More evidence, following the Max Gogarty blog, of the Guardian’s absolute disdain for its readers.
The message below was sent out as part of its football-based, Friday Fiver Email and was written by Barney Ronay and Barry Glendenning (yes it took two of them to write that snappy intro).
“Possibly after witnessing the cyber-monstering dished out to young Max Gogarty, 19, for the heinous crime of going travelling and agreeing to write about it for a travel website in exchange for bead and beer money, the Premier League has categorically dismissed reports that it will sue Fifa if it tries to stop its foolish plans to play Premier League matches abroad in exchange for TV and merchandising money.
“After all, who in their right mind would hop on a plane and if they knew it would send guardian.co.uk’s more malevolent and sanctimonious readers into a simmering self-righteous fury over … not much really when you think about it? Yep, us too.”
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February 18, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Diehard Geordie
You must read the article in yesterday’s Observer - entitled Backpackers, bullies and internet myths by Rafael Behr.
Be warned your BP could go sky high.
The last para.
“The web is no community. It is brilliant for some things. It does information, misinformation, entertainment and commerce. It does freedom. But one thing it doesn’t do is democracy.”
February 19, 2008 at 9:33 am
ourmanwhere
I read it and I can’t believe just how far the Guardian are going to blame everyone but themselves on this one.
Their attitude stinks and it makes you wonder what the culture of the place is like. It appears they genuinely dislike their readership and, in particular, their blog commenters.
That’s why they got stick for young Max. It was just more evidence of London media cliques and jobs for the boys and, in being so, it was just awful, vacuous rubbish.
I must have read 20 or 30 blog posts from around the web on this. No one suggests the Guardian are blameless and only a couple take their side of their commenters.
To put a kid up, with obviously so little talent, on a section called “Comment is Free” and then complain when people say he has no talent is ludicrous. That is the whole point.
Max will be fine, and if he has sense he’ll play this for all its worth and write the next blog column. If the Guardian has any sense it will learn from these mistakes but so far it appears to be entirely in denial.
February 19, 2008 at 10:17 am
Dan Wilson
The actual Gogarty blog post and the accusations of ‘jobs for the boys’ seem almost irrelevant now. This has turned into a debacle of poor community management.
Emily Bell distanced herself from the Behr article by saying that there were ‘chinese walls’ between the Grauniad and the Obs. What’s the excuse regarding this email?
The Guardian should be damping down the fire, not stoking it with emails like this.
February 19, 2008 at 11:55 am
ourmanwhere
I think you are right - what started with nepotism and the inability to stop a bad idea before it reached the paper - has now shifted towards ludicrous passing of the blame.
Unfortunately everyone at the Guardian seems to have such a low opinion of their readers that its the blog commenters themselves that are being demonised.
As one blog commenter put it - the blog reviews thousands of CDs, films, books etc each year and they aren’t always kinds. Why should we be? We are allowed our opinion just as much as they are and, let’s face it, we don’t shout as loud as they do.
I thought the Guardian understood the concept of blogging - I am now slowly realising that they only understand the technology - not the culture.