[tomalpha]

The Guardian has moved to a voluntary-subscription model for revenue - a gentle nagware if you like. No adblocker-blocking and (relatively) few actual adverts on the pages.

I don't always agree with their opinions or editorials, but I do respect the quality of the journalism and the fact that they are a non-profit [0]

I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/the-scott-trust/2015/jul/26/the-...

[maze-le]

>> I don't always agree with their opinions or editorials

I really don't know why this always has to be pointed out when it comes to classic mass media. I would say: "Good thing" because if you'd always agree, they would be doing a lousy job. Newspapers shouldn't be worldview-repeaters, especially in the op-eds. Lots of people look for validation of their already existing worldviews instead of critically reflecting other opinions.

[toyg]

It's not about the newspaper quality, it's about signaling that the speaker is not a card-carrying supporter of the political faction the newspaper is traditionally associated with. So for the Guardian it translates to "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian".

With the Telegraph it would be Tories/UKIP; and with The Independent (or whatever it's called now) it would be Russian Oligarchs Living In London.

[tomalpha]

This pretty much matches my intent in the OP (whether that came across clearly is, of course, another matter...)

In a possibly vain attempt to try and avoid being trapped inside an echo-chamber of my own views I try and make myself read both the Guardian and the Telegraph alongside the BBC. Similarly CNN and Fox News for US news. Just to try and be exposed to alternate views.

It's possible to find interesting (again, not necessarily ones that I agree with) articles from all of the above media outlets. Some days this is harder than others. Some days I find an article hilarious at first reading, only to think a little, and then feel slightly terrified that someone might actually hold the stated opinions.

(And I realise that the above aren't all encompassing by any means, just more than I might otherwise look at).

[maze-le]

>> "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian"

So, its essentially an apology for being an open minded conservative... Sounds pretty much like a premature capitulation to the bigots. But at least I know where its coming from. I've been questioned: "What? you are reading FAZ?!?!?"[0] (with undertones of "how dare you" and "what kind of leftist are you?"). Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read.

I think it is very important for everyone to be confronted with opinions that don't fit into ones already established narratives. And nobody should ever issue an apology for that. The alternative would be to renounce your intellectual curiosity and feed of a self-reinforcing feedback loop...

[0]: The leading conservative newspaper in Germany.

[toyg]

> Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read.

I think it's a natural state: sources inevitably influence your view of the world, and most people only consume one source for any given media, so it's not illogical to desume that you will be influenced primarily by that one source.

I completely agree that consuming a multiplicity of sources is a Good Thing.

[tomalpha]

Completely agree, but it doesn't stop me thinking that others are likely judging me for what media I consume.

[shubb]

many Guardian opinion articles are designed to provoke the sort of people that read that guardian. To get them angry, or riled up, or uncomfortable.

As a result, in the same way that some right wing newspaper editorials (e.g. katie hopkins) are much more extreme than normal readers of those papers, Guardian editorials often make fairly left wing people uncomfortable. This is to encourage sharing and try to create viral articles that people will tweet about.

At the same time, the British left is in a phase where different factions are tearing eachother apart (which is why the current government is able to survive). For example the current debate around antisemistism. Or the anti-transexual feminist group that invaded the london gay pride march. Both sides of these debaes are reflected in the newspapers editorials, and few people would want to be assosiated with both sides at the same time.

In short Guardian oppinion articles are devisive, both for buisness reasons and reflecting social issues. People might distance themselves from them for reasons other than what you suggest.

[52-6F-62]

Having worked in publishing, their effort and the NYT (particularly Bostock) to open up the code to the community is notable and admirable. I’ve tried to push for open source projects at similar business scales to no avail. Deaf ears.

It’s a shame that it’s viewed largely as a means to an end. Yet the very same companies used to work with printers to produce innovations. Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity to many in the industry, unfortunately—in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium for mass communication since the television, radio, or platen press.

[toyg]

> Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity [...] in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium

Or rather because: digital media is now so easy to produce and distribute, that its intrinsic value has now dropped to zero.

[52-6F-62]

I’m not sure that’s it. I think that might be the perception, but users often speak out about the desire for higher quality content. Particularly content that is more interactive and engaging.

But many media groups see it as a means to an end, like I’ve noted. Throw up WordPress with a CDN for images and host every brand you own on one to five instances and that’s it. They understand those words: WordPress, CMS, CDN, enterprise-grade. They don’t know anything else about them, and don’t care. They, probably out of sincere financial need, prioritize analytics over all else in the tech space.

I think the split off from what you’ve noted is this:

Where they might have paid attention to improvements in colour mixing in print tech, etc, for the effects it would have on published photography they cannot see the benefits to investing in a more refined digital publishing platform or output. Just put a skin on whatever’s free and out there already—then have your engineers spend countless hours just putting out fires and patching holes with proverbial PHP bubblegum. Don’t get me started on data hygiene...

To wit: I’ve always worked outside of those teams looking in. Except for the data side—nightmare-inducing stuff.

[toyg]

> they cannot see the benefits to investing in a more refined digital publishing platform

Isn't that "our" fault, in a way, as technologists? Ever since the internet appeared, we've told them that the only thing that matters is speed: a fast but pixelated jpeg is better than a heavy one; a fast and simple homepage is better than a detailed one; and this in an industry that already valued "scooping" over everything else... On top of that, we churn tech stack every year or two: Perl! ASP! PHP! Java! Ruby! Python! XML! jquery! React! RSS! Forums! Socials! ...

So they build the fastest way they can, with the minimum amount of quality they can get away with and the minimum of investment in the most "standard" tech available, and then concentrate on their core business -- which has always been advertising.

[52-6F-62]

That's definitely an arguable point. I'm sure it has weight in a lot of ways. We definitely advertise simplicity over comprehensivity because it sells a little more easily.

Alternatively, my experience in publishing has been there's a lot of focus on the quality of photography and images. Compression is attempted, but usually not at the cost of quality. They'll happily serve a 10MB photo, if photography is the purpose of the content.

I guess I'm speaking more to data-based features—mainly content delivery pipelines, general system architecture, and down to integrated interactive featurettes. In my experience there hasn't been a lot of pursuit after trendy tech. Quite the opposite. They're more willing to go for external contracts with "enterprise-grade" companies that offer "we do it all" services that under deliver and are host to poor archival practices for a medium that is traditionally archived.

Your latter point is spot on up until the advertising remark. Editorial and journalistic staff take their stuff very seriously and are often at odds with corporate and other managerial staff and are typically more into innovating (I rather like working with them and art teams... outside of lifestyle brands, anyway). Managing editors tend to want expediency and quality and don't mind one way or the other. The corporate and business management end are certainly consumed with sales, advertising, and analytics.

[matt4077]

> I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy.

  https://github.com/nytimes
  https://github.com/BostonGlobe
  https://github.com/npr & https://github.com/nprapps
  https://github.com/theatlantic
  https://github.com/wsj
  ...

I really wish people wouldn't always assume the worst of the media. Especially when it takes about two seconds to verify (disprove) one's prejudice. I know one such post isn't going to have much of an effect. But considering every tangential mention of "mainstream media" brings out a thousand cynics, being an underpaid journalist trying to keep our society's discourse somewhat together must be endlessly frustrating.

Plus, of course, it's just impossible to make informed decisions in a democracy when all trust in the media has been eroded by this hysteria.

[botverse]

I would recommend to double check those links to the github orgs, I’m sorry to say they are small projects. Can’t compare with publishing the whole frontend, their image managing library and their text editor.

[matt4077]

The NYT has 65 projects, most of which have a few hundred stars, and many in the thousands.

It's lower for some of the others. But it still seems to me that these publishers default to publishing their code.

BUT: most publishers probably do not run an entirely home-grown system. Indeed, you will find many Wordpress plugins or rails gems among those published projects. And for the homespun solutions, it's likely that they are too specific to a publisher to be usefully open-sourced without a major investment of resources, like the Guardian's undertaking.

[e12e]

Well, there's :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)#Histo...

[onion2k]

I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy.

There's very little cost to opening it up, and a huge benefit (recruitment as you say, openness, community engagement, maybe even bug fixes..). Why not open up the code?

[thecatspaw]

opening up publishes all your vulnerabilities, bugs, hacks and swearwords in the code as well. Thats plenty of reasons to not go open source

[Operyl]

Security by obscurity really isn’t a great place to stay on long term. There is also an entire backend to this. I can only see great positives long term here, even if it means someone nefarious finds a bug in the short term.

[onion2k]

Those are reasons to open the code up. You'll be motivated to improve it.