''The Guardian'' is a British daily
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' and ''
The Guardian Weekly
''The Guardian Weekly'' is an international English-language news magazine based in London, UK. It is one of the world's oldest international news publications and has readers in more than 170 countries. Editorial content is drawn from its sis ...
'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the
Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and e ...
, owned by the
Scott Trust
Scott Trust Limited is the British company that owns Guardian Media Group and thus ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'' as well as various other media businesses in the UK. In 2008, it replaced the Scott Trust, which had owned ''The Guardian'' s ...
. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference".
The trust was converted into a
limited company
In a limited company, the liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. In a company limited by shares, the lia ...
in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or
shareholders.
It is considered a
newspaper of record in the UK.
The editor-in-chief
Katharine Viner
Katharine Sophie Viner (born January 1971)Katharine Vine"Dear diary ..." ''The Guardian'', 27 November 2004 is a British journalist and playwright. She became the first female editor-in-chief at ''The Guardian'' on 1 June 2015 succeeding Alan ...
succeeded
Alan Rusbridger
Alan Charles Rusbridger (born 29 December 1953) is a British journalist, who was formerly editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' and then principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Rusbridger became editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' in 1995, havi ...
in 2015.
Since 2018, the paper's main newsprint sections have been published in
tabloid format
A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet. There is no standard size for this newspaper format.
Etymology
The word ''tabloid'' comes from the name given by the London-based pharmaceutical company Burroughs We ...
. , its print edition had a daily circulation of 105,134.
The newspaper has an online edition,
TheGuardian.com
TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...
, as well as two international websites, ''
Guardian Australia
''Guardian Australia'' is the Australian website of the British global online and print newspaper, ''The Guardian''.
Available solely in an online format, the newspaper's launch was led by Katharine Viner in time for the 2013 Australian fed ...
'' (founded in 2013) and ''
Guardian US
''Guardian US'' is the Manhattan-based American online presence of the British print newspaper ''The Guardian''. It launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief Janine Gibson, and followed the earlier ''Guardian America'' service, which wa ...
'' (founded in 2011). The paper's readership is generally on the
mainstream left
Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The ce ...
of British political opinion,
['']International Socialism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...
'', Spring 2003, . and the term "''Guardian'' reader" is used to imply a stereotype of
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
, left-wing or "
politically correct
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
" views.
Frequent
typographical error
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography) ...
s during the age of
manual typesetting led ''
Private Eye'' magazine to dub the paper the "" in the 1960s, a nickname still used occasionally by the editors for self-mockery.
In an
Ipsos MORI
Ipsos MORI was the name of a market research company based in London, England which is now known as Ipsos and still continues as the UK arm of the global Ipsos group. It was formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI in October 2005.
The company ...
research poll in September 2018 designed to interrogate the public's trust of specific titles online, ''The Guardian'' scored highest for digital-content news, with 84% of readers agreeing that they "trust what
hey
Hey or Hey! may refer to:
Music
* Hey (band), a Polish rock band
Albums
* ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014
* ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980
* ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...
see in it". A December 2018 report of a poll by the Publishers Audience Measurement Company stated that the paper's print edition was found to be the most trusted in the UK in the period from October 2017 to September 2018. It was also reported to be the most-read of the UK's "quality newsbrands", including digital editions; other "quality" brands included ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', and the ''
i''. While ''The Guardian''s print circulation is in decline, the report indicated that news from ''The Guardian'', including that reported online, reaches more than 23 million UK adults each month.
Chief among the notable "
scoops" obtained by the paper was the 2011
News International phone-hacking scandal
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...
—and in particular the hacking of the murdered English teenager
Milly Dowler
Milly is a feminine given name, sometimes used as a short form (hypocorism) of Mildred, Amelia, Emily, etc. It may refer to:
People
* Milly Alcock (born 2000), Australian actress
* Milly Babalanda (born 1970), Ugandan politician
* Milly Bern ...
's phone. The investigation led to the closure of the ''
News of the World'', the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in history. In June 2013, ''The Guardian'' broke news of the secret collection by the
Obama administration of
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
telephone records,
and subsequently revealed the existence of the surveillance program
PRISM
Prism usually refers to:
* Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light
* Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron
Prism may also refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...
after knowledge of it was leaked to the paper by the
whistleblower
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
and former
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
contractor
Edward Snowden.
In 2016, ''The Guardian'' led an investigation into the
Panama Papers, exposing then–Prime Minister
David Cameron's links to
offshore bank accounts. It has been named "newspaper of the year" four times at the annual
British Press Awards
The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of United Kingdom, British journalism.
History
Established in 1962 by ''The Sunday People, The People'' and ''Campaign (magazine), World's Press ...
: most recently in 2014, for its reporting on government surveillance.
History
1821 to 1972
Early years
![The Manchester Guardian, May 5 1821](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/The_Manchester_Guardian%2C_May_5_1821.jpg)
''The Manchester Guardian'' was founded in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
in 1821 by cotton merchant
John Edward Taylor
John Edward Taylor (11 September 1791 – 6 January 1844) was an English business tycoon, editor, publisher and member of The Portico Library, who was the founder of the '' Manchester Guardian'' newspaper in 1821, which was renamed in 195 ...
with backing from the
Little Circle
The Little Circle was a Manchester-based group of Non-conformist Liberals, mostly members of the Portico Library, who held a common agenda with regards to political and social reform. The first group met from 1815 onwards to campaign for expande ...
, a group of
non-conformist businessmen.
They launched the paper, on 5 May 1821 (by chance the very day of
Napoleon's death) after the police closure of the more
radical ''
Manchester Observer
The ''Manchester Observer'' was a short-lived non-conformist Liberal newspaper based in Manchester, England. Its radical agenda led to an invitation to Henry "Orator" Hunt to speak at a public meeting in Manchester, which subsequently led to t ...
'', a paper that had championed the cause of the
Peterloo Massacre
The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Fifteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliament ...
protesters. Taylor had been hostile to the radical reformers, writing: "They have appealed not to the reason but the passions and the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow-countrymen, from whose ill-requited industry they extort for themselves the means of a plentiful and comfortable existence. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they live better than those that do." When the government closed down the ''Manchester Observer'', the mill-owners' champions had the upper hand.
The influential journalist
Jeremiah Garnett
Jeremiah Garnett (1793–1870) was an English journalist, active in the politics of London and the founding of ''The Manchester Guardian'' alongside his nephew Anthony Garnett.
Life
Jeremiah, younger brother of Richard Garnett (1789–1850) and ...
joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, and all of the Little Circle wrote articles for the new paper.
The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures". In 1825, the paper merged with the ''British Volunteer'' and was known as ''The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer'' until 1828.
The
working-class ''Manchester and Salford Advertiser'' called ''The Manchester Guardian'' "the foul prostitute and dirty
parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
of the worst portion of the mill-owners". ''The Manchester Guardian'' was generally hostile to labour's claims. Of the 1832 Ten Hours Bill, the paper doubted whether in view of the foreign competition "the passing of a law positively enacting a gradual destruction of the cotton manufacture in this kingdom would be a much less rational procedure." ''The Manchester Guardian'' dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators, stating that "if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. They live on strife ... ."
Slavery and the American Civil War
The newspaper opposed slavery and supported
free trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...
. An 1823 leading article on the continuing "cruelty and injustice" to slaves in the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
long after the abolition of the slave trade with the
Slave Trade Act 1807
The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it ...
wanted fairness to the interests and claims both of the planters and of their oppressed slaves.
It welcomed the
Slavery Abolition Act 1833
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. It was passed by Earl Grey's reforming administrat ...
and accepted the "increased compensation" to the planters as the "guilt of slavery attaches far more to the nation" rather than individuals. Success of the Act would encourage emancipation in other slave-owning nations to avoid "imminent risk of a violent and bloody termination."
However, the newspaper argued against restricting trade with countries which had not yet abolished slavery.
Complex tensions developed in the United States.
When the abolitionist
George Thompson toured, the newspaper said that "
avery is a monstrous evil, but civil war is not a less one; and we would not seek the abolition even of the former through the imminent hazard of the latter". It suggested that the United States should compensate slave-owners for freeing slaves
and called on President
Franklin Pierce to resolve the 1856 "civil war", the
Sacking of Lawrence
The sacking of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when pro-slavery settlers, led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, attacked and ransacked Lawrence, Kansas, a town which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts w ...
due to pro-slavery laws imposed by Congress.
In 1860, ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' quoted a report that the newly elected president
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
was opposed to abolition of slavery.
On 13 May 1861, shortly after the start of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, the ''Manchester Guardian'' portrayed the Northern states as primarily imposing a burdensome trade monopoly on the
Confederate States
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
, arguing that if the South was freed to have direct trade with Europe, "the day would not be distant when slavery itself would cease". Therefore, the newspaper asked "Why should the South be prevented from freeing itself from slavery?"
This hopeful view was also held by the
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
leader
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
.
![Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Square, Manchester](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Abraham_Lincoln%2C_Lincoln_Square%2C_Manchester.jpg)
There was division in Britain over the Civil War, even within political parties. The ''Manchester Guardian'' had also been conflicted. It had supported other
independence movements
Presented below is a list of lists of active separatist movements:
* List of active separatist movements in Africa
* List of active separatist movements in Asia
*List of active separatist movements in Europe
* List of active separatist movement ...
and felt it should also support the rights of the Confederacy to self-determination. It criticised Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation for not freeing all American slaves.
On 10 October 1862, it wrote: "It is impossible to cast any reflections upon a man so evidently sincere and well-intentioned as Mr Lincoln but it is also impossible not to feel that it was an evil day both for America and the world, when he was chosen President of the United States".
By then, the
Union blockade
The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading.
The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of of Atlanti ...
was causing
suffering in British towns. Some including
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
supported the Confederacy as did "current opinion in all classes" in London. On 31 December 1862, cotton workers held a meeting at the
Free Trade Hall
The Free Trade Hall on Peter Street, Manchester, England, was constructed in 1853–56 on St Peter's Fields, the site of the Peterloo Massacre. It is now a Radisson hotel.
The hall was built to commemorate the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. T ...
in Manchester which resolved "its detestation of negro slavery in America, and of the attempt of the rebellious Southern slave-holders to organise on the great American continent a nation having slavery as its basis". There was a comment that "an effort had been made in a leading article of the ''Manchester Guardian'' to deter the working men from assembling together for such a purpose". The newspaper reported all this and published their letter to President Lincoln
while complaining that "the chief occupation, if not the chief object of the meeting, seems to have been to abuse the ''Manchester Guardian''".
Lincoln replied to the letter thanking the workers for their "sublime Christian heroism" and American ships delivered relief supplies to Britain.
The newspaper reported the shock to the community of the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, concluding that "
e parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description",
but in what from today's perspective looks an ill-judged editorial wrote that "
his rule we can never speak except as a series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty", adding "it is doubtless to be regretted that he had not the opportunity of vindicating his good intentions".
According to
Martin Kettle
Martin James Kettle (born 7 September 1949) is a British journalist and author. The son of two prominent communist activists, Arnold Kettle (best remembered as a literary critic; 1916–1986) and Margot Kettle (née Gale; 1916–1995), he was ed ...
, writing for ''The Guardian'' in February 2011, "''The Guardian'' had always hated slavery. But it doubted the Union hated slavery to the same degree. It argued that the Union had always tacitly condoned slavery by shielding the southern slave states from the condemnation they deserved. It was critical of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation for stopping short of a full repudiation of slavery throughout the US. And it chastised the president for being so willing to negotiate with the south, with slavery one of the issues still on the table".
C. P. Scott
C. P. Scott
Charles Prestwich Scott (26 October 1846 – 1 January 1932), usually cited as C. P. Scott, was a British journalist, publisher and politician. Born in Bath, Somerset, he was the editor of the ''Manchester Guardian'' (now ''the Guardian'') ...
made the newspaper nationally recognised. He was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought the paper from the estate of Taylor's son in 1907. Under Scott, the paper's moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting
William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886, and opposing the
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...
against popular opinion. Scott supported the movement for
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
, but was critical of any tactics by the
Suffragettes that involved
direct action:
"The really ludicrous position is that
Mr Lloyd George is fighting to enfranchise seven million women and the militants are smashing unoffending people's windows and breaking up benevolent societies' meetings in a desperate effort to prevent him." Scott thought the Suffragettes' "courage and devotion" was "worthy of a better cause and saner leadership". It has been argued that Scott's criticism reflected a widespread disdain, at the time, for those women who "transgressed the gender expectations of
Edwardian society".
Scott commissioned
J. M. Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play ''The Playboy of the Western World'' was poorly r ...
and his friend
Jack Yeats
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (29 August 1871 – 28 March 1957) was an Irish artist and Olympic medalist. W. B. Yeats was his brother.
Butler's early style was that of an illustrator; he only began to work regularly in oils in 1906. His early pict ...
to produce articles and drawings documenting the social conditions of the west of Ireland; these pieces were published in 1911 in the collection ''Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara''.
Scott's friendship with
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...
played a role in the
Balfour Declaration. In 1948 ''The Manchester Guardian'' was a supporter of the new State of Israel.
Ownership of the paper passed in June 1936 to the
Scott Trust
Scott Trust Limited is the British company that owns Guardian Media Group and thus ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'' as well as various other media businesses in the UK. In 2008, it replaced the Scott Trust, which had owned ''The Guardian'' s ...
(named after the last owner,
John Russell Scott
John Russell Scott (12 July 1879 – 5 April 1949) was a British publisher. He was the owner of the '' Manchester Guardian'' and the ''Manchester Evening News''.
Early life
Scott was born in Manchester, the third child of C. P. Scott and his wi ...
, who was the first chairman of the Trust). This move ensured the paper's independence.
From 1930 to 1967, a special archival copy of all the daily newspapers was preserved in 700
zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
cases. These were found in 1988 whilst the newspaper's archives were deposited at the
University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...
's
John Rylands University Library
The University of Manchester Library is the library system and information service of the University of Manchester. The main library is on the Oxford Road campus of the university, with its entrance on Burlington Street. There are also ten other ...
, on the Oxford Road campus. The first case was opened and found to contain the newspapers issued in August 1930 in pristine condition. The zinc cases had been made each month by the newspaper's plumber and stored for posterity. The other 699 cases were not opened and were all returned to storage at ''The Guardian''s garage, owing to shortage of space at the library.
Spanish Civil War
Traditionally affiliated with the centrist to centre-left
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, and with a northern, non-conformist circulation base, the paper earned a national reputation and the respect of the left during the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
(1936–1939).
George Orwell wrote in ''
Homage to Catalonia
''Homage to Catalonia'' is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the POUM militia of the Republican army.
Published in 1938 (about a year before the war ended) with little c ...
'' (1938): "Of our larger papers, the ''Manchester Guardian'' is the only one that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty". With the pro-Liberal ''
News Chronicle
The ''News Chronicle'' was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of '' The Daily News'' and the ''Daily Chronicle'' in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960,''Liberal Democrat News'' 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010 be ...
'', the
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
-supporting ''
Daily Herald'', the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
's ''
Daily Worker
The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were ...
'' and several Sunday and weekly papers, it supported the Republican government against General
Francisco Franco's insurgent nationalists.
Post-war
The paper's then editor,
A. P. Wadsworth
Alfred Powell Wadsworth (26 August 1891''1939 England and Wales Register'' – 4 November 1956) was a British journalist, author, and editor of ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Ma ...
, so loathed Labour's left-wing champion
Aneurin Bevan, who had made a reference to getting rid of "Tory Vermin" in a speech "and the hate-gospellers of his entourage" that it encouraged readers to vote Conservative in the
1951 general election and remove
Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government. The newspaper opposed the creation of the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
as it feared the state provision of healthcare would "eliminate selective elimination" and lead to an increase of congenitally deformed and feckless people.
''The Manchester Guardian'' strongly opposed military intervention during the 1956
Suez Crisis: "The Anglo-French ultimatum to Egypt is an act of folly, without justification in any terms but brief expediency. It pours petrol on a growing fire. There is no knowing what kind of explosion will follow."
On 24 August 1959, ''The Manchester Guardian'' changed its name to ''The Guardian''. This change reflected the growing prominence of national and international affairs in the newspaper. In September 1961, ''The Guardian'', which had previously only been published in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, began to be printed in London.
Nesta Roberts
Nesta Roberts (10 January 1913 – 16 January 2009) was a Welsh journalist and author, the first woman to be in charge of the news desk on a British national newspaper. She served as Paris correspondent of ''The Guardian'' from 1965 to 1972.
Early ...
was appointed as the newspaper's first news editor there, becoming the first woman to hold such a position on a British national newspaper.
1972 to 2000
Northern Ireland conflict
When 13 civil rights demonstrators in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
were killed by the
Parachute Regiment on 30 January 1972 (known as
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
), ''The Guardian'' wrote that "Neither side can escape condemnation."
Of the protesters, they wrote, "The organizers of the demonstration, Miss
Bernadette Devlin
Josephine Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin; born 23 April 1947), usually known as Bernadette Devlin or Bernadette McAliskey, is an Irish civil rights leader, and former politician. She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Ulster in North ...
among them, deliberately challenged the ban on marches. They knew that stone throwing and
sniping
A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...
could not be prevented, and that the
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
might use the
crowd as a shield."
Of the British soldiers present, they wrote, "there seems little doubt that random shots were fired into the crowd, that aim was taken at individuals who were neither bombers nor weapons carriers and that excessive force was used".
Many Irish people believed that the
Widgery Tribunal
John Passmore Widgery, Baron Widgery, (24 July 1911 – 26 July 1981) was an English judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1971 to 1980. He is principally noted for presiding over the Widgery Tribunal on the events o ...
's ruling on the killings was a whitewash, a view that was later supported with the publication of the
Bloody Sunday Inquiry in 2010, but in 1972 ''The Guardian'' wrote that "Widgery's report is not one-sided" (20 April 1972). At the time the paper also supported
internment without trial in Northern Ireland: "Internment without trial is hateful, repressive and undemocratic. In the existing Irish situation, most regrettably, it is also inevitable... .To remove the ringleaders, in the hope that the atmosphere might calm down, is a step to which there is no obvious alternative." Before then, in 1969, ''The Guardian'' had called for British troops to be sent to the region, stating that their deployment could "present a more disinterested face of law and order," but only on condition that "Britain takes charge."
Sarah Tisdall
In 1983, the paper was at the centre of a controversy surrounding documents regarding the stationing of
cruise missiles in Britain that were leaked to ''The Guardian'' by civil servant
Sarah Tisdall
Sarah Caroline Tisdall (born 1960 in Plymouth) is a former Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) clerical officer who was jailed for leaking British government documents to a newspaper in 1983.
Tisdall anonymously sent ''The Guardian'' photocopi ...
. The paper eventually complied with a court order to hand over the documents to the authorities, which resulted in a six-month prison sentence for Tisdall, though she served only four. "I still blame myself," said
Peter Preston
Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995.
Early life
Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of J ...
, who was the editor of ''The Guardian'' at the time, but he went on to argue that the paper had no choice because it "believed in the rule of law". In a 2019 article discussing
Julian Assange and the protection of sources by journalists,
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.
Pilge ...
criticised the editor of ''The Guardian'' for betraying Tisdall by choosing not to go to prison "on a fundamental principle of protecting a source".
Alleged penetration by Russian intelligence
In 1994,
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
defector
Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
identified ''Guardian'' literary editor
Richard Gott
Richard Willoughby Gott (born 28 October 1938),Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 271 (Short Half 1952 list heading) & ...
as "an agent of influence". While Gott denied that he received cash, he admitted he had had lunch at the Soviet Embassy and had taken benefits from the KGB on overseas visits. Gott resigned from his post.
Gordievsky commented on the newspaper: "The KGB loved ''The Guardian''. It was deemed highly susceptible to penetration."
Jonathan Aitken
In 1995, both the
Granada Television programme ''
World in Action
''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its product ...
'' and ''The Guardian'' were sued for
libel by the then cabinet minister
Jonathan Aitken
Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a British author, Church of England priest, former prisoner and former Conservative Party politician. Beginning his career in journalism, he was elected to Parliament in 1974 (serving un ...
, for their allegation that
Harrods owner
Mohamed Al Fayed
Mohamed Al-Fayed (; arz, محمد الفايد ; born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian-born businessman whose residence and chief business interests have been in the United Kingdom since the late 1960s. His business interests include ownership of ...
had paid for Aitken and his wife to stay at the
Hôtel Ritz in Paris, which would have amounted to accepting a bribe on Aitken's part. Aitken publicly stated that he would fight with "the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play". The court case proceeded, and in 1997 ''The Guardian'' produced evidence that Aitken's claim of his wife paying for the hotel stay was untrue. In 1999, Aitken was jailed for
perjury
Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
and
perverting the course of justice
Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on themselves or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Stat ...
.
''Connection''
In May 1998, a series of ''Guardian'' investigations exposed the wholesale fabrication of a much-garlanded ITV documentary ''The Connection'', produced by
Carlton Television.
The documentary purported to film an undiscovered route by which heroin was smuggled into the United Kingdom from Colombia. An internal inquiry at Carlton found that ''The Guardian''s allegations were in large part correct and the then industry regulator, the ITC, punished Carlton with a record £2 million fine for multiple breaches of the UK's broadcasting codes. The scandal led to an impassioned debate about the accuracy of documentary production.
Later in June 1998, ''The Guardian'' revealed further fabrications in another Carlton documentary from the same director.
Kosovo War
The paper supported
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
's military intervention in the
Kosovo War
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the wa ...
in 1998–1999. ''The Guardian'' stated that "the only honourable course for Europe and America is to use military force".
Mary Kaldor
Mary Henrietta Kaldor (born 16 March 1946) is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit. She also teaches ...
's piece was headlined "Bombs away! But to save civilians, we must get in some soldiers too."
Since 2000
In the early 2000s, ''The Guardian'' challenged the
Act of Settlement 1701 and the
Treason Felony Act 1848
The Treason Felony Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Parts of the Act are still in force. It is a law which protects the King and the Crown.
The offences in the Act w ...
. In October 2004, ''The Guardian'' published a humorous column by
Charlie Brooker
Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Bras ...
in its entertainment guide, the final sentence of which was viewed by some as a call for violence against U.S. President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
; after a controversy, Brooker and the paper issued an apology, saying the "closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action." Following the
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...
, ''The Guardian'' published an article on its comment pages by
Dilpazier Aslam, a 27-year-old British Muslim and journalism trainee from
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
. Aslam was a member of
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabicحزب التحرير (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Isl ...
, an
Islamist group, and had published a number of articles on their website. According to the newspaper, it did not know that Aslam was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir when he applied to become a trainee, though several staff members were informed of this once he started at the paper. The
Home Office said that the group's "ultimate aim is the establishment of an Islamic state (Caliphate), according to Hizb ut-Tahrir via non-violent means". ''The Guardian'' asked Aslam to resign his membership of the group and, when he did not do so, terminated his employment.
In early 2009, ''The Guardian'' started a tax investigation into a number of major UK companies, including publishing a database of the tax paid by the
FTSE 100
The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...
companies. Internal documents relating to
Barclays Bank
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
's
tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdi ...
were removed from ''The Guardian'' website after Barclays obtained a
gagging order. The newspaper played a pivotal role in exposing the depth of the
''News of the World'' phone hacking affair. ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'' ''
Intelligent Life'' magazine opined that...
Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage
In recent decades, ''The Guardian'' has been accused of biased
criticism of Israeli government policy and of bias against the Palestinians. In December 2003, columnist
Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill (born 3 July 1959) is an English writer. Beginning as a staff writer at the ''New Musical Express'' at the age of 17, she has since contributed to newspapers such as ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Sunday Times'' and ''The Guardia ...
cited "striking bias against the state of Israel" as one of the reasons she left the paper for ''The Times''.
Responding to these accusations, a ''Guardian'' editorial in 2002 condemned antisemitism and defended the paper's right to criticise the policies and actions of the Israeli government, arguing that those who view such criticism as inherently anti-Jewish are mistaken. Harriet Sherwood, then ''The Guardian'' foreign editor, later its Jerusalem correspondent, has also denied that ''The Guardian'' has an anti-Israel bias, saying that the paper aims to cover all viewpoints in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
On 6 November 2011, Chris Elliott, ''The Guardian''s readers' editor, wrote that "''Guardian'' reporters, writers and editors must be more vigilant about the language they use when writing about Jews or Israel," citing recent cases where ''The Guardian'' received complaints regarding language chosen to describe Jews or Israel. Elliott noted that, over nine months, he upheld complaints regarding language in certain articles that were seen as anti-Semitic, revising the language and footnoting this change.
''The Guardian''s style guide section referred to
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...
as the capital of Israel in 2012. ''The Guardian'' later clarified: "In 1980, the Israeli Knesset enacted a law designating the city of Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, as the country's capital. In response, the UN security council issued resolution 478, censuring the "change in character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem" and calling on all member states with diplomatic missions in the city to withdraw. The UN has reaffirmed this position on several occasions, and almost every country now has its embassy in Tel Aviv. While it was therefore right to issue a correction to make clear Israel's designation of Jerusalem as its capital is not recognised by the international community, we accept that it is wrong to state that Tel Aviv – the country's financial and diplomatic centre – is the capital. The style guide has been amended accordingly."
On 11 August 2014 the print edition of ''The Guardian'' published a pro-Israeli advocacy advert during the
2014 Israel–Gaza conflict
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ),
was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that h ...
featuring
Elie Wiesel, headed by the words "Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it's Hamas' turn." ''The Times'' had decided against running the ad, although it had already appeared in major American newspapers. One week later, Chris Elliott expressed the opinion that the newspaper should have rejected the language used in the advert and should have negotiated with the advertiser on this matter.
Clark County
In August 2004, for the
US presidential election
The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not dire ...
, the daily ''G2'' supplement launched an experimental letter-writing campaign in
Clark County, Ohio
Clark County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 136,001. Its county seat is Springfield. The county was created on March 1, 1818, and was named for General Ge ...
, an average-sized county in a
swing state
In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pres ...
. Editor
Ian Katz
Ian Alexander Katz (born 9 February 1968) is a British journalist and broadcasting executive who is currently Chief Content Officer at Channel 4, overseeing all editorial decision making and commissioning across Channel 4's linear channels, str ...
bought a voter list from the county for $25 and asked readers to write to people listed as undecided in the election, giving them an impression of the international view and the importance of voting against President George W. Bush. Katz admitted later that he did not believe Democrats who warned that the campaign would benefit Bush and not opponent
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
.
The newspaper scrapped "Operation Clark County" on 21 October 2004 after first publishing a column of responses—nearly all of them outraged—to the campaign under the headline "Dear Limey assholes". Some commentators suggested that the public's dislike of the campaign contributed to Bush's victory in Clark County.
''Guardian America'' and ''Guardian US''
In 2007, the paper launched ''Guardian America'', an attempt to capitalise on its large online readership in the United States, which at the time stood at more than 5.9 million. The company hired former ''
American Prospect
''The American Prospect'' is a daily online and bimonthly print American political and public policy magazine dedicated to American modern liberalism and progressivism. Based in Washington, D.C., ''The American Prospect'' says it "is devoted to ...
'' editor, ''
New York'' magazine columnist and ''
New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
'' writer
Michael Tomasky
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960) is an American columnist, progressive commentator, and author. He is the editor of ''The New Republic'' and editor in chief of ''Democracy''. He has been a special correspondent for ''Newsweek'', ''T ...
to head the project and hire a staff of American reporters and web editors. The site featured news from ''The Guardian'' that was relevant to an American audience: coverage of US news and the Middle East, for example.
Tomasky stepped down from his position as editor of ''Guardian America'' in February 2009, ceding editing and planning duties to other US and London staff. He retained his position as a columnist and blogger, taking the title editor-at-large.
In October 2009, the company abandoned the ''Guardian America'' homepage, instead directing users to a US news index page on the main ''Guardian'' website. The following month, the company laid off six American employees, including a reporter, a multimedia producer and four web editors. The move came as ''Guardian News and Media'' opted to reconsider its US strategy amid a huge effort to cut costs across the company. In subsequent years, however, ''The Guardian'' has hired various commentators on US affairs including
Ana Marie Cox
Ana Marie Cox (born September 23, 1972) is an American author, blogger, political columnist, and critic. The founding editor of the political blog '' Wonkette'', she was also the Senior Political Correspondent for MTV News, and conducted the "Ta ...
,
Michael Wolff,
Naomi Wolf
Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born November 12, 1962) is an American feminist author, journalist and conspiracy theorist.
Following her first book ''The Beauty Myth'' (1991), she became a leading spokeswoman of what has been described as the third wave ...
,
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
and George W. Bush's former speechwriter
Josh Treviño.
Treviño's first blog post was an apology for a controversial tweet posted in June 2011 over the second Gaza flotilla, the controversy which had been revived by the appointment.
''
Guardian US
''Guardian US'' is the Manhattan-based American online presence of the British print newspaper ''The Guardian''. It launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief Janine Gibson, and followed the earlier ''Guardian America'' service, which wa ...
'' launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief
Janine Gibson
Janine Victoria Gibson is a British journalist who has served as assistant editor of the ''Financial Times'' since May 2019. Before then, in the summer of 2014, she became deputy editor of Guardian News and Media and editor-in-chief of theguard ...
, which replaced the previous ''Guardian America'' service.
After a period during which
Katharine Viner
Katharine Sophie Viner (born January 1971)Katharine Vine"Dear diary ..." ''The Guardian'', 27 November 2004 is a British journalist and playwright. She became the first female editor-in-chief at ''The Guardian'' on 1 June 2015 succeeding Alan ...
served as the US editor-in-chief before taking charge of ''Guardian News and Media'' as a whole, Viner's former deputy, Lee Glendinning, was appointed to succeed her as head of the American operation at the beginning of June 2015.
Gagged from reporting Parliament
In October 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that it was forbidden to report on a parliamentary matter – a question recorded in a Commons order paper, to be answered by a minister later that week. The newspaper noted that it was being "forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented—for the first time in memory—from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret. The only fact ''The Guardian'' can report is that the case involves the London solicitors
Carter-Ruck
Carter-Ruck is a British law firm founded by Peter Carter-Ruck. The firm specialises in libel, privacy, international law and commercial disputes. The leading legal directories (Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners) rank Carter-Ruck in the to ...
." The paper further claimed that this case appears "to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the
1689 Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England, which sets out certain basic civil rights and clarifies who would be next to inherit the Crown, and is seen as a crucial landmark in English constitutional law. It received Ro ...
".
The only parliamentary question mentioning Carter-Ruck in the relevant period was by
Paul Farrelly
Christopher Paul Farrelly (born 2 March 1962) is a British Labour Party politician, banker and journalist, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 2001 to 2019.
Early life
Farrelly was born in Newcastle-under-Lym ...
MP, in reference to legal action by
Barclays and
Trafigura
Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean-based Swiss multinational commodity trading company founded in 1993 that trades in base metals and energy. It is the world's largest private metals trader and second-largest oil trader having built or ...
. The part of the question referencing Carter-Ruck relates to the latter company's September 2009 gagging order on the publication of a 2006 internal report into the
2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump
The 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump was a health crisis in Ivory Coast in which a ship registered in Panama, the ''Probo Koala'', chartered by the Singaporean-based oil and commodity shipping company Trafigura Beheer BV, offloaded toxic was ...
scandal, which involved a
class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
case that the company only settled in September 2009 after ''The Guardian'' published some of the commodity trader's internal emails. The reporting injunction was lifted the next day, as Carter-Ruck withdrew it before ''The Guardian'' could challenge it in the High Court.
Alan Rusbridger
Alan Charles Rusbridger (born 29 December 1953) is a British journalist, who was formerly editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' and then principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Rusbridger became editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' in 1995, havi ...
attributed the rapid back-down by Carter-Ruck to postings on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, as did a
BBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the U ...
article.
Edward Snowden leaks and intervention by the UK government
In June 2013, the newspaper broke news of the secret collection of
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
telephone records held by
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
's administration
and subsequently revealed the existence of the
PRISM surveillance program after it was leaked to the paper by former
NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
contractor
Edward Snowden.
''The Guardian'' said a
DSMA-Notice
In the United Kingdom, a DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. DSMA-Notices were formerly called a ...
had been sent to editors and journalists on 7 June after the first ''Guardian'' story about the Snowden documents. It said the DSMA-Notice was being used as an "attempt to censor coverage of surveillance tactics employed by intelligence agencies in the UK and US".
The newspaper was subsequently contacted by the British government's Cabinet Secretary, Sir
Jeremy Heywood
Jeremy John Heywood, Baron Heywood of Whitehall, (31 December 1961 – 4 November 2018) was a British civil servant who served as Cabinet Secretary to David Cameron and Theresa May from 2012 to 2018 and Head of the Home Civil Service from 2014 ...
, under instruction from Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister
Nick Clegg
Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicep ...
, who ordered that the hard drives containing the information be destroyed. ''The Guardian'' offices were then visited in July by agents from the UK's
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...
, who supervised the destruction of the hard drives containing information acquired from Snowden. ''The Guardian'' said it had destroyed the hard drives to avoid threatened legal action by the UK government that could have stopped it from reporting on US and British government surveillance contained in the documents. In June 2014, ''
The Register
''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information te ...
'' reported that the information the government sought to suppress by destroying the hard drives related to the location of a "beyond top secret" internet monitoring base in
Seeb
Al-Seeb, As Seeb or As Sib ( ar, السيب) is a coastal fishing city, located several kilometres northwest of Muscat, in northeastern Oman. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 470,878.
Landmarks include the Naseem Garden, the Royal ...
, Oman, and the close involvement of
BT and
Cable & Wireless in intercepting internet communications.
Julian Assange criticised the newspaper for not publishing the entirety of the content when it had the chance. Rusbridger had initially covered the Snowden documents without the government's supervision, but subsequently sought it, and established an ongoing relationship with the
Defence Ministry. ''The Guardian'' coverage of Snowden later continued because the information had already been copied outside the United Kingdom, earning the newspaper a
Pulitzer Prize. Rusbridger and subsequent chief editors would sit on the government's
DSMA-notice
In the United Kingdom, a DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. DSMA-Notices were formerly called a ...
board.
Manafort–Assange secret meetings
In a November 2018 ''Guardian'' article,
Luke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding (born 21 April 1968) is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for ''The Guardian''. He was based in Russia for ''The Guardian'' from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on 5 February 2011, he was refus ...
and Dan Collyns cited anonymous sources which stated that
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
's former campaign manager
Paul Manafort held secret meetings with
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
founder
Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2013, 2015, and 2016. The name of a third author, Fernando Villavicencio, was removed from the online version of the story soon after publication. The title of the story was originally 'Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy'. A few hours after publication, 'sources say' was added to the title, and the meeting became an 'apparent meeting'.
One reporter characterized the story, "If it's right, it might be the biggest get this year. If it's wrong, it might be the biggest gaffe." Manafort and Assange both denied ever having met with the latter threatening legal action against ''The Guardian''. Ecuador's London consul Fidel Narváez, who had worked at
Ecuador's embassy in London from 2010 to July 2018, denied that Manafort's visits had happened.
Serge Halimi said Harding had a personal grievance against Assange and noted that Manafort's name does not appear in the Ecuadorian embassy's visitors’ book and there were no pictures of Manafort entering or leaving "one of the most surveilled and filmed buildings on the planet".
Priti Patel cartoon
''The Guardian'' was accused of being "racist and misogynistic" after it published a cartoon depicting
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
,
Priti Patel as a cow with a ring in its nose in an alleged reference to her
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
faith, since cows are considered sacred in
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
.
WikiLeaks coverage
Journalist
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
, a former contributor to ''The Guardian'', has accused ''The Guardian'' of falsifying the words of
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
founder
Julian Assange in a report about the interview he gave to Italian newspaper ''La Repubblica.'' In ''
The Intercept
''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reporte ...
'', Greenwald wrote: "This article is about how those
'Guardian''false claims—fabrications, really—were spread all over the internet by journalists, causing hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) to consume false news." ''The Guardian'' later amended its article about Assange.
After publishing a story on 13 January 2017 claiming that
WhatsApp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...
had a "backdoor
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
allows snooping on messages", more than 70 professional cryptographers signed on to an open letter calling for ''The Guardian'' to retract the article. On 13 June 2017, readers' editor Paul Chadwick released an article detailing the flawed reporting in the original January article, which was amended to remove references to a backdoor.
Ownership and finances
''The Guardian'' is part of the
Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and e ...
(GMG) of newspapers, radio stations and print media. GMG components include ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', ''
The Guardian Weekly
''The Guardian Weekly'' is an international English-language news magazine based in London, UK. It is one of the world's oldest international news publications and has readers in more than 170 countries. Editorial content is drawn from its sis ...
'' and ''
TheGuardian.com
TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...
''. All were owned by
The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's
editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to takeovers by commercial media groups. At the beginning of October 2008, the Scott Trusts assets were transferred to a new limited company, The Scott Trust Limited, with the intention being that the original trust would be wound up. Dame
Liz Forgan
Dame Elizabeth Anne Lucy Forgan, DBE (born 31 August 1944) is an English journalist, and radio and television executive.
Early life
Forgan was educated at Benenden School, Kent, and St Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-female college.
She ini ...
, chair of the Scott Trust, reassured staff that the purposes of the new company remained the same as under the previous arrangements.
![The Guardian Building Window in London](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/The_Guardian_Building_Window_in_London.JPG)
''The Guardian'' is the only British national daily to conduct (since 2003) an annual social, ethical and environmental
audit in which it examines, under the scrutiny of an independent external auditor, its own behaviour as a company. It is also the only British national daily newspaper to employ an internal ombudsman (called the "readers' editor") to handle complaints and corrections.
''The Guardian'' and its parent groups participate in
Project Syndicate and intervened in 1995 to save the ''
Mail & Guardian
The ''Mail & Guardian'' is a South African weekly newspaper and website, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on political analysis, investigative reporting, Southern African news, local arts, music and popular cult ...
'' in South Africa; GMG sold the majority of its shares of the ''Mail & Guardian'' in 2002.
''The Guardian'' was consistently loss-making until 2019. The National Newspaper division of GMG, which also includes ''The Observer'', reported operating losses of £49.9 million in 2006, up from £18.6 million in 2005. The paper was therefore heavily dependent on cross-subsidisation from profitable companies within the group.
The continual losses made by the National Newspaper division of the ''Guardian Media Group'' caused it to dispose of its Regional Media division by selling titles to competitor ''
Trinity Mirror'' in March 2010. This included the flagship ''
Manchester Evening News
The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...
'', and severed the historic link between that paper and ''The Guardian''. The sale was in order to safeguard the future of ''The Guardian'' newspaper as is the intended purpose of the ''Scott Trust''.
In June 2011 ''Guardian News and Media'' revealed increased annual losses of £33 million and announced that it was looking to focus on its online edition for news coverage, leaving the print edition to contain more comments and features. It was also speculated that ''The Guardian'' might become the first British national daily paper to be fully online.
For the three years up to June 2012, the paper lost £100,000 a day, which prompted ''Intelligent Life'' to question whether ''The Guardian'' could survive.
Between 2007 and 2014 ''The Guardian Media Group'' sold all their side businesses, of regional papers and online portals for classifieds and consolidated, into ''The Guardian'' as sole product. The sales let them acquire a capital stock of £838.3 million as of July 2014, supposed to guarantee the independence of the ''Guardian'' in perpetuity. In the first year, the paper made more losses than predicted, and in January 2016 the publishers announced, that ''The Guardian'' will cut 20 per cent of staff and costs within the next three years. The newspaper is rare in calling for direct contributions "to deliver the independent journalism the world needs."
The Guardian Media Group's 2018 annual report (year ending 1 April 2018) indicated some significant changes occurring. Its digital (online) editions accounted for over 50% of group revenues by that time; the loss from news and media operations was £18.6 million, 52% lower than during the prior year (2017: £38.9 million). The Group had cut costs by £19.1 million, partly by switching its print edition to the tabloid format. The Guardian Media Group's owner, the Scott Trust Endowment Fund, reported that its value at the time was £1.01 billion (2017: £1.03 billion). In the following financial report (for the year 2018–2019), the group reported a profit (
EBITDA) of £0.8 million before exceptional items, thus breaking even in 2019.
To be sustainable, the annual subsidy must fall within the £25m of interest returned on the investments from the Scott Trust Endowment Fund.
"Membership" subscription scheme
In 2014, ''The Guardian'' launched a membership scheme. The scheme aims to reduce the financial losses incurred by ''The Guardian'' without introducing a
paywall, thus maintaining open access to the website. Website readers can pay a monthly subscription, with three tiers available. As of 2018 this approach was considered successful, having brought more than 1 million subscriptions or donations, with the paper hoping to break even by April 2019.
Foundation funding
![The Guardian Foundation - Senate House History Day 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/The_Guardian_Foundation_-_Senate_House_History_Day_2019.jpg)
In 2016, the company established a U.S.-based philanthropic arm to raise money from individuals and organizations including think tanks and corporate foundations. The grants are focused by the donors on particular issues. By the following year, the organization had raised $1 million from the likes of
Pierre Omidyar's Humanity United, the
Skoll Foundation
The Skoll Foundation is a private foundation based in Palo Alto, California. The foundation makes grants and investments intended to reduce global poverty. Jeffrey Skoll created the foundation in 1999.
The total assets of the foundation (includi ...
, and the
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is an American non-profit charitable foundation, established in 1944 by hotel entrepreneur Conrad Hilton. It remained relatively small until his death on January 3, 1979, when it was named the principal beneficiary ...
to finance reporting on topics including modern-day slavery and climate change. ''The Guardian'' has stated that it has secured $6 million "in multi-year funding commitments" thus far.
The new project developed from funding relationships which the paper already had with the
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
,
Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to:
People with the name Rockefeller f ...
, and
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was ...
. Gates had given the organization $5 million for its Global Development webpage.
As of March 2020, the journal claims to be "the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels."
Political stance and editorial opinion
Founded by textile traders and merchants, in its early years ''The Guardian'' had a reputation as "an organ of the middle class", or in the words of C. P. Scott's son Ted, "a paper that will remain bourgeois to the last".
Associated at first with the
Little Circle
The Little Circle was a Manchester-based group of Non-conformist Liberals, mostly members of the Portico Library, who held a common agenda with regards to political and social reform. The first group met from 1815 onwards to campaign for expande ...
and hence with
classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under the rule of law with especial emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, econo ...
as expressed by the
Whigs and later by the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, its political orientation underwent a decisive change after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, leading to a gradual alignment with
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
and the
political left
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
in general.
The ''
Scott Trust
Scott Trust Limited is the British company that owns Guardian Media Group and thus ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'' as well as various other media businesses in the UK. In 2008, it replaced the Scott Trust, which had owned ''The Guardian'' s ...
'' describes one of its "core purposes" to be "to secure the financial and editorial independence of the ''Guardian'' in perpetuity: as a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition".
The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion: a
MORI
Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India.
Italian surname
*Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress
* Camilo Mori, Chilean painter
* Cesare ...
poll taken between April and June 2000 showed that 80 per cent of ''Guardian'' readers were Labour Party voters;
according to another MORI poll taken in 2005, 48 per cent of ''Guardian'' readers were Labour voters and 34 per cent
Liberal Democrat
Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology.
Active parties
Former parties
See also
*Liberal democracy
*Lib ...
voters.
The term "''Guardian'' reader" can be used to imply a stereotype of
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
, left-wing or "
politically correct
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
" views.
Although the paper is often considered to be "linked inextricably" to the Labour Party,
three of ''The Guardian'' four leader writers joined the more centrist
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
on its foundation in 1981. The paper was enthusiastic in its support for
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
in his successful bid to lead the Labour Party, and to be elected Prime Minister. On 19 January 2003, two months before the
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
, an ''Observer'' Editorial said: "Military intervention in the Middle East holds many dangers. But if we want a lasting peace it may be the only option. ... War with Iraq may yet not come, but, conscious of the potentially terrifying responsibility resting with the British Government, we find ourselves supporting the current commitment to a possible use of force." ''The Guardian'', however, opposed the war, along with the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...
'' and ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
''.
Then ''Guardian'' features editor Ian Katz asserted in 2004 that "it is no secret we are a centre-left newspaper".
In 2008, ''Guardian'' columnist
Jackie Ashley
Jacqueline Ashley (born 10 September 1954) is an English journalist and broadcaster.
Early life
Ashley was born in St Pancras, London. She is the daughter of Pauline Kay () and Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, a Labour MP and life peer.
S ...
said that editorial contributors were a mix of "right-of-centre
libertarians
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...
, greens, Blairites, Brownites, Labourite but less enthusiastic Brownites, etc," and that the newspaper was "clearly left of centre and vaguely progressive". She also said that "you can be absolutely certain that come the next general election, ''The Guardian'' stance will not be dictated by the editor, still less any foreign proprietor (it helps that there isn't one) but will be the result of vigorous debate within the paper".
The paper's comment and opinion pages, though often written by centre-left contributors such as
Polly Toynbee, have allowed some space for right-of-centre voices such as
Sir Max Hastings
Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard'' ...
and
Michael Gove. Since an editorial in 2000, ''The Guardian'' has favoured abolition of the British monarchy. "I write for the ''Guardian''," said Max Hastings in 2005, "because it is read by the new establishment," reflecting the paper's then-growing influence.
In the run-up to the
2010 general election, following a meeting of the editorial staff, the paper declared its support for the Liberal Democrats, due in particular, to the party's stance on
electoral reform
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:
* Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-r ...
. The paper suggested
tactical voting
Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, ...
to prevent a Conservative victory, given Britain's
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
electoral system. At
the 2015 election, the paper switched its support to the
Labour Party. The paper argued that Britain needed a new direction and Labour "speaks with more urgency than its rivals on social justice, standing up to predatory capitalism, on investment for growth, on reforming and strengthening the public realm, Britain's place in Europe and international development".
Assistant Editor Michael White, in discussing media self-censorship in March 2011, says: "I have always sensed liberal, middle class ill-ease in going after stories about immigration, legal or otherwise, about welfare fraud or the less attractive tribal habits of the working class, which is more easily ignored altogether. Toffs, including royal ones, Christians, especially popes, governments of Israel, and Republican Party (United States), U.S. Republicans are more straightforward targets."
In a 2013 interview for NPR, ''The Guardian's'' Latin America correspondent Rory Carroll stated that many editors at ''The Guardian'' believed and continue to believe that they should support Hugo Chávez "because he was a standard-bearer for the left".
In the 2015 United Kingdom general election it endorsed the Labour Party.
In the 2015 Labour Party leadership election (UK), 2015 Labour Party leadership election, ''The Guardian'' supported Blairite candidate Yvette Cooper and was critical of left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, the successful candidate. These positions were criticised by the ''Morning Star (British newspaper), Morning Star'', which accused ''The Guardian'' of being conservative.
Although the majority of ''Guardian'' columnists were against Corbyn winning, Owen Jones, Seumas Milne, and George Monbiot wrote supportive articles about him. Despite the critical position of the paper in general, ''The Guardian'' endorsed the Labour Party whilst Corbyn was its leader in the 2017 United Kingdom general election, 2017 and 2019 United Kingdom general election, 2019 general elections — although in both cases they endorsed a vote for opposition parties other than Labour, such as the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party in seats where Labour did not stand a chance.
In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum ''The Guardian'' endorsed remaining in the EU, and in the 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, 2019 European election invited its readers to vote for pro-EU candidates, without endorsing specific parties.
Circulation and format
''The Guardian'' had a certified average daily circulation of 204,222 copies in December 2012 — a drop of 11.25 per cent in January 2012 — as compared to sales of 547,465 for ''The Daily Telegraph'', 396,041 for ''The Times'', and 78,082 for ''The Independent''.
[Audit Bureau of Circulations Ltd– abc.org.uk] In March 2013, its average daily circulation had fallen to 193,586, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Circulation has continued to decline and stood at 161,091 in December 2016, a decline of 2.98 per cent year-on-year.
In July 2021, the circulation was 105,134; later that year, the publishers stopped making circulation data public.
Publication history
![GuardianNewsroom](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/GuardianNewsroom.jpg)
The first edition was published on 5 May 1821, at which time ''The Guardian'' was a weekly, published on Saturdays and costing 7Penny (British pre-decimal coin), d; the stamp duty on newspapers (4d per sheet) forced the price up so high that it was uneconomic to publish more frequently. When the stamp duty was cut in 1836, ''The Guardian'' added a Wednesday edition and with the abolition of the tax in 1855 it became a daily paper costing 2d.
In October 1952, the paper took the step of printing news on the front page, replacing the adverts that had hitherto filled that space. Then-editor A. P. Wadsworth wrote: "It is not a thing I like myself, but it seems to be accepted by all the newspaper pundits that it is preferable to be in fashion."
Following the closure of the Anglican Church Newspaper, ''The Guardian (Anglican newspaper), The Guardian'', in 1951, the paper dropped "Manchester" from its title in 1959, becoming simply ''The Guardian.'' In 1964 it moved to London, losing some of its regional agenda but continuing to be heavily subsidised by sales of the more downmarket but more profitable ''Manchester Evening News''. The financial position remained extremely poor into the 1970s; at one time it was in merger talks with ''The Times''. The paper consolidated its centre-left stance during the 1970s and 1980s.
On 12 February 1988, ''The Guardian'' had a significant redesign; as well as improving the quality of its printers' ink, it also changed its masthead to a juxtaposition of an italic type, italic Garamond "''The''", with a bold Helvetica "Guardian", that remained in use until the 2005 redesign.
In 1992, ''The Guardian'' relaunched its features section as ''G2'', a tabloid-format supplement. This innovation was widely copied by the other "quality" broadsheets and ultimately led to the rise of "compact" papers and ''The Guardian'' move to the Berliner (format), Berliner format. In 1993 the paper declined to participate in the broadsheet price war started by Rupert Murdoch's ''The Times''. In June 1993, ''The Guardian'' bought ''The Observer'' from Lonrho, thus gaining a serious Sunday editions, Sunday sister newspaper with similar political views.
Its international weekly edition is now titled ''The Guardian Weekly'', though it retained the title ''Manchester Guardian Weekly'' for some years after the home edition had moved to London. It includes sections from a number of other internationally significant newspapers of a somewhat left-of-centre inclination, including ''Le Monde'' and ''The Washington Post''. ''The Guardian Weekly'' was also linked to a website for expatriates, ''Guardian Abroad'', which was launched in 2007 but had been taken offline by 2012.
Moving to the Berliner paper format
''The Guardian'' is printed in full colour, and was the first newspaper in the UK to use the Berliner (format), Berliner format for its main section, while producing sections and supplements in a range of page sizes including tabloid, approximately A4, and pocket-size (approximately A5).
In 2004, ''The Guardian'' announced plans to change to a Berliner or "midi" format, similar to that used by ''Die Tageszeitung'' in Germany, ''Le Monde'' in France and many other European papers. At 470×315 mm, this is slightly larger than a traditional Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid. Planned for the autumn of 2005, this change followed moves by ''The Independent'' and ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' to start publishing in tabloid (or compact) format. On Thursday, 1 September 2005, ''The Guardian'' announced that it would launch the new format on Monday 12 September 2005. Sister Sunday newspaper ''The Observer'' also changed to this new format on 8 January 2006.
The format switch was accompanied by a comprehensive redesign of the paper's look. On Friday, 9 September 2005, the newspaper unveiled its newly designed front page, which débuted on Monday 12 September 2005. Designed by Mark Porter (designer), Mark Porter, the new look includes a new Masthead (British publishing), masthead for the newspaper, its first since 1988. A typeface family designed by Paul Barnes (designer), Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz was created for the new design. With just over 200 fonts, it was described as "one of the most ambitious custom type programs ever commissioned by a newspaper".
Among the fonts is Guardian Egyptian, a slab serif that is used in various weights for both text and headlines, and is central to the redesign.
The switch cost ''Guardian Newspapers'' £80 million and involved setting up new printing presses in east London and Manchester. This switch was necessary because, before ''The Guardian'' move, no printing presses in Britain could produce newspapers in the Berliner format. There were additional complications, as one of the paper's presses was part-owned by ''The Daily Telegraph, Telegraph Newspapers'' and ''The Daily Express, Express Newspapers'', contracted to use the plant until 2009. Another press was shared with the ''Guardian Media Group's'' north-western tabloid local papers, which did not wish to switch to the Berliner format.
Reception
The new format was generally well received by ''Guardian'' readers, who were encouraged to provide feedback on the changes. The only controversy was over the dropping of the ''Doonesbury'' cartoon strip. The paper reported thousands of calls and emails complaining about its loss; within 24 hours the decision was reversed and the strip was reinstated the following week. ''G2'' supplement editor Ian Katz, who was responsible for dropping it, apologised in the editors' blog saying, "I'm sorry, once again, that I made you—and the hundreds of fellow fans who have called our helpline or mailed our comments' address—so cross." However, some readers were dissatisfied as the earlier deadline needed for the all-colour sports section meant coverage of late-finishing evening football matches became less satisfactory in the editions supplied to some parts of the country.
The investment was rewarded with a circulation rise. In December 2005, the average daily sale stood at 380,693, nearly 6 per cent higher than the figure for December 2004. (However, as of December 2012, circulation had dropped to 204,222.) In 2006, the US-based Society for News Design chose ''The Guardian'' and Polish daily ''Rzeczpospolita (newspaper), Rzeczpospolita'' as the world's best-designed newspapers—from among 389 entries from 44 countries.
Tabloid format since 2018
In June 2017,
Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and e ...
(GMG) announced that ''The Guardian'' and ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' would relaunch in tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format from early 2018.
''The Guardian'' confirmed the launch date for the new format to be 15 January 2018. GMG also signed a contract with ''
Trinity Mirror'' – the publisher of the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...
'', ''Sunday Mirror'', and ''Sunday People'' – to outsourcing, outsource printing of ''The Guardian'' and ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
''.
The format change is intended to help cut costs as it allows the paper to be printed by a wider array of presses, and outsourcing the printing to presses owned by Trinity Mirror is expected to save millions of pounds annually. The move is part of a three-year plan that includes cutting 300 jobs in an attempt to reduce losses and break even by 2019.
The paper and ink are the same as previously and the font size is fractionally larger.
An assessment of the response from readers in late April 2018 indicated that the new format had led to an increased number of subscriptions. The editors were working on changing aspects that had caused complaints from readers.
In July 2018, the masthead of the new tabloid format was adjusted to a dark blue.
Online media
''The Guardian'' and its Sunday sibling ''The Observer'' publish all their news online, with free access both to current news and an archive of three million stories. A third of the site's hits are for items over a month old. As of May 2013, it was the most popular UK newspaper website with 8.2 million unique visitors per month, just ahead of ''Mail Online'' with 7.6 million unique monthly visitors.
In April 2011, Haymarket Media Group, MediaWeek reported that ''The Guardian'' was the fifth most popular newspaper site in the world. Journalists use an analytics tool called Ophan, built entirely in-house, to measure website data around stories and audience.
''The Guardian'' launched an iOS mobile application for its content in 2009. An Android (operating system), Android app followed in 2011. In 2018, the newspaper announced its apps and mobile website would be redesigned to coincide with its relaunch as a tabloid.
The Comment is Free section features columns by the paper's journalists and regular commentators, as well as articles from guest writers, including readers' comments and responses below. The section includes all the opinion pieces published in the paper itself, as well as many others that only appear online. Censorship is exercised by Moderators who can ban posts – with no right of appeal – by those who they feel have overstepped the mark. ''The Guardian'' has taken what they call a very "open" stance in delivering news, and have launched an open platform for their content. This allows external developers to easily use ''Guardian'' content in external applications, and even to feed third-party content back into the ''Guardian'' network. ''The Guardian'' also had a number of talkboards that were noted for their mix of political discussion and whimsy until they were closed on Friday, 25 February 2011 after they had settled a libel action brought after months of harassment of a conservative party activist. They were spoofed in ''The Guardian'' own regular humorous Chatroom column in ''G2''. The spoof column purported to be excerpts from a chatroom on permachat.co.uk, a real URL that pointed to ''The Guardian'' talkboards.
In August 2013, a webshow titled ''Thinkfluencer'' was launched by Guardian Multimedia in association with Arte.
In 2004 the paper also launched a dating website, Guardian Soulmates. On 1 July 2020, Guardian Soulmates was closed down with the explanation: "It hasn’t been an easy decision to make, but the online dating world is a very different place to when we first launched online in July 2004. There are so many dating apps now, so many ways to meet people, which are often free and very quick."
Podcasts
The paper entered podcasting in 2005 with a twelve-part weekly podcast series by Ricky Gervais. In January 2006, Gervais' show topped the iTunes podcast chart having been downloaded by two million listeners worldwide, and was scheduled to be listed in the 2007 ''Guinness Book of Records'' as the most downloaded podcast.
''The Guardian'' now offers several regular podcasts made by its journalists. One of the most prominent is ''Today in Focus'', a daily news podcast hosted by Anushka Asthana and launched on 1 November 2018. It was an immediate success
and became one of the UK's most-downloaded podcasts.
GuardianFilms
In 2003, ''The Guardian'' started the film production company GuardianFilms, headed by journalist Maggie O'Kane. Much of the company's output is documentary made for television– and it has included Salam Pax's ''Baghdad Blogger'' for BBC Two's daily flagship ''Newsnight'', some of which have been shown in compilations by ''CNN International'', ''Sex on the Streets'' and ''Spiked'', both made for the UK's Channel 4 television.
GuardianFilms has received several broadcasting awards. In addition to two Amnesty International Media Awards in 2004 and 2005, ''The Baghdad Blogger: Salam Pax'' won a Royal Television Society Award in 2005. ''Baghdad: A Doctor's Story'' won an Emmy Award for Best International Current Affairs film in 2007.
In 2008, Sean Smith (photojournalist and filmmaker), photojournalist Sean Smith's ''Inside the Surge'' won the Royal Television Society award for best international news film – the first time a newspaper has won such an award. The same year, ''The Guardian'' Katine website was awarded for its outstanding new media output at the One World Media awards. Again in 2008, GuardianFilms' undercover video report revealing vote rigging by Robert Mugabe's ZANU–PF party during the 2007 Zimbabwe election won best news programme of the year at the Broadcast Awards.
References in popular culture
The paper's nickname ' (sometimes abbreviated as "Graun") originated with the satirical magazine ''Private Eye (magazine), Private Eye''. This anagram played on ''The Guardian''s early reputation for frequent
typographical error
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography) ...
s, including misspelling its own name as ''The ''.
The first issue of the newspaper contained a number of errors, including a notification that there would soon be some goods sold at ' instead of ''auction''. Fewer typographical errors are seen in the paper since the end of hot metal typesetting, hot-metal typesetting. One ''Guardian'' writer, Keith Devlin, suggested that the high number of observed misprints was due more to the quality of the readership than the misprints' greater frequency. The newspaper was printed in Manchester until 1961 and the fact that the prints sent to London by train were the early, more error-prone, prints may have contributed to this image as well.
When John Cole (journalist), John Cole was appointed news editor by Alastair Hetherington in 1963, he sharpened the paper's comparatively "amateurish" setup.
Employees of ''The Guardian'' and sister paper ''The Observer'' have been depicted in the films ''The Fifth Estate (film), The Fifth Estate'' (2013), ''Snowden (film), Snowden'' (2016) and ''Official Secrets (film), Official Secrets'' (2019), while Paddy Considine played a fictional ''Guardian'' journalist in the film ''The Bourne Ultimatum (film), The Bourne Ultimatum'' (2007).
Awards
Received
''The Guardian'' has been awarded the National Newspaper of the Year in 1998, 2005,
[ 2010] and 2013 by the British Press Awards
The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of United Kingdom, British journalism.
History
Established in 1962 by ''The Sunday People, The People'' and ''Campaign (magazine), World's Press ...
, and Front Page of the Year in 2002 ("A declaration of war", 12 September 2001). It was also co-winner of the World's Best-designed Newspaper as awarded by the Society for News Design (2005, 2007, 2013, 2014).
''Guardian'' journalists have won a range of British Press Awards, including:[
* Reporter of the Year (Nick Davies, 2000;] Paul Lewis (journalist), Paul Lewis, 2010;[''Press Gazette'']
Roll of Honour
, accessed 24 July 2011 Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, 2014);
* Foreign Reporter of the Year (James Meek (author), James Meek, 2004; Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, 2008);
* Scoop of the Year (Milly Dowler phone hacked, 2012)
* Young Journalist of the Year (Emma Brockes, 2001;["Visiting Time - Context - The Author: Emma Brockes"](_blank)
British Council Patrick Kingsley (journalist), Patrick Kingsley, 2013);
* Columnist of the Year ( Polly Toynbee, 2007; Charlie Brooker
Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Bras ...
, 2009);
* Critic of the Year (Marina O'Loughlin, 2015);
* Feature Writer of the Year (Emma Brockes, 2002; Tanya Gold, 2009; Amelia Gentleman, 2010);[
* Cartoonist of the Year (Steve Bell (cartoonist), Steve Bell, 2003);
* Political Journalist of the Year (Patrick Wintour, 2006; Andrew Sparrow, 2010);][
* Science & Health Journalist of the Year (Sarah Boseley, 2016);
* Business & Finance Journalist of the Year (Ian Griffiths, 2005; Simon Goodley, 2014);
* Interviewer of the Year (Decca Aitkenhead, 2008);
* Sports Reporter of the Year (David Lacey, 2002);
* Sports Photographer of the Year (Tom Jenkins, 2003, 2005, 2006,] 2015);
* Website of the Year (guardian.com/uk, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2020);
* Digital Journalist of the Year (Dan Milmo, 2001; Sean Smith, 2008; Dave Hill, 2009)
* Supplement of the Year (''Guardian's Guides to...'', 2007; ''Weekend Magazine'', 2015)
* Special Supplement of the Year (''World Cup 2010 Guide'', 2010)
Other awards include:
* Bevins Prize for investigative journalism (Paul Lewis (journalist), Paul Lewis, 2010);
* Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (Nick Davies, 1999; Chris McGreal, 2003; Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, 2005; Ian Cobain, 2009).
The ''Guardian, Observer'' and its journalists have also won numerous accolades at the British Sports Journalism Awards:
* Sports Writer of the Year (Daniel Taylor (journalist), Daniel Taylor, 2017)
*Sports News Reporter of the Year (David Conn, 2009, 2014)
*Football Journalist of the Year (Daniel Taylor, 2015, 2016, 2017)
*Sports Interviewer of the Year (Donald McRae (author), Donald McRae, 2009, 2011)
*Diarist of the Year (David Hills, 2009)
* Sports Feature Writer of the Year (Donald McRae, 2017, 2018)
*Specialist Correspondent of the Year (Sean Ingle, 2016, 2017)
*Scoop of the Year (Daniel Taylor 2016; Martha Kelner and Sean Ingle, 2017)
*Sports Newspaper of the Year (2017)
*Sports Website of the Year (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
*Sports Journalists' Association Sports Portfolio of the Year (Tom Jenkins, 2011)
The ''guardian.co.uk'' website won the Best Newspaper category three years running in 2005, 2006 and 2007 Webby Awards, beating (in 2005) ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''Variety (magazine), Variety''. It has been the winner for six years in a row of the British Press Awards for Best Electronic Daily Newspaper. The site won an ''Editor & Publisher, Eppy'' award from the US-based magazine ''Editor & Publisher'' in 2000 for the best-designed newspaper online service.
In 2007, the newspaper was ranked first in a study on transparency that analysed 25 mainstream English-language media vehicles, which was conducted by the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda of the University of Maryland, College Park, University of Maryland. It scored 3.8 out of a possible 4.0.
''The Guardian'' and ''The Washington Post'' shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting for their coverage of the NSA's and GCHQ's worldwide electronic surveillance program and the document leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Given
''The Guardian'' is the sponsor of two major literary awards: The ''Guardian First Book Award'', established in 1999 as a successor to the ''Guardian Fiction Award'', which had run since 1965, and the ''Guardian Children's Fiction Prize'', founded in 1967. In recent years the newspaper has also sponsored the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye.
The annual Guardian Student Media Awards, founded in 1999, recognise excellence in journalism and design of British university and college student newspapers, magazines and websites.
In memory of Paul Foot (journalist), Paul Foot, who died in 2004, ''The Guardian'' and ''Private Eye'' jointly set up the Paul Foot Award, with an annual £10,000 prize fund, for investigative or campaigning journalism.
The newspaper produces The Guardian 100 Best Footballers In The World, ''The Guardian'' 100 Best Footballers In The World. Since 2018 it has also co-produced the female equivalent, The 100 Best Female Footballers In The World.
In 2016, ''The Guardian'' began awarding an annual The Guardian Footballer of the Year, Footballer of the Year award, given to a footballer regardless of gender "who has done something truly remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty."
Best books lists
* The Guardian's 100 Best Novels Written in English, ''The Guardians 100 best novels is a List (information), list of the best English-language novels as selected by Robert McCrum.
* ''The Guardians 100 greatest non-fiction book list has come out in 2011 and in 2017, as selected by Robert McCrum.
Editors
Notable regular contributors (past and present)
Columnists and journalists:
* David Aaronovitch
* James Agate
* Ian Aitken (journalist), Ian Aitken
* Decca Aitkenhead
* Brian Aldiss
* Tariq Ali
* John Galbraith Graham, Araucaria
* John Arlott
* Mark Arnold-Forster
* Jackie Ashley
Jacqueline Ashley (born 10 September 1954) is an English journalist and broadcaster.
Early life
Ashley was born in St Pancras, London. She is the daughter of Pauline Kay () and Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, a Labour MP and life peer.
S ...
* Dilpazier Aslam
* Harriet Baber
* Nancy Banks-Smith
* Leonard Barden
* Laura Barton
* Catherine Bennett (journalist), Catherine Bennett
* Marcel Berlins
* Michael Billington (critic), Michael Billington
* Heston Blumenthal
* Sidney Blumenthal
* Boutros Boutros-Ghali
* Frankie Boyle
* Mark Boyle (Moneyless Man), Mark Boyle
* Lloyd Bradley
* Russell Brand
* Emma Brockes
* Charlie Brooker
Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Bras ...
* Thom Brooks
* Guy Browning
* Alex Brummer
* Inayat Bunglawala
* Madeleine Bunting
* Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill (born 3 July 1959) is an English writer. Beginning as a staff writer at the ''New Musical Express'' at the age of 17, she has since contributed to newspapers such as ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Sunday Times'' and ''The Guardia ...
* Simon Callow
* James Cameron (journalist), James Cameron
* Duncan Campbell (journalist, born 1944), Duncan Campbell
* Neville Cardus
* Alexander Chancellor
* Kira Cochrane
* Mark Cocker
* Alistair Cooke
* G. D. H. Cole
* John Cole (journalist), John Cole
* Rosalind Coward
* Gavyn Davies
* Robin Denselow
* Beth Ditto
* Tim Dowling
* Terry Eagleton
* Larry Elliott
* Matthew Engel
* Edzard Ernst
* Harold Evans
* Evelyn Flinders
* Paul Foot (journalist), Paul Foot
* Liz Forgan
Dame Elizabeth Anne Lucy Forgan, DBE (born 31 August 1944) is an English journalist, and radio and television executive.
Early life
Forgan was educated at Benenden School, Kent, and St Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-female college.
She ini ...
* Brian J. Ford
* Dawn Foster
* Ebenezer Fox
* Michael Frayn
* Jonathan Freedland
* Hadley Freeman
* Timothy Garton Ash
* Tanya Gold
* Ben Goldacre
* Victor Gollancz
* Richard Gott
Richard Willoughby Gott (born 28 October 1938),Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 271 (Short Half 1952 list heading) & ...
* A. C. Grayling
* Roy Greenslade
* Germaine Greer
* A. Harry Griffin
* Ben Hammersley
* Clifford Harper
* Max Hastings
* Roy Hattersley
* David Hencke
* Georgina Henry
* Isabel Hilton
* L. T. Hobhouse
* J. A. Hobson
* Tom Hodgkinson
* Will Hodgkinson
* Simon Hoggart
* Stewart Holden
* Clare Hollingworth
* Will Hutton
* Marina Hyde
* C. L. R. James
* Erwin James (pseudonym)
* Waldemar Januszczak
* Simon Jenkins
* Stanley Johnson (writer), Stanley Johnson
* Owen Jones (writer), Owen Jones
* Alex Kapranos
* Saeed Kamali Dehghan
* Victor Keegan
* Martin Kelner
* Emma Kennedy
* Maev Kennedy
* Martin Kettle
Martin James Kettle (born 7 September 1949) is a British journalist and author. The son of two prominent communist activists, Arnold Kettle (best remembered as a literary critic; 1916–1986) and Margot Kettle (née Gale; 1916–1995), he was ed ...
* Arthur Koestler
* Aleks Krotoski
* Mark Lawson
* David Leigh (journalist), David Leigh
* Rod Liddle
* Sue Limb (as ''Dulcie Domum'')
* Maureen Lipman
* Joris Luyendijk
* John Maddox
* Derek Malcolm
* Johnjoe McFadden
* Dan McDougall
* Neil McIntosh (journalist), Neil McIntosh
* David McKie
* Gareth McLean
* Anna Minton
* David Mitchell (comedian), David Mitchell
* George Monbiot
* Charles Edward Montague, C. E. Montague
* Suzanne Moore
* Malcolm Muggeridge
* James Naughtie
* Richard Norton-Taylor
* Maggie O'Kane
* Susie Orbach
* Greg Palast
* David Pallister
* Michael Parkinson
* 'Salam Pax'
* Jim Perrin
* Melanie Phillips
* Helen Pidd
* John Pilger
John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.
Pilge ...
* Anna Politkovskaya
* Peter Preston
Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995.
Early life
Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of J ...
* Tim Radford
* Arthur Ransome
* Adam Raphael
* Andrew Rawnsley
* Brian Redhead
* James H Reeve
* Gillian Reynolds
* Simon Rogers (journalist), Simon Rogers
* Jon Ronson
* Rhik Samadder
* Ash Sarkar
* Jack Schofield (journalist), Jack Schofield
* Mike Selvey
* Norman Shrapnel
* Frank Sidebottom
* Michael Simkins
* Posy Simmonds
* Howard Spring
* Jean Stead
* David Steel
* Jonathan Steele (journalist), Jonathan Steele
* Mary Stott
* Allegra Stratton
* John Sutherland (author), John Sutherland
* R. H. Tawney
* A. J. P. Taylor
* Simon Tisdall
* Arnold J. Toynbee, Arnold Toynbee
* Polly Toynbee
* Jill Tweedie
* Bibi van der Zee
* F. A. Voigt
* Ed Vulliamy
* Hilary Wainwright
* Hank Wangford
* Jim Waterson
* Jonathan Watts
* Francis Wheen
* Brian Whitaker
* Estelle White
* Michael White (journalist), Michael White
* Ann Widdecombe
* Zoe Williams
* Ted Wragg
* Hugo Young
* Gary Younge
* Xue Xinran
* Tony Zappone
* Slavoj Žižek
* Victor Zorza
Cartoonists:
* David Austin (cartoonist), David Austin
* Steve Bell (cartoonist), Steve Bell
* Joe Berger (illustrator), Joe Berger
* Berkeley Breathed, Berke Breathed
* Biff (cartoon), Biff
* Peter Clarke (cartoonist), Peter Clarke
* Les Gibbard
* John Kent (cartoonist), John Kent
* Jamie Lenman
* David Low (cartoonist), David Low
* Martin Rowson
* Posy Simmonds
* Garry Trudeau
Satirists:
* John Crace (writer), John Crace
* Jeremy Hardy
* Armando Iannucci
* Terry Jones
* Craig Brown (satirist), Craig Brown as "Bel Littlejohn"
* John O'Farrell (author), John O'Farrell
* Mark Steel
Experts:
* Tim Atkin
* Matthew Fort
* Malcolm Gluck
* Tim Hayward
Photographers and picture editors:
* Herbert Walter Doughty (''The Manchester Guardian'' first photographer, July 1908)
* Eamonn McCabe
* Sean Smith (photojournalist and filmmaker), Sean Smith
Guardian News & Media archive
''The Guardian'' and its sister newspaper ''The Observer'' opened The Newsroom, an archive and visitor centre in London, in 2002. The centre preserved and promoted the histories and values of the newspapers through its archive, educational programmes and exhibitions. The Newsroom's activities were all transferred to Kings Place in 2008. Now known as The Guardian News & Media archive, the archive preserves and promotes the histories and values of ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'' newspapers by collecting and making accessible material that provides an accurate and comprehensive history of the papers. The archive holds official records of ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', and also seeks to acquire material from individuals who have been associated with the papers. As well as corporate records, the archive holds correspondence, diaries, notebooks, original cartoons and photographs belonging to staff of the papers. This material may be consulted by members of the public by prior appointment. An extensive ''Manchester Guardian'' archive also exists at the University of Manchester's John Rylands University Library, and there is a collaboration programme between the two archives. Additionally, the British Library has a large archive of ''The Manchester Guardian'' available in its British Library Newspapers collection, in online, hard copy, microform, and CD-ROM formats.
In November 2007, ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'' made their archives available over the internet via DigitalArchive. The current extent of the archives available are 1821 to 2000 for ''The Guardian'' and 1791 to 2000 for ''The Observer'': these archives will eventually run up to 2003.
The Newsroom's other components were also transferred to Kings Place in 2008. ''The Guardian'' Education Centre provides a range of educational programmes for students and adults. ''The Guardian'' exhibition space was also moved to Kings Place, and has a rolling programme of exhibitions that investigate and reflect upon aspects of news and newspapers and the role of journalism. This programme often draws on the archive collections held in the GNM Archive.
See also
*
*
* ''Guardian Monthly''
* ''The Guardian Weekly
''The Guardian Weekly'' is an international English-language news magazine based in London, UK. It is one of the world's oldest international news publications and has readers in more than 170 countries. Editorial content is drawn from its sis ...
''
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
*
History of The Guardian
*
*
* (historic)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guardian, The
The Guardian,
1821 establishments in England
Centre-left newspapers
Daily newspapers published in the United Kingdom
History of Manchester
Liberal media in the United Kingdom
National newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Newspapers published in London
Newspapers published in Manchester
Progressivism in the United Kingdom
Publications established in 1821
Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers
Republicanism in the United Kingdom
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service winners
Podcasting companies