
| Paywalls or other obstacles are just a sign that you're not
| flourishing as well as others in the same environment.
| mxdvl wrote:
| And don't be fooled by the messaging, you can get dark mode on
| the web: https://www.theguardian.com/help/accessibility-help
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