Comment

Whose interests is the Guardian guarding?
A response to John Eldridge

John Theobald

One can get caught up in a cocoon of assumptions. I really did not think that The Guardian would or could be regarded as a radical newspaper by anyone involved in radical mass media criticism. But it clearly is regarded as such. So I must take the case seriously, reflect again on my assumptions, and check out the 'radical' credentials of this paper, which I once used to read quite regularly, but now do not. To get a top-up on The Guardian as it now is, I have picked up at random a couple of copies in the last week and will refer to them here. This is plainly not enough to call a representative sample, but the evidence can contribute to the debate.

First, what were my previous judgements about The Guardian? I had it categorised, alongside The Independent, as defining the left boundary of mainstream opinion and critical comment. It was that bit of the establishment which propagated the agenda of 'respectable' left of centre thought. Here and there, it might test that boundary by overstepping it, for example in cartoons and some comment pieces, but the big picture was one of not uncomfortable integration within the UK's media-defined spectrum of consensus. It was a middle class newspaper, catering for progressive, intelligent, integrated and fairly, well-off tastes and dispositions, and proud of it. Critical and reform-minded? Yes, to a degree. Radical? Categorically no.

Against this, it is argued that The Guardian can cite a radical history, that it has upheld the best traditions of fourth-estate journalism from C.P. Scott onwards, maintaining fairness of reporting and keeping this admirably separate from comment. Examples of contemporary contributors from George Monbiot to Steve Bell can be put forward as evidence of the paper's radical edge. The probing quality of its reporting on controversial issues can, it is claimed, be praised. Its contribution, for example, to raising environmental consciousness may be put forward as a case of it bringing radical ideas into mainstream thinking - i.e., of radicalising its readers. In similar vein, the carping of 'radical' critics can be criticised as failing to recognise The Guardian's positive role and qualities - qualities which, it is argued, distinguish it decisively from the national mainstream UK papers with their powerful multi-millionaire corporate bosses. Negative critique from the sidelines is easy, it is said, but functioning, as does The Guardian, as a robust counterweight to the poisonous outpourings of the UK's right wing press is in itself a radical mission.

So let us check The Guardian of early March 2006 against these two sets of perceptions.

The first edition I bought was that of Saturday March 4th. It is the bumper weekend edition, the one in which readers with a bit of weekend spare time might seek some reflection on the week's events and possibly some in-depth analysis of key world issues. Yet, looking all the way through, there is no report or article on Iraq, Latin America or Africa, scenes of some of the world's most pressing issues and exciting developments. Instead, advertised on the first page is a '24 page men's fashion pullout plus a rare look inside Armani's yacht'. Looking inside on page 3, the eyes are attracted to something potentially radical - an article: 'Oops, we helped to ruin the planet' alluding to the environmental cost of tourism and the booming business of highly polluting long-haul cheap leisure flights. So far so good. But what is The Guardian's radical advice? In an inset we are given a guide to 'How to travel guilt free' and advised, for example, that when we travel to India, we can offset return flight emissions by paying £16.50 towards an eco-fuelled boiler scheme in Scotland! Well that's all right then - especially for the Indian Tourist Board who paid for a page and a half of advertisements elsewhere in the paper. In fact, in this day's Guardian there is an eighteen-page travel section replete with cheap flight advertisements. In the weekend supplement alone, in amongst the men's fashion and Armani's yacht, there are nine full glossy pages of holiday advertisements, mostly to long haul destinations, and ten pages of car advertisements. Radical Guardian?

The Wednesday March 8th edition shows a little improvement. On the front page, there is a striking photo of a bloodstained Baghdad street following a car bomb, giving a glimpse of the daily reality there. But again, one is disappointed; for this is merely used to illustrate disputes in Washington about the advisability of US troop reductions. In this context, the photo is there to emphasise Arab mayhem, not the evil of invasion and occupation that underlie it. Page 18 has an article by Duncan Campbell about African famine, with photos and graphics. Again so far so good, but it is scarcely radical to desire and promote famine relief, and the article notably fails to point the finger at those causing the famine in the first place. Page 32 does have an excellent comment piece by Kevin Watkins, not only highlighting the need to act to prevent dirty water and poor sanitation from killing over a million children a year, but analysing the causes, pointing the finger and stating clearly what needs to be done. This is one piece, which can be described as radical journalism. Steve Bell's cartoon pointing up US government hypocrisy and double standards over torture (reproduced in John Eldridge's Comment) is, as we expect of him, abrasive and iconoclastic enough to be radicalising; one article and one cartoon in one hundred pages of Berliner - evidence of a radical newspaper? Summer and swallows come to mind.

My small unscientific excursion into being a Guardian-reader has, unfortunately, done nothing to convince me that it is a radical newspaper. The Guardian may not be owned by a super-rich tycoon, but you would not know it. It shows up no better than The Independent, which is. The Guardian, overall, is guarding the corporate/political status quo, the paymasters and conservers of the establishment of which all the mainstream media form a part. Let it continue to take up critical positions in the face of inhumanity and injustice; let it continue to promote internationalism and condemn bigotry. This can have a measure of influence on the reforming centre-left agenda in mainstream UK politics. But it will have to transform its financial dependencies, its contorted news priorities, its smoothly honed editorials and the distractions and irrelevancies with which it fills far too many of its pages before anyone can convince me that it is a force for radical change in a world which desperately and urgently needs such change.