Suzanne Moore

[DCI Harry Batt]

the essential uselessness of columnists, including those one may be sympathetic to

I'll be honest, I can't think of many. I guess Owen Jones, is he a columnist? I'm not of his politics, but I often find myself agreeing with a piece of his if I read it. But I did unfollow him on Twitter, because he was annoying.

Is he "useless", I guess that's the question. I've not really thought a lot about the utility of Owen Jones before. I might do now.

[E10 Rifle]

The disconnect between the obsession with columnists and the peripheral role they actually play in the day to day workings of a newspaper is quite something.

A columnist is only good, for my money, if in reading one of their columns you actually learn a new fact or two along the way. Gary Younge, for example, has always been excellent for that; Aditya Chakrabortty is another; others, less so.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Those are two good shouts, E10, thank you.

I suppose in my mind I make a distinction between fluff like Moore and Toynbee and "sketch" nonsense and that, and people who write about real things, like GY and AC.

[E10 Rifle]

I hate political sketch-writing; it's court-jestership, in essence. Licensed - and thus totally harmless - dissent.

[Diable Rouge]

Perhaps also if a columnist causes you to question pre-conceived personal biases, a la Orwell and Shaw, but without straying into outright contrarianism in the process.

[MsD]

Gary Younge is great, yes.

I think Polly Toynbee used to be good on poverty, in fact I recently used one of her articles. https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...anne-longfield

I used to read Moore in Marxism Today and quite liked her, can't remember her bringing any injustices to anyone's attention, though.

[Jimski]

One thing that I've always wondered about people such as Rowling (whom Moore supports, even if I'm not sure of her own views on this specific aspect) is what they'd answer if you asked them straight out which changing room a trans woman should use if she wanted to go swimming, say. They bluster on about safe spaces, but which "safe space" is a trans woman to use? Genuinely curious as to what their answer would be...

[E10 Rifle]

Moore's generally had a kind of anti-politics left-ish slant to her stuff, but - like a lot of people of her age and outlook - her head seemed to literally explode at the election of Corbyn to the Labour leadership. Her "young people think party politics is rubbish and for squares, and want something (undefined) more radical" schtick couldn't cope with actual young radical people fucking with her eternal hot take by rallying behind Corbs in considerable numbers, which seems to have prefaced - or coincided with - a more general turn against the left on other issues, trans rights being the most pronounced of them.

[ursus arctos]

Your point about columnists is absolutely spot on and I wish I could "like" it more than once.

The same thing has been happening here, especially at the New York Times, and has been a material factor in the general decline of the paper. The Times always had columnists, but the star system that took root with Friedman and Dodd and the creation of the "Opinion" infrastructure has been nothing but toxic.

[Lang Spoon]

I don't understand why the likes of the Guardian hollow out the real journalism bits/have people work unpaid or for peanuts and pay some old hacks a fortune to churn out evidence free shite. Is the re any evidence people will buy a paper cos Effin Toynbee or Caitlin Moran are speaking their branes over a page?

[ursus arctos]

The New York Times believes that people do just that, though it isn't so much buying the paper as subscribing, and even more shelling out for public programmes and idiocy like cruises with the "stars" that carry much better margins than than does the newspaper.

I have no idea what, if any, data they have to support this belief, but it is deeply entrenched among the current leadership.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I understand that the Jeffrey Toobin cruise is being heavily discounted.

[Duncan Gardner]

She's 'ome- but not at the Guardian (4-2,5)

(Sorry- wrong thread )

[Benjm]

It's a bit harsh to characterise Polly Toynbee as a pull it out of your arse merchant. I saw her at quite a few public meetings about the coalition's NHS reforms when that was going on, on weekday evenings when she didn't have to be there. Spectator types used to absolutely loathe her (which carried through in diluted form into the lamentable 'humour' pages of Private Eye) which suggests that she must have been doing something right. She is in her seventies now, so the issue of turnover in these roles can reasonably be raised.

[MsD]

Yes, she was a campaigning journalist back in the 80s/90s, and as the article I've posted a link to shows, still retains some vestiges of that.

[scratchmonkey]

The Guardian (even if they've done the right thing in this particular case) and The Times are a good reminder that "liberals" are reactionaries, although the anti-trans aspect seems to have a much more widespread and visceral in GB.

[Flynnie]

Was it MsD on here who alluded to Moore's work being dictated from her bed after a leaf through the days' papers?

T’was me, I think.

[Lang Spoon]

Aha. Thought I hadn't dreamed it.

[Flynnie]

Bizarrely, a girl from my old neighbourhood in San Francisco got birthday wishes from Moore on Facebook. What?!!! Turns out her dad is the father of one of Moore’s daughters.

[That Night In Barcelona]

T’was me, I think.

I've heard something similar too.

[delicatemoth]

I thought it was aimed at me cos it was right after my post. I apologise to Snake. I'm obviously paranoid (and feverish) so I think I'll take some time off from the internet and read some books (not a flounce, just a wee break).

[Wouter D]

I thought it was aimed at me cos it was right after my post.

It wasn't.

Maybe you're using the Ignore Poster function, and then it might look like that to you. But there was a post between the posts by you and Snake.

This IP function may be very welcome to some on this board, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. But using it does come at an inflated risk of misunderstandings.

edit: this presumes we're all talking about Snake's post at 15:10 CET. There was another post at 14:46 CET. If I am mistaken in that assumption: sorry for the noise.
edit2: replaced "SP" by "Snake", since we have multiple users on this thread with the initials SP.

[Snake Plissken]

I can only post at the bottom of threads, not insert in between posts. Maybe a little bit of context is lost but nothing I can do on that.

The offer still stands. My PMs are always open for complaints or questions or suggestions in strictest confidence.

[Gangster Octopus]

I stopped reading Polly Toynbee when she jumped into bed with the SDP in the early eighties.

[MsD]

Ah yeh, that was it. I still think she’s a decent journalist in the sense of being a research hound and writing persuasively in good faith, rather than writing for clicks or churning out words by the pound. Then again I only see the odd (good) article these days.