Sunday 8 January 2017

Reading the Guardian

comments on articles irritates me. I should not do it but sometimes I cannot stop myself. Worse, I sometimes find myself commenting. I actually find the Guardian rather irritating. 
There was an article in it recently about "false" news. It suggested - rather strongly - that everything written by Guardian journalists was correct and unbiased. 
Hold - it  - right - there. Guardian journalists are human. They can make mistakes. They can be as biased as the next person.
I can make mistakes. I undoubtedly hold prejudices and biases. Everyone I know is the same. It's the way we are. 
"False news" of course is a different story. There has been plenty of it around of late. The US election was full of it. Reputable news sites fell victim to it.
And the Guardian didn't? Everything journalists wrote for it was absolutely factual? The opinion pieces showed no bias at all? 
The Guardian has been asking for donations for months now. It has been doing so with this claim of accurate and unbiased journalism. They have allowed comments on some stories but not on others so it isn't even possible for readers to put the record straight. Even where comments are possible it isn't always possible to get past the "moderators".
I wonder sometimes who those "moderators" are and why they allow the extreme negativity of some commentators to get through. There are people who make an art form of abusing others on-line. It is clearly a hobby for them. They must spend hours glued to the screen each day. They must wait to pounce on a comment and, in an instant, work out how they can misinterpret it, and put the commentator down.
It's a social media phenomenon of course. Before social media few people had such a wide audience. A few might have been regular writers of Letters to the Editor. Most would not have bothered.
I just wish most of them would not bother now - and that others would not allow them to get away with their jeering and bullying. 

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