Moore’s complaint would be more compelling if she hadn’t written those gloating articles about the Kavanaugh hearings. It might be nice if in this new genre of the groans of canceled journalists there was some hint of reflection that they themselves had contributed to this climate of spiteful vituperation and hyper-partisanship.
She was part of the Kavanaugh pile-on was she? (I had ‘walked away’ from The Guardian by that point). As you say, the hypocrisy stinks, but one expects nothing less from these people.
Perhaps we should we create a #walkawayfromtheguardian campaign of videos, in the same style as the #walkawayfromthedemocrats campaign.
Athena Jones
3 years ago
I became a journalist in the 1970’s. In that age there was also gutter press – today most of the media is gutter press where the only goal is sensationalism.
We had chief subs who were old enough to know what they were doing, well educated and generally older than fifty. Subs in general were older and copy was actually edited and sent back, or sometimes thrown back, if it did not provide adequate balance or substance. That no longer happens. The average age for a sub is probably late Twenties if one is lucky, or the copy is outsourced to India where they are simply paid to do a basic job and come to the task with different cultural attitudes which would have most not even countenance challenging a story.
We were taught to be as objective as possible and to make a case for our story with differing views reflected. We talked to various sides of an issue, indeed, often in person which is truly remarkable. No more. A journo now comes up with an idea and sifts through the internet to find anything to support that premise, cuts and pastes, hopefully avoiding plagiarism, not that anyone would notice, and presenting as a news story, what is simply their own opinion.
In this age there are vested agendas which prevent anyone, beyond the independent press, challenging the sacred cows of, transgenderism; homosexuality; climate change; Zionism; feminism; veganism; vaccines, green energy etc. etc. etc. The Politically Correct position is clear on certain topics and must never be questioned. Admittedly there was always some of this around but, in times past there were editors, chiefs of staff, chief subs and subs who were brave enough, ethical enough, intelligent enough and wise enough to still believe that a good story should provide both balance and substance.
Media ‘lords’ certainly influenced through their power but compared to the modern age, it was infrequent and less pervasive. Times change, but, what is interesting is that the media today has more in common with the pamphlet media of the Victorian age, beyond the different PC agendas, than that of a modern world. The more things change, the more they stay the same perhaps.
It must be truly ghastly to be a journalist today for anyone who has knowledge, intelligence, integrity and standards. Although, as the above story reveals, those like that do not last long.
Kremlington Swan
3 years ago
I sign up to the Guardian every now and then, and usually last a few days before the censoriousness gets to me again. I read it every day for thirty years before I finally left for pastures new, so am have read many of Suzanne Moore’s columns. I am not surprised she had to leave. At the Guardian, it seems, you can be as foul as you like with approved targets, but must not raise any voice of opposition if the target is not sanctioned.
As for the trans debate, I confess to being mystified. I have known all my (longish life) a person who was born in the wrong body, so I have no doubts there. However, the upsurge in trans activism seems to me to be little more than another expression of toxic masculinity. It seem very odd that so many people who claim to be women actually hate women. I also find that it is invariably male to female trans people who express most of this anger and hostility, not female to male. Just an observation, which may well be wrong.
My objection to the trans movement is not to do with recognition, it has to do with the insistence that we all be forced to accept as reality that which is essentially illusory. It is as if we must all speak the truth we are instructed to accept as truth in order preserve an illusion in which certain people live, and which they, seemingly for the sake of their very identity, have to have accepted by everyone as a reality.
But a trans woman is a trans woman, not a woman. A woman is a woman, and no amount of hormone replacement or surgery is going to change that fact.
Vijay Kant
3 years ago
It escapes me, why would any honest tax payer read The Guardian in the first place, let alone make a career there!
Very few honest tax payers – and I refer to productive people in the private sector – have ever read The Guardian. I was probably the last one, and I stopped buying it 10 years ago.
I persisted for a bit longer, because Natalie Nougayrède was a brilliant journalist. Then she disappeared and all that remained was self-indulgent whinging.
The Guardian was once an excellent newspaper. It has been subjective rubbish for many, many years and is not worth reading. It is clearly biased on so many issues as the fascist approach of its moderators make clear.
It is sad to see something once so great, fall so far.
Unherd Person
3 years ago
Zero sympathy for feminist cretins who have been all too happy to dish it out over the years.
Otto Christensen
3 years ago
That the sins of the past are not forgotten is evident in the reaction from the righteous commentary to Moore’s confession, and seemingly long overdue clarification of her primary concern. No doubt she has offended and preached from various and many pulpits as she advanced in the trade of the modern journalist and its demands. Readers respond to outrage whether or not they agree. Why? Because it feels good. But the time comes when we have heard it all before and the response wanes and in order get the desired effect the writing must go from opinion to insult, once that line is crossed empathy is abandoned. A reason that I began reading Unheard Opinion and Analysis is that i felt it to be a mature form of journalism, that is it exhibited cognitive development, the ability to develop or at the least repot on, a number of perspectives on a particular perspective and in doing so respecting the reader. I thought Moore attempted that,
I agree with Otto. Notwithstanding the sad sight of Ms. Moore being hoisted on the hook of her own forging, I thought she has made an honest attempt to raise her issues while respecting the reader. Thanks to Ms. Moore for her efforts.
Andrew Wray
3 years ago
Susanne has raised the unspeakable. Radical, and necessary, changes to the traditional ways of addressing personal issues have led to there now being 5 ” classes ” of people whose personal needs must be provided for – yet we are permitted to only consider this matter as if there is only 2 such ” classes ” people. As a society it is clear we do not have the intellectual capacity to recognise, and to take action in parallel to such recognition, that there are at least 5 genders of people whose needs are distinctly separate one from the others – this stems from our collective difficulty with facing the facts. To my mind, and for very well defined reasons, a woman who menstruates has every right to be able to attend to her personal needs certain that it is only with women who similarly menstruate that she will come in contact in the process . To demand otherwise of her is to deny her her fundamental rights of one kind or another. As a society we are taking a position that is in recognition of, and in support of, a well defined segment of our society, that is women who can not menstruate, while at the same time denying the a fundamental rights of members of an equally well defined segement of society, the women who do menstruate. This position is in denial of the reality of the situation. The fact of the matter is that we are failing to address the needs of a very significant proportion of society, members of which are severely castigated if they dare to riase the matter of their concerns for being denied their right to speak their mind.
Paul Nash
3 years ago
Brilliant article
Kathryn Allegro
3 years ago
If you want to be called a TERF AND a Nazi, try questioning whether a ‘transwoman’ (male body quite happily intact) can be a lesbian.
Julia Wallis-Martin
3 years ago
Moore states: ‘…The idea of the predatory trans person is not one I am particularly invested in, really. We are talking about a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the population’.
Moore, and those who hold a similar view, should be reminded that the same is true of serial killers.
Surely the problem is where different standards are applied to different groups. It is fine to talk about predatory males it seems, unless they are homosexual; it is fine to talk about domestic violence, as long as it is not in homosexual or lesbian relationships where it is as common, if not more so than in others; it is fine to talk about the problems of marriage breakup except where it involves homosexuals and lesbians whose relationships break up at an even faster rate, etc. etc. etc.
In other words, there is a huge distortion where certain groups are deemed to be immune from accountability and debate and whatever is wrong in those cultures, is denied, hidden, distorted and increasingly destructive as a result.
Either we are all equal and all equally accountable or we are not. As adults anyway.
Moore’s complaint would be more compelling if she hadn’t written those gloating articles about the Kavanaugh hearings. It might be nice if in this new genre of the groans of canceled journalists there was some hint of reflection that they themselves had contributed to this climate of spiteful vituperation and hyper-partisanship.
She was part of the Kavanaugh pile-on was she? (I had ‘walked away’ from The Guardian by that point). As you say, the hypocrisy stinks, but one expects nothing less from these people.
Perhaps we should we create a #walkawayfromtheguardian campaign of videos, in the same style as the #walkawayfromthedemocrats campaign.
I became a journalist in the 1970’s. In that age there was also gutter press – today most of the media is gutter press where the only goal is sensationalism.
We had chief subs who were old enough to know what they were doing, well educated and generally older than fifty. Subs in general were older and copy was actually edited and sent back, or sometimes thrown back, if it did not provide adequate balance or substance. That no longer happens. The average age for a sub is probably late Twenties if one is lucky, or the copy is outsourced to India where they are simply paid to do a basic job and come to the task with different cultural attitudes which would have most not even countenance challenging a story.
We were taught to be as objective as possible and to make a case for our story with differing views reflected. We talked to various sides of an issue, indeed, often in person which is truly remarkable. No more. A journo now comes up with an idea and sifts through the internet to find anything to support that premise, cuts and pastes, hopefully avoiding plagiarism, not that anyone would notice, and presenting as a news story, what is simply their own opinion.
In this age there are vested agendas which prevent anyone, beyond the independent press, challenging the sacred cows of, transgenderism; homosexuality; climate change; Zionism; feminism; veganism; vaccines, green energy etc. etc. etc. The Politically Correct position is clear on certain topics and must never be questioned. Admittedly there was always some of this around but, in times past there were editors, chiefs of staff, chief subs and subs who were brave enough, ethical enough, intelligent enough and wise enough to still believe that a good story should provide both balance and substance.
Media ‘lords’ certainly influenced through their power but compared to the modern age, it was infrequent and less pervasive. Times change, but, what is interesting is that the media today has more in common with the pamphlet media of the Victorian age, beyond the different PC agendas, than that of a modern world. The more things change, the more they stay the same perhaps.
It must be truly ghastly to be a journalist today for anyone who has knowledge, intelligence, integrity and standards. Although, as the above story reveals, those like that do not last long.
I sign up to the Guardian every now and then, and usually last a few days before the censoriousness gets to me again. I read it every day for thirty years before I finally left for pastures new, so am have read many of Suzanne Moore’s columns. I am not surprised she had to leave. At the Guardian, it seems, you can be as foul as you like with approved targets, but must not raise any voice of opposition if the target is not sanctioned.
As for the trans debate, I confess to being mystified. I have known all my (longish life) a person who was born in the wrong body, so I have no doubts there. However, the upsurge in trans activism seems to me to be little more than another expression of toxic masculinity. It seem very odd that so many people who claim to be women actually hate women. I also find that it is invariably male to female trans people who express most of this anger and hostility, not female to male. Just an observation, which may well be wrong.
My objection to the trans movement is not to do with recognition, it has to do with the insistence that we all be forced to accept as reality that which is essentially illusory. It is as if we must all speak the truth we are instructed to accept as truth in order preserve an illusion in which certain people live, and which they, seemingly for the sake of their very identity, have to have accepted by everyone as a reality.
But a trans woman is a trans woman, not a woman. A woman is a woman, and no amount of hormone replacement or surgery is going to change that fact.
It escapes me, why would any honest tax payer read The Guardian in the first place, let alone make a career there!
Very few honest tax payers – and I refer to productive people in the private sector – have ever read The Guardian. I was probably the last one, and I stopped buying it 10 years ago.
I persisted for a bit longer, because Natalie Nougayrède was a brilliant journalist. Then she disappeared and all that remained was self-indulgent whinging.
The Guardian was once an excellent newspaper. It has been subjective rubbish for many, many years and is not worth reading. It is clearly biased on so many issues as the fascist approach of its moderators make clear.
It is sad to see something once so great, fall so far.
Zero sympathy for feminist cretins who have been all too happy to dish it out over the years.
That the sins of the past are not forgotten is evident in the reaction from the righteous commentary to Moore’s confession, and seemingly long overdue clarification of her primary concern. No doubt she has offended and preached from various and many pulpits as she advanced in the trade of the modern journalist and its demands. Readers respond to outrage whether or not they agree. Why? Because it feels good. But the time comes when we have heard it all before and the response wanes and in order get the desired effect the writing must go from opinion to insult, once that line is crossed empathy is abandoned.
A reason that I began reading Unheard Opinion and Analysis is that i felt it to be a mature form of journalism, that is it exhibited cognitive development, the ability to develop or at the least repot on, a number of perspectives on a particular perspective and in doing so respecting the reader. I thought Moore attempted that,
I agree with Otto. Notwithstanding the sad sight of Ms. Moore being hoisted on the hook of her own forging, I thought she has made an honest attempt to raise her issues while respecting the reader. Thanks to Ms. Moore for her efforts.
Susanne has raised the unspeakable. Radical, and necessary, changes to the traditional ways of addressing personal issues have led to there now being 5 ” classes ” of people whose personal needs must be provided for – yet we are permitted to only consider this matter as if there is only 2 such ” classes ” people. As a society it is clear we do not have the intellectual capacity to recognise, and to take action in parallel to such recognition, that there are at least 5 genders of people whose needs are distinctly separate one from the others – this stems from our collective difficulty with facing the facts. To my mind, and for very well defined reasons, a woman who menstruates has every right to be able to attend to her personal needs certain that it is only with women who similarly menstruate that she will come in contact in the process . To demand otherwise of her is to deny her her fundamental rights of one kind or another. As a society we are taking a position that is in recognition of, and in support of, a well defined segment of our society, that is women who can not menstruate, while at the same time denying the a fundamental rights of members of an equally well defined segement of society, the women who do menstruate. This position is in denial of the reality of the situation. The fact of the matter is that we are failing to address the needs of a very significant proportion of society, members of which are severely castigated if they dare to riase the matter of their concerns for being denied their right to speak their mind.
Brilliant article
If you want to be called a TERF AND a Nazi, try questioning whether a ‘transwoman’ (male body quite happily intact) can be a lesbian.
Moore states: ‘…The idea of the predatory trans person is not one I am particularly invested in, really. We are talking about a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the population’.
Moore, and those who hold a similar view, should be reminded that the same is true of serial killers.
Yes – but we don’t organise society on the basis that serial killers are anything other than one in ten million
Surely the problem is where different standards are applied to different groups. It is fine to talk about predatory males it seems, unless they are homosexual; it is fine to talk about domestic violence, as long as it is not in homosexual or lesbian relationships where it is as common, if not more so than in others; it is fine to talk about the problems of marriage breakup except where it involves homosexuals and lesbians whose relationships break up at an even faster rate, etc. etc. etc.
In other words, there is a huge distortion where certain groups are deemed to be immune from accountability and debate and whatever is wrong in those cultures, is denied, hidden, distorted and increasingly destructive as a result.
Either we are all equal and all equally accountable or we are not. As adults anyway.