As I understand it, the Guardian had previously always considered D-notice requests and had usually acquiesced. However, it decided that Snowden was so important that it took the pretty unprecedented step of ignoring them.
This made the intelligence services particularly dischuffed.
Post-Snowden the status-quo was re-established.
It remains to be seen whether the Guardian would ignore D-notices again, if something else of the magnitude of Snowden came along - I hope it would use its judgement and do so, if necessary. I'm not necessarily against newspapers considering requests from the intelligence service not to publish something for good reason - it can end up with people dying. It's a tough decision an editor has to make.
The "people could die" argument is very weak and I would assume it to always be a self-serving assertion by government or the intelligence community.
If this situation would not be the responsibility of agencies breaking the law in the first place, it is no excuse for the state to break fundamental rights of citizens.
Didn't happen from the leaks that did show executive overreach and abuse, so it would always make sense to make this protective claim and therefore it looses any credibility.
There were no repercussions for the agencies to employ mass surveillance. This is a danger that is magnitudes greater than leaks being dangerous for spies, who know about the dangers of their profession.
Ignoring a D notice seems to get the system renamed, but brought back almost identically each time. Each time they've been renamed, there's been an "incident". :)
Or just never ask authorities of the possible conflict with national security in the first place, and just publish unasked. Obviously that's not always possible, but what happened for the first Snowden story. The rest had to go through D notice as everyone now knew they were there...
Fascinating to see the first major incident being Chapman Pincher, Daily Express defence correspondent. Ah, the days when the Express was an investigative broadsheet with pretty good (right of centre) reputation. How far they have fallen to today's comic...
The article clearly demonstrates that The Guardian has become a shadow of its former self - pro-Establishment, anti-Assange, anti-Corbyn/Labour, all of its trustworthy intelligence reporters having left. Something of an open secret to be honest, how it now arrogates to pretend to still be "Left"-leaning but is nothing of the sort, under editorship veering from amateurish to clearly complicit.
The Guardian has never been full left, or organ of the Labour party, always centre-left more where the old Liberal Party once sat.
They don't seem that much moved, if anything they are more "of the left" today than they've ever been, just not necessarily Corbyn's left. Being so negative on Corbyn in the run up to 2015 may well have damaged many folk's views of them.
> The article clearly demonstrates that The Guardian has become a shadow of its former self
It certainly says that - I'm not sure that it manages to demonstrate it, though. The Guardian has always been soft-left. If you compare its coverage of (the let's face it, ineffective) Corbyn to say Michael Foot, you'll not find much difference.
Lately it’s also been feeling obvious & creepy how much The Guardian just runs second rate knock off stories that NY Times runs first, even regarding British or European news. Not headline stories that many newspapers would plausibly cover, but even many far lesser stories, entertainment or sports, pop culture, etc.
The big exceptions are major Brexit stories, but that’s about it.
The article is a curates egg. The d-notice stuff is interesting, although mostly well known I thought (?).
The Assange and anti-semitism parts are evidence light re-heats of Canary-level reports with added "it's the spooks". Like almost all his partners Assange fell out with the Guardian pretty badly. If MI5 operatives were being paid to do this, well I hope they enjoyed the free holiday.
I especially enjoyed the statistic that "0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts."
Something of an open secret to be honest, how it now arrogates to pretend to still be "Left"-leaning but is nothing of the sort
I can always spot a political extremist when they claim that something clearly left-wing is actually (secretly!) right wing, or vice versa. It shows their sense of perspective has clearly left them.
I suspect that there going to be a divergence between "left-leaning" and "liberal-leaning" in Britain. The British Labour party isn't inherently liberal (as they have shown with their anti-semitism and resistance to gay marriage). I think they will continue further down a path of non-liberal socialism, alienating a lot of people who hadn't previously considered that "left" and "liberal" were different concepts.
Having been a close reader of The Guardian over many years I'd very much agree with your observations.
It still has the shimmer of a left-leaning paper on soft social issues, but on many matters of significance it's clearly being used to influence left-leaning voters towards an acceptance of a right-wing, authoritarian, security-state worldview (the irony being it keeps up a pretence of the reverse when covering Trump etc).
The article itself was an outstanding deep dive into the history of The Guardian investigative reporting, appeared to reveal behind-the-scenes information I wasn't aware of, such as the effective disbanding The Guardian's veteran investigate reporting team.
As a small aside, I'm always surprised to see that BBC is the most (?) common go-to source for run-of-the-mill non-technology news here at HN. If you think the Guardian is compromised as a neutral source, then let's talk about the Beeb sometime.
Well, sometimes the Beeb's gov status is a protection, though. The Guardian can be more or less shut down by imperium, as a private company in this weird kingdom, and its employees can be sued into oblivion; the BBC works under different rules. After the Kelly affair, for example, the head was forced out, but as far as I know actual reporters were not touched. Compared with barging into an office and literally smashing all tools, it's easy-going.
It is true that this situation comes at a cost, every government leans somewhat on its news desk (particularly on political issues), but in many ways that's actually easy to discount.
- The Guardian is more Blairite than Corbynite. This one is not a surprise.
- Relations between MI6 and The Guardian got worse with Snowden, and then got better again. This isn't shocking.
The UK is running out of top-tier independent media platforms. This is concerning. But the dominance of millionaire-owned right-wing tabloids, and the failure to implement any of the recommendations of the Leveson report is far more concerning.
There are interesting bits in this article, but on the whole it is not well written and clearly slanted. For example, section about Guardian's reporting on Corbyn has 8 long paragraphs about other media reports like it has any bearing on Guardian's.
I don't like much of Guardian's reporting, but it is difficult to evaluate how much credence to give to an article that is also problematic.
I followed the Guardian's reporting on Corbyn. It was clearly aiming to damage him on the basis of very flimsy evidence. I worked on this page compiling a list of Guardian articles showing the extent the Guardian had gone to to paint Corbyn and Labour as antisemitic. https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/antisemitism/
Now if the charges were true, you'd think it would continue to be a problem, especially now that a general election is getting so much closer. As Media Lens pointed out recently, it seems the media has lost interest in that particular attack: https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1169157686300217345 - which would suggest there wasn't much to it in the first place.
Just wondering, why leak the documents to a select few newspapers that can be silenced instead of the whole world, if the goal is to tell the truth to the people at large? I’d love to see these goons go after every single one of the tens of thousands of seeders in hundreds of different countries if the documents were leaked on a popular torrent website.
Credible journalists can reveal key facts derived from the leak while keeping other details secret.
For example, a journalist could verify a leak came from a real FBI agent by checking their badge, and assure their readers of that, but keep the agent's name secret.
Or a journalist given a list of secret base addresses could report the number and countries without revealing the precise addresses.
Also, newspapers might be happier to make a big splash reporting an exclusive, but be less motivated if every other newspaper got the same stuff at the same time :)
If I had to guess, it's because the newspapers carry some credibility and have the ability to exercise editorial restraint, whereas the leakers are not journalists and so do not have such experience and credibility.
Some headlines of the Guardian that come to mind are "All landlords are scum" and "Maybe white men should just disappear for a while". In the case of the latter it was an interview with the USA's female national soccer captain and that line was something she just joked at the very end and the editor decided to make that the title of the article (if I'd have been her I'd have been furious).
Another rage inducing article was one that nailed David Attenborough to the cross for daring to suggest climate change activism could benefit from separating it from left/right politics.
This is all not directly related to politics, but it's pretty telling. The website / usability is great but the spin they (are pressured to?) put on the content is nauseating.
'White men' is just a demographic category. 4.37% (1790/41,000) of fivethirtyeight sites indexed by google mention white men. If anything it's just indicative of The Guardian using less precise terminology than the BBC, which I'm sure discusses the demographic or subdemographics of white, male British people every now and then.
It seems that you are saying that they use sensationalized titles and publish contentious opinion pieces. I hate these tendencies on news orgs as well. But the Guardian isn't nearly as bad as HuffPost or Vox and the like in this regard.
There are severe problems with how we handle land ownership so I don't find that hyperbole rage inducing / infuriating.
The idea of white men "disappearing for a while" is new to me and it sounds like an amazing idea. How better to shake up entrenched power structures? Spread around the leadership roles and experience, and then once that settles combine everyone back and you can end up with a much better mix at all levels.
I have a stupid question: how does this committe know in advance what a newspaper is about to be publishing? I mean in order to give advanced notices they need to know what the newspaper is up to?
Credible journalists contact governments, businesses, individuals, and any other subjects of articles, ahead of publication to ask for official comment, interviews, on-the-record explanations and confirmations, and so on.
It's basic due diligence to speak to both sides of a story. However, it can tip off organizations and folks that they are about to be a headline...
"""
An error occurred during a connection to www.dailymaverick.co.za. Peer using unsupported version of security protocol. Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION
"""
Can you elaborate? How does it do that? And why would that level of access, even if a website wanted it, even be a feature of a password manager? Genuinely curious.
Its their dodgy ad network as always. Daily Maverick is great journalism by South African standards but they are complete and utter idiots when it comes to their advertisers.
Then they wonder why everyone blocks ads and they can't make money.
Yeah... So, this is a South African independent online-only publication for news. They also have an investigative arm. Investigative journalism is in the dumps in South Africa at the moment; on the one hand it's due to simple lack of anyone buying hard copies anymore, and on the other due to the powers that be (owners of publications) discouraging investigative journalism because it can get a bit close to home sometimes. I'm sure they're sorry about the ads, but they have to something. I donate a couple bucks to them every month.
The one sentence below the article makes me sceptical:
> Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.
This would give them a strong motivation to write a biased or even non-factual article to a) generate attention and b) paint themselves as more credible, or at least a direct competitor as less credible.
>An error occurred during a connection to www.dailymaverick.co.za. Peer using unsupported version of security protocol. Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION
How can you test so little on Firefox that it doesn't even connect? (FF Nightly, Linux)
[+] [-] Angostura|6 years ago|reply
This made the intelligence services particularly dischuffed.
Post-Snowden the status-quo was re-established.
It remains to be seen whether the Guardian would ignore D-notices again, if something else of the magnitude of Snowden came along - I hope it would use its judgement and do so, if necessary. I'm not necessarily against newspapers considering requests from the intelligence service not to publish something for good reason - it can end up with people dying. It's a tough decision an editor has to make.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|6 years ago|reply
If this situation would not be the responsibility of agencies breaking the law in the first place, it is no excuse for the state to break fundamental rights of citizens.
Didn't happen from the leaks that did show executive overreach and abuse, so it would always make sense to make this protective claim and therefore it looses any credibility.
There were no repercussions for the agencies to employ mass surveillance. This is a danger that is magnitudes greater than leaks being dangerous for spies, who know about the dangers of their profession.
[+] [-] NeedMoreTea|6 years ago|reply
Or just never ask authorities of the possible conflict with national security in the first place, and just publish unasked. Obviously that's not always possible, but what happened for the first Snowden story. The rest had to go through D notice as everyone now knew they were there...
Edit: Here's a Guardian piece on D notices and renaming, confirming the first Snowden story simply side-stepped them: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/31/d-notice-syste...
Fascinating to see the first major incident being Chapman Pincher, Daily Express defence correspondent. Ah, the days when the Express was an investigative broadsheet with pretty good (right of centre) reputation. How far they have fallen to today's comic...
[+] [-] Singletoned|6 years ago|reply
Surely "nonchuffed"? "Dischuffed" suggests that they had been previously chuffed with the Guardian.
[+] [-] guiriduro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NeedMoreTea|6 years ago|reply
They don't seem that much moved, if anything they are more "of the left" today than they've ever been, just not necessarily Corbyn's left. Being so negative on Corbyn in the run up to 2015 may well have damaged many folk's views of them.
[+] [-] Angostura|6 years ago|reply
It certainly says that - I'm not sure that it manages to demonstrate it, though. The Guardian has always been soft-left. If you compare its coverage of (the let's face it, ineffective) Corbyn to say Michael Foot, you'll not find much difference.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|6 years ago|reply
There's plenty of reasons to be critical of the intelligence and security apparatus regardless of which way you vote.
[+] [-] mlthoughts2018|6 years ago|reply
The big exceptions are major Brexit stories, but that’s about it.
[+] [-] shellac|6 years ago|reply
The Assange and anti-semitism parts are evidence light re-heats of Canary-level reports with added "it's the spooks". Like almost all his partners Assange fell out with the Guardian pretty badly. If MI5 operatives were being paid to do this, well I hope they enjoyed the free holiday.
I especially enjoyed the statistic that "0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts."
[+] [-] lacampbell|6 years ago|reply
I can always spot a political extremist when they claim that something clearly left-wing is actually (secretly!) right wing, or vice versa. It shows their sense of perspective has clearly left them.
[+] [-] Singletoned|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justsee|6 years ago|reply
It still has the shimmer of a left-leaning paper on soft social issues, but on many matters of significance it's clearly being used to influence left-leaning voters towards an acceptance of a right-wing, authoritarian, security-state worldview (the irony being it keeps up a pretence of the reverse when covering Trump etc).
The article itself was an outstanding deep dive into the history of The Guardian investigative reporting, appeared to reveal behind-the-scenes information I wasn't aware of, such as the effective disbanding The Guardian's veteran investigate reporting team.
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SuddsMcDuff|6 years ago|reply
I respected The Guardian before, nowadays it just seems to be the left equivilent of Breitbart - at least as far left as Breitbart is far right.
[+] [-] kingofpandora|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|6 years ago|reply
It is true that this situation comes at a cost, every government leans somewhat on its news desk (particularly on political issues), but in many ways that's actually easy to discount.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|6 years ago|reply
- The Guardian is more Blairite than Corbynite. This one is not a surprise.
- Relations between MI6 and The Guardian got worse with Snowden, and then got better again. This isn't shocking.
The UK is running out of top-tier independent media platforms. This is concerning. But the dominance of millionaire-owned right-wing tabloids, and the failure to implement any of the recommendations of the Leveson report is far more concerning.
[+] [-] samastur|6 years ago|reply
I don't like much of Guardian's reporting, but it is difficult to evaluate how much credence to give to an article that is also problematic.
[+] [-] k1m|6 years ago|reply
Now if the charges were true, you'd think it would continue to be a problem, especially now that a general election is getting so much closer. As Media Lens pointed out recently, it seems the media has lost interest in that particular attack: https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1169157686300217345 - which would suggest there wasn't much to it in the first place.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelt|6 years ago|reply
For example, a journalist could verify a leak came from a real FBI agent by checking their badge, and assure their readers of that, but keep the agent's name secret.
Or a journalist given a list of secret base addresses could report the number and countries without revealing the precise addresses.
Also, newspapers might be happier to make a big splash reporting an exclusive, but be less motivated if every other newspaper got the same stuff at the same time :)
[+] [-] chongli|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stef25|6 years ago|reply
Number of pages mentioning "white men" as indexed by Google:
Guardian: 7840 / 3,680,000 (0.21%) BBC: 623 / 4,720,000 (0.01%)
Some headlines of the Guardian that come to mind are "All landlords are scum" and "Maybe white men should just disappear for a while". In the case of the latter it was an interview with the USA's female national soccer captain and that line was something she just joked at the very end and the editor decided to make that the title of the article (if I'd have been her I'd have been furious).
Another rage inducing article was one that nailed David Attenborough to the cross for daring to suggest climate change activism could benefit from separating it from left/right politics.
This is all not directly related to politics, but it's pretty telling. The website / usability is great but the spin they (are pressured to?) put on the content is nauseating.
[+] [-] jcranberry|6 years ago|reply
It seems that you are saying that they use sensationalized titles and publish contentious opinion pieces. I hate these tendencies on news orgs as well. But the Guardian isn't nearly as bad as HuffPost or Vox and the like in this regard.
[+] [-] robocat|6 years ago|reply
Clearly flounder is a hot social justice topic (if I follow your logic).
PS: flounder was just the first nonsense word I tried.
[+] [-] Dylan16807|6 years ago|reply
The idea of white men "disappearing for a while" is new to me and it sounds like an amazing idea. How better to shake up entrenched power structures? Spread around the leadership roles and experience, and then once that settles combine everyone back and you can end up with a much better mix at all levels.
[+] [-] JetSpiegel|6 years ago|reply
The question "Can you write an article about Snowden and The Guardian without mentioning Glenn Greenwald" has been answered.
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/glenn-greenwald
[+] [-] MichaelMoser123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diodesign|6 years ago|reply
It's basic due diligence to speak to both sides of a story. However, it can tip off organizations and folks that they are about to be a headline...
[+] [-] CalRobert|6 years ago|reply
In Firefox 69...
[+] [-] mipo5|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] interfixus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k1m|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elp|6 years ago|reply
Then they wonder why everyone blocks ads and they can't make money.
[+] [-] kmlx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] interfixus|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erjavicdb|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] StreamBright|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NullPrefix|6 years ago|reply
"Let me try to peddle some malware to you, you don't want me to go hungry, do you?"
[+] [-] rnotaro|6 years ago|reply
You can either :
- Buy a no-ads pass.
- Disable your AdBlocker
- Click on "Naaah...journalists should go hungry."
[+] [-] lnx01|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intricatedetail|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|6 years ago|reply
> Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.
This would give them a strong motivation to write a biased or even non-factual article to a) generate attention and b) paint themselves as more credible, or at least a direct competitor as less credible.
[+] [-] CapacitorSet|6 years ago|reply
How can you test so little on Firefox that it doesn't even connect? (FF Nightly, Linux)
[+] [-] k1m|6 years ago|reply